20 years ago, ‘hero’ cop caught Timothy McVeigh Federal workers should think before they post
Government reveals new ethics policies on social media use
PERRY, Okla. — Like all the local legends in this little town, Charlie Hanger’s portrait hangs on the wall of the Kumback Cafe, between a photo of outlaw Pretty Boy Floyd (said to have once eaten the biggest steak in the place) and the state champion wrestling teams.
“Town Hero,” Hanger’s photo says.
On April 19, 1995, Hanger, an Oklahoma Highway Patrol trooper, arrested Timothy McVeigh, just 90 minutes after a fertilizer bomb in a Ryder rental truck exploded outside the federal building in Oklahoma City.
Sunday marks 20 years since the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building that killed 168 people and injured hundreds in what was then the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil.
Around these parts, Hanger will forever be known as the Man Who Caught McVeigh. To hear Hanger tell his story is to recall how skilled police work, and also luck, led to the arrest of the decorated Army veteran-turned-radical who was later convicted and executed.
“I call the fact that I was put in the right spot at the right time divine intervention,” Hanger said last week.
On that cool spring morning, Hanger had been ordered to the disaster site and had driven just a few miles outside Perry — a town of about 5,000, 60 miles north of Oklahoma City — when he was told to stay in his area.
Hanger was driving north when he passed a rusting, yellow 1977 Mercury Marquis with no license plate. He stopped the car and found behind the wheel a clean-cut, 26-year-old Timothy McVeigh wearing military boots and a windbreaker.
McVeigh didn’t have proof of insurance or a bill of sale for the car. He told Hanger he was on a long, multistate drive. But there was no suitcase in the car. As McVeigh reached into his rear pocket for his driver’s license, the windbreaker tightened, and Hanger noticed the bulge of a shoulder holster under his left arm.
“My gun is loaded,” Hanger recalled McVeigh telling him as Hanger grabbed the bulge under the jacket.
“So is mine,” the trooper responded before arresting him for unlawfully carrying a concealed weapon.
Hanger booked McVeigh into the Noble County Jail and took his wife to lunch.
The trail that led to McVeigh began with the discovery of the Ryder truck’s rear axle.
Flung two blocks from the blast site, the axle still held the Vehicle Identification Number, which led authorities to the rental agency and then to a motel where McVeigh had stayed, registered under his real name.
Authorities learned McVeigh was in jail because Hanger had run his Social Security number through a national crime database after his arrest.
These days, Hanger says he was just doing his job that day, though he later realized that had he made one false move, McVeigh could have shot him on that highway.
“Looking back later at who I was dealing with, what could have happened, that was more frightening than what happened that day,” Hanger said. “I’m just glad I didn’t let him go.”
WASHINGTON — Federal employees would be wise to ponder before posting and to think through their tweeting in order to avoid running afoul of government ethics policies, according to newly released guidance from the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.
Rules called the Standards of Conduct apply to social media in areas such as fundraising, seeking outside employment, use of an employee’s title and more, the office said.
OGE said it was responding to increasing numbers of questions about how longstanding ethics policies apply in that quickly evolving realm.
“The Standards of Conduct do not prohibit executive branch employees from establishing and maintaining personal social media accounts. As in any other context, however, employees must ensure that their social media activities comply with the Standards of Conduct and other applicable laws, including agency supplemental regulations and agency-specific policies,” the agency said.
The guidance, posted last week, is designed primarily for agency ethics offices, which federal employees can consult with questions about the rules. Violations can lead to disciplinary actions, up to firing.
One issue commonly arising, the guidance says, in- volves use of job titles personal social media counts.
The rules generally require that employees avoid using their titles or positions in a way that would create an appearance that the government “sanctions or endorses their activities or those of another.”
There would be no violation if an employee merely includes his or her title or position in an area of the account for biographical information, OGE said.
However, a violation might occur if an employee “refers to his or her connection to the government as support for the employee’s statements.”
Similarly, when recommending or endorsing another person, the employee’s title may appear in the biographical section of the employee’s account. But the employee must not “affirmatively choose to include a reference to the employee’s on ac- title, position, or employer in a recommendation.”
Fine distinctions can arise in some areas. For example, it is generally OK to send out through social media fundraising messages for nonprofit charitable organizations, the guidance says, but an employee may not reply to a response about it from a subordinate or from certain other sources. . The Office of Special Counsel, which enforces Hatch Act partisan political activities restrictions on federal employees, previously posted information on how that law applies to social media.
The notice said there is no law against soliciting donations for parties or partisan candidates if a social media “friend” of a federal employee posts a link to the contribution page of a partisan candidate on the employee’s page.