‘ Out for blood’: Man arrested in plan to bomb Oklahoma bank
OKLAHOMA CITY — A 23- year- old man was “out for blood” when he attempted to detonate what he believed was an explosives- laden van outside an Oklahoma bank in a plot similar to the deadly 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, authorities said Monday.
During ameeting with undercover FBI agents in June, Jerry Drake Varnell of Sayre, Oklahoma, said he held “III% ideology” and wanted “to start the next revolution,” a reference to the “Three Percenters” patriot movement — begun in 2008, galvanized by President Barack Obama’s election— that has rallied against gun control efforts and pledges resistance to the federal government over the infringement of constitutional rights.
Federal officials arrested Varnell early Saturday in connection with a plot to detonate a vehicle bomb in an alley adjacent to BancFirst in downtown Oklahoma City. Varnell is charged with attempting to use explosives to destroy a building in interstate commerce.
Varnell made an initial appearance before a federal judge Monday afternoon and remains in the custody of federal marshals.
A federal complaint filed on Sunday says a confidential informant told the FBI in December that Varnell wanted to blowup a building and “that Varnell was upset with the government and was seeking retaliation.”
Officials said Varnell initially wanted to blow up the Federal Reserve Building in Washington, D. C., with a device similar to one used in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people.
In a series of text messages with the FBI’s informant, Varnell “claimed to have a bunker for when the world ( or United States) collapsed” and indicated he was trying to build a team, the complaint states.
“I’m out for blood,” the complaint quotes Varnell’s texts. “When militias start getting formed I’m going after government officials when I have a team.”
But an undercover FBI agent posed as someone who could help Varnell build a bomb, and the device used was actually inert, authorities said. Varnell’s actions were monitored closely for months as the plot developed.
The complaint says Varnell helped assemble the device and load it into what he believed was a stolen van. Shortly after midnight on Saturday, Varnell drove the van by himself from a storage unit in El Reno, about 30 miles from the bank in Oklahoma City, and dialed a number on a cellphone that he believed would trigger the explosion. The FBI and members of a Joint Terrorism Task Force arrested Varnell shortly before 1 a. m.