A Second Punch

By Julie Rawe

Families of those who died in the Sept. 11 tragedy say the vitriol directed at them when they talk about money feels like "a double victimization." Anthony Gardner, who lost a brother in the World Trade Center attacks, says he has received half a dozen e-mails calling him "greedy" and "a scumbag" for criticizing the proposed formulas for victim compensation. "One woman was so vulgar, I'm thinking about reporting her to AOL or something," he says.

That's partly why he and other World Trade Center families sought comfort last week from those who lost loved ones in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. In the first of a series of videoconferences hooking up victims' families--one group in New York, the other in Oklahoma--a pained Gardner asked, "Did any of you experience anything similar?" Images on the screen showed the Midwesterners look at each other and shrug.

In Oklahoma City there was no such venom because money never became the subject of a public debate. Sure, the media rushed to cover Johnnie Cochran's unsuccessful lawsuit against a fertilizer manufacturer, and victims and relatives put in a bid to sue federal agencies should evidence emerge that they had forewarning of the bombing. But the Oklahoma state victim-compensation program paid only for expenses such as medical and burial costs, with a limit of $10,000 per victim. The feds issued $1.4 million in emergency grants and in 1997 gave victims and relatives a little travel money to attend Timothy McVeigh's trial in Denver.

Which helps explains why some Oklahomans now feel like second-class victims. "It's not personal," says Marsha Kight, whose daughter perished in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. "The Sept. 11 compensation fund is creating inequitable differences between us and them. Should there really be a hierarchy?"

One leveling force is the passage of time, and that, in a way, was the message the Oklahomans had for the New Yorkers. "In the days after a disaster, everybody wants to help, but that fades," a mental-health expert told the videoconference. "People tend to say, 'O.K., that's enough. Drop it.'" Which is why any feelings of rivalry during the session were trumped by a desire to soothe. The people who begrudge the money? "They are definitely in the minority," said Oklahoma widow Diane Leonard.

--By Julie Rawe