Waco siege
The Waco siege, also known as the Waco massacre, was the siege by US federal government and Texas state law enforcement officials of a compound belonging to the religious cult known as the Branch Davidians, between February 28 and April 19, 1993. The Branch Davidians, led by David Koresh, were headquartered at Mount Carmel Center ranch in unincorporated McLennan County, Texas, 13 miles northeast of Waco. Suspecting the group of stockpiling illegal weapons, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms obtained a search warrant for the compound and arrest warrants for Koresh and several of the group's members.
The ATF had planned a sudden daylight raid of the ranch in order to serve these warrants. Any advantage of surprise was lost when a local reporter who had been tipped off about the raid asked for directions from a US Postal Service mail carrier who was coincidentally Koresh's brother-in-law. Thus, the group's members were fully armed and prepared; upon the ATF initiating the raid, an intense gunfight erupted, resulting in the deaths of four ATF agents and six Branch Davidians. Following the ATF entering the property and its failure to execute the search warrant, a siege was initiated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, during which negotiations between the parties attempted to reach a compromise.
After 51 days, on April 19, 1993, the FBI launched a CS gas attack in an attempt to force the Branch Davidians out of the compound's buildings. Shortly thereafter, the Mount Carmel Center became engulfed in flames. The fire and the reaction to the final attack within the group resulted in the deaths of 76 Branch Davidians, including 20–28 children and Koresh.
The events of the siege and attack, particularly the origin of the fire, are disputed by various sources. Department of Justice reports from October 1993 and July 2000 conclude that although incendiary CS gas canisters were used by the FBI, the Branch Davidians had started the fire, citing evidence from audio surveillance recordings of very specific discussions between Koresh and others about pouring more fuel on piles of hay as the fires started, and from aerial footage showing at least three simultaneous ignition points at different locations in the building complex. The FBI contends that none of their agents fired any live rounds on the day of the fire. Critics contend that live rounds were indeed fired by law enforcement, and suggest that a combination of gunshots and flammable CS gas was the true cause of the fire.
The Ruby Ridge standoff and the Waco siege were cited by Timothy McVeigh as the main reasons for his and Terry Nichols's plan to execute the Oklahoma City bombing exactly two years later, on April 19, 1995, as well as the modern-day American militia movement.
Background
The Branch Davidians were a religious group that originated in 1955 from a schism in the Shepherd's Rod following the death of the Shepherd's Rod founder Victor Houteff. Houteff founded the Davidians based on his prophecy of an imminent apocalypse involving the Second Coming of Jesus Christ and the defeat of the evil armies of Babylon. As the original Davidian group gained members, its leadership moved the church to a hilltop several miles east of Waco, Texas, which they named Mount Carmel, after a mountain in Israel mentioned in Joshua 19:26 in the Bible's Old Testament.A few years later, they relocated again to a much larger site east of the city. In 1959, Victor's widow, Florence Houteff, announced that the expected Armageddon was about to take place, and members were told to gather at the center to await this event. Many of them built houses, others stayed in tents, trucks, or buses, and most of them sold their possessions.
After the failure of this prophecy, control of the site fell to Benjamin Roden, founder of the Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventist Association. He promoted different doctrinal beliefs than those of Victor Houteff's original Davidian Seventh-day Adventist organization. On Roden's death, control of the Branch Davidians fell to his wife, Lois Roden. Lois considered their son, George Roden, unfit to assume the position of prophet. Instead, she groomed Vernon Wayne Howell to be her successor.
In 1984, a meeting resulted in a division of the group, with Howell leading one faction and George Roden leading the competing faction. After this split, George Roden ran Howell and his followers off Mount Carmel at gunpoint. Howell and his group relocated to Palestine, Texas.
After the death of Lois Roden in November 1986 and probate of her estate in January 1987, Howell attempted to gain control of Mount Carmel Center by force. George Roden had dug up the casket of Anna Hughes from the Davidian cemetery and had challenged Howell to a resurrection contest to prove who was the rightful heir to the leadership. Howell instead went to the police and claimed Roden was guilty of corpse abuse, but the county prosecutors refused to file charges without proof.
On November 3, 1987, Howell and seven armed companions tried to get into the Mount Carmel chapel, intending to photograph the body in the casket as incriminating evidence. Roden was informed of the interlopers and opened fire. The Sheriff's Department responded about 20 minutes into the gunfight, during which Roden had been wounded. Sheriff Harwell got Howell on the phone and told him to stop shooting and surrender. Howell and his companions, dubbed the "Rodenville Eight" by the media, were tried for attempted murder on April 12, 1988. Seven were acquitted, and the jury hung on Howell's verdict. The county prosecutors did not press the case further.
Even with all the effort to bring the casket to court, the standing judge refused to use it as evidence for the case. Judge Herman Fitts ruled that the courtroom is no place for a casket when defense attorney Gary Coker requested it be used as evidence for the case. Eight men, including six of the defendants, were forced to carry the casket away from the courthouse and down the street to a van awaiting the body. In response to questions about the body, Roden admitted to attempting to resurrect Hughes on three occasions.
While waiting for the trial, Roden was put in jail under contempt of court charges because of his use of foul language in some court pleadings. He threatened the Texas court with sexually transmitted diseases if the court ruled in Howell's favor. Alongside these charges, Roden was jailed for six months for legal motions he filed with explicit language. Roden faced 90 days in jail for living on the property after being ordered to neither live on the property nor call himself the leader of the religious group in a 1979 case. Soon after the trial, several of Howell's followers moved from their headquarters in Palestine, Texas, back to Mount Carmel. In mid-1989, Roden used an axe to kill a Davidian named Wayman Dale Adair, who visited him to discuss Adair's alleged vision of being God's chosen messiah. He was found guilty under an insanity defense and was committed to a mental hospital. Shortly after Roden's commitment, Howell raised money to pay off all the back taxes on Mount Carmel owed by Roden and took legal control of the property. After these legal proceedings, it was noted in a 90-minute interview by the Davidians' attorney Douglas Wayne Martin that the religious group had been back and forth to court since 1955.
On August 5, 1989, Howell released the "New Light" audiotape, in which he said that God told him to procreate with the women in the group to establish a "House of David" of his "special people." This involved separating married couples in the group, who had to agree that only he could have sexual relations with the wives, while the men should observe celibacy. Howell also said that God had told him to start building an "Army for God" to prepare for the end of days and a salvation for his followers.
Howell filed a petition in the California State Superior Court in Pomona on May 15, 1990, to legally change his name "for publicity and business purposes" to Koresh. On August 28, he was granted the petition. By 1992, most of the land belonging to the group had been sold except for a core. Most of the buildings had been removed or were being salvaged for construction materials to convert much of the main chapel and a tall water tank into apartments for the resident members of the group. Many of the members of the group had been involved with the Davidians for a few generations, and many had large families.
Prelude
On February 27, 1993, the Waco Tribune-Herald began publishing "The Sinful Messiah", a series of articles by Mark England and Darlene McCormick, who reported allegations that Koresh had physically abused children in the compound and had committed statutory rape by taking multiple underage brides. Koresh was also said to advocate polygamy for himself and declared that he was married to several female residents of the small community. The paper claimed that Koresh had announced he was entitled to at least 140 wives and that he was entitled to claim any of the women in the group as his, that he had fathered at least a dozen children, and that some of these mothers became brides as young as 12 or 13 years old.In addition to allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct, Koresh and his followers were suspected of stockpiling illegal weapons. In May 1992, Chief Deputy Daniel Weyenberg of the McLennan County Sheriff's Department called the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms to notify them that his office had been contacted by a local UPS representative concerned about a report by a local driver. The UPS driver said a package had broken open on delivery to the Branch Davidian residence, revealing at least half a dozen grenades. He also noted that the compound had been receiving packages from an arms dealer for months.
On June 9, the ATF opened a formal investigation and a week later it was classified as sensitive, "thereby calling for a high degree of oversight" from both Houston and headquarters. The documentary Inside Waco claims that the investigation started in 1992 when the ATF became concerned over reports of automatic gunfire coming from the Carmel compound. On July 30, ATF agents David Aguilera and Skinner visited the Branch Davidians' gun dealer Henry McMahon, who tried to get them to talk with Koresh on the phone. Koresh offered to let ATF inspect the Branch Davidians' weapons and paperwork and asked to speak with Aguilera, but Aguilera declined.
Sheriff Harwell told reporters regarding law enforcement talking with Koresh, "Just go out and talk to them, what's wrong with notifying them?" The ATF began surveillance from a house across the road from the compound several months before the siege. Their cover was poor. The investigation included sending in an undercover agent, Robert Rodriguez, whose identity Koresh learned, though he only revealed that fact on the day of the raid.