BRANCH DAVIDIAN RAID

BRANCH DAVIDIAN RAID

On February 28, 1993, agents from the ALCOHOL, TOBACCO AND FIREARMS BUREAU (ATF) were met with gunfire when they tried to serve search and arrest warrants on members of the Branch Davidian religious cult at the apocalyptic sect’s compound near Waco, Texas. Four ATF agents and six Davidians died of gunshot wounds that day. A 51-day standoff ensued between more than 100 Davidians inside the compound and 76 federal agents outside the compound.

On the morning of April 19, the FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION (FBI) ordered tanks to break through the compound’s walls, knock open holes, and pour tear gas inside. Around noon fires erupted, burning the compound to the ground. Approximately 80 Branch Davidians died, including their leader, 34-year-old David Koresh. In all, 57 Davidians died in the fire, while 23 died from gunshot wounds. Of these dead, 17 were children, some of whom died from gunshot wounds and some in the fire.
Eighteen children and 22 adults left the compound
unharmed during the seven-week standoff.
On the two-year anniversary of the Waco
siege, Timothy McVeigh detonated a rental truck
full of explosives outside the Alfred P. Murrah
Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma,
killing 168 people. McVeigh later admitted that
the Oklahoma City bombing was carried out in
part to exact revenge against the federal government
for the Branch Davidian raid. McVeigh
was eventually convicted on various charges,
including first degree murder, and sentenced to
die. He was executed in June 2001.
The case began in the spring of 1992 when
the FBI received information that Koresh was
running a methamphetamine lab at a religious compound near Waco. While investigating
Koresh on possible drug charges, the FBI and
ATF learned that the cult leader was possibly
breaking federal firearms laws as well, allegedly
converting semiautomatic weapons into unlawful
machine guns. Federal agents also learned
that United Parcel Service (UPS) had been regularly
delivering firearms components and explosive
materials to the Davidian compound over a
period of several years. Using UPS invoices, federal
agents tracked down serial numbers on
weapons as well as explosives that had been
delivered to Koresh. One invoice indicated that
Koresh had received a shipment containing
ammunition magazines for automatic AR-15
rifles, plus a large quantity of powdered aluminum
metal, a common ingredient in explosives.
In obtaining the search and arrest warrants,
federal authorities provided the issuing magistrate
with evidence indicating that Koresh had
spent $199,715 in the previous year to buy illegal
guns, gun parts, and other components,
enough to build a fearsome arsenal. Koresh supporters
claimed that the Davidians’ leader was a
gun dealer who had lawfully acquired the
weapons. However, after the siege ended, federal
authorities found 156 assault rifles, a heavy
machine gun, several boxes of grenades, and
grenade launchers, all of which Koresh had
obtained and possessed in violation of federal
weapons laws.
On February 26, 1994, almost a year to the
day after the siege began, a federal jury in San
Antonio, Texas, acquitted 11 cult members of
murder and murder-conspiracy charges in the
deaths of the four ATF agents. However, five
Davidians were convicted of voluntary
MANSLAUGHTER, and two were convicted on
weapons charges. U.S. District Judge Walter
Smith sentenced the defendants to serve ten to
15 years in prison, after the much stiffer sentences
he initially handed down were overturned
on appeal. Following the trial the jury foreperson
said that the wrong people had been prosecuted.
“The federal government was absolutely
out of control there,” she said. “[T]he ones who
planned the raid and orchestrated it and insisted
on carrying out the plan . . . should have been on
trial.”
The FBI blamed the Davidians for igniting
the fire. But on August 25, 1999, the FBI conceded
that it had used “pyrotechnic” tear-gas
canisters during the siege. The Waco controversy
had been gathering momentum ever since a
1997 documentary film, “Waco: The Rules of
Engagement,” uncovered evidence that the FBI
had fired flammable tear gas into the Davidians’
prairie bunker, sometimes known as Mount
Carmel. Attorney General JANET RENO denied
knowing about the canisters’ flammability but
ordered a complete investigation of the raid. On
September 9, 1999, Reno named former Republican
Senator John C. Danforth of Missouri as
special counsel to lead the investigation.
The FBI told investigators that many of the
Davidians who died during the conflagration
were victims of mass suicide orchestrated by
Koresh. But the nine Davidians who escaped the
fire denied that any such suicide took place.
They claimed that the FBI’s tank crushed several
fuel containers and that a grenade or some other
projectile set off the fire. Before the fire started,
however, the FBI intercepted troubling conversations
coming from unidentified Branch
Davidians inside Mount Carmel: “I already
poured it… . It’s already poured.Don’t pour it all
out, we might need some later. So we only light
’em at first if they come in with that tank, right?”
Additionally, FBI snipers said they saw a Davidian
start a fire and infrared pictures taken from
a plane overhead detected three fires burning in
separate parts of the compound before the tanks
entered.
On July 21, 2000, Danforth released his findings.
Danforth first reported that he “had a lot of
difficulty” getting relevant documents from the
FBI. Although he was eventually given the documents
he requested, Danforth reported that he
felt that “there was a spirit of resistance . . . in the
FBI” against his investigation. Nonetheless,
Danforth’s investigation concluded that the canisters
fired by the FBI did not start any of the
fires that consumed the compound, since all
available evidence demonstrated that the canisters
landed 75 feet from the main building hours
before the fires started. Instead, Danforth placed
sole blame for the conflagration on Koresh.
After reviewing two million pages of documents,
849 interviews, and thousands of pounds
of physical evidence, Danforth said it was clear
that the only persons who had started any fires
at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco,
Texas, were the Davidians themselves, probably
at the direction of their leader David Koresh.
Survivors of the Branch Davidian raid and
family members of those who died during the
siege filed a series of WRONGFUL DEATH civil lawsuits against the federal government. The
suits were subsequently consolidated into one
proceeding before Judge Walter Smith, sitting in
the U.S. District Court at Waco. However, Smith
dismissed the lawsuit in September 2000, concurring
with Danforth’s findings that federal
agents had not used excessive force in their teargas
assault on the cult’s compound. Smith found
that the Davidians themselves had started the
fire. Attorneys for the plaintiffs filed an appeal
that as of 2003 was pending before the U.S.
Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. The
attorneys represent the estates of 14 children
who died in the fire, a 15-year-old girl who was
badly burned, and three parents whose children
died in the blaze.
FURTHER READINGS
Cole,Michael D. 1999. Siege at Waco: Deadly Inferno. Berkeley
Heights, NJ: Enslow.
Treaner,Nick, ed. 2004.The Waco Standoff . San Diego, Calif.:
Greenhaven Press.
Wright, Stuart A. 1995. Armageddon in Waco: Critical Perspectives
on the Branch Davidian Conflict. Chicago:
Univ. of Chicago Press.
CROSS-REFERENCES
Conspiracy; Federal Bureau of Investigation; Oklahoma City
Bombing;Wrongful Death.