There are no signs that point the way to Mount Carmel. Past the chapel, which was built after the fire, all that remains are a few ruined outbuildings and a lonely stretch of prairie grass. It was here, ten miles east of Waco, that David Koresh prepared his acolytes for an apocalyptic confrontation between good and evil. His followers, a disavowed splinter group of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, believed themselves to be living in the end times, when God’s final judgment was at hand. A stuttering high school dropout with a gift for illuminating Scripture, Koresh preached the “New Light,” a self-styled gospel that required him to take multiple wives so that he could father enough children to sit on the 24 heavenly thrones described in the Book of Revelation. One of his wives was fourteen years old, another twelve. To his detractors, he was a false prophet, a con man, and a pedophile. To his followers, he was the messiah.
Life in the Branch Davidians’ austere two-story wooden dormitory revolved around strict discipline, healthy eating, physical labor, and rigorous study of the Bible. But in the summer of 1992, the group caught the attention of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms after a UPS driver reported delivering a package of dummy grenades to Mount Carmel. Koresh and other Davidians, who had been earning income for the group by working at weekend gun shows, had built up an arsenal of weapons, as well as an inventory of MREs (meals ready to eat), gas masks, and paramilitary gear that they called David Koresh Survival Wear. An ATF investigation suggested that the Davidians were also illegally converting semiautomatic weapons into fully automatic weapons. The agency, which was due for a congressional budget review in the spring of 1993, devised an elaborate plan to raid Mount Carmel that, it hoped, would net not only the sect’s illegal weapons but some positive publicity as well. And so Operation Trojan Horse was born. Rather than bringing Koresh in for questioning, the ATF trained its agents at Fort Hood to take the building by force.
In doing so, federal authorities inadvertently fulfilled Koresh’s prophecy of a pitched battle in which God’s people would be called to defend themselves. What ensued was the deadliest law enforcement operation in U.S. history. To mark the fifteenth anniversary of the standoff, we asked the people who were there to share their stories.
“‘THEY KNOW WE’RE COMING!’”
On the morning of February 28, 1993, ATF agents gathered at a staging area near Waco and prepared to serve a search warrant on the Branch Davidians’ residence. KWTX-TV cameraman Dan Mulloney, who had received a tip about the raid, headed for Mount Carmel with reporter John McLemore. A colleague, cameraman Jim Peeler, was supposed to meet them there but got lost. As Peeler studied a map by the side of the road, a mailman stopped to ask if he needed directions. Peeler did not know that the mailman was David Jones, a Branch Davidian who was Koresh’s brother-in-law.
Jones hurried back to Mount Carmel to tell Koresh of his encounter. Koresh then took aside Robert Rodriguez, a new devotee whom he correctly suspected was an undercover agent, and told him that he knew a raid was imminent. Rodriguez made a frantic exit and called ATF commander Chuck Sarabyn. “Chuck, they know!” he cried. Sarabyn, who would later claim that he was unaware that the element of surprise had been lost, decided to proceed with the raid anyway.
Larry Lynch, 61, was a lieutenant at the McLennan County Sheriff’s Office. He is now the county’s sheriff. I was at the staging area that morning when one of the ATF supervisors ran in and said, “Let’s go! Let’s go! They know we’re coming!”
Bill Buford, 63, was the resident agent in charge at the ATF’s Little Rock, Arkansas, office, whose agents—along with those from the New Orleans office—were called in to assist. He is now the bomb squad commander for the Arkansas State Police. I remember thinking, “What do you mean ‘They know we’re coming’?” Once we knew the element of surprise had been lost, we should have called it off. In hindsight, I wish that I had said, “No, I’m not taking my team.” I probably would have been fired, but knowing what I know now, I would have loved to have been fired for making that decision.
Chuck Hustmyre, 44, was an ATF special agent. He is a crime writer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. There were 76 agents on the operation. Before we left the staging area, we were loaded up into cattle trailers. That was highly unusual, to say the least, but that part of Texas is just a big, barren, windswept prairie, and there’s nothing to hide behind. The idea was to get us to the door of the compound covertly and not announce that we were government agents. Somebody decided that cattle trailers blended in a lot better than a convoy of unmarked cars with tinted windows. So we were jammed, shoulder to shoulder, into two trailers that were covered in tarps so you couldn’t see in.
Buford As I was getting people to put their gear on, I had a bad feeling. I asked, “What do you mean ‘They know we’re coming’? Are they getting ready for us?” I was told that all the Davidians were in the chapel, praying. My logic was, well, if they’re all in the chapel, maybe we can still get in there and cut the men off from their guns. We knew that they usually kept their guns in their living quarters, under their beds. I didn’t know that 45 minutes had elapsed since Robert [Rodriguez] had seen anything.
Clive Doyle, 67, is a Branch Davidian who was living at Mount Carmel at the time of the raid. He lives in Waco. I heard all this hubbub in the cafeteria, so I went back there to find out what the excitement was all about. People were saying, “We just heard there’s going to be a raid.” David [Koresh] walked in and confirmed that something was about to go down. He said, “I want everybody to go back to their rooms. Just stay calm.”
Buford The information we had, which turned out to be true, was that the Branch Davidians were taking semiautomatic weapons and converting them into fully automatic weapons. They had also been converting practice hand grenades into live grenades. It was in preparation for the Armageddon that David Koresh had prophesied.
John McLemore, 44, was a reporter for KWTX-TV, in Waco. He is now the director of Internet communications for Conoco-Phillips in Houston. Dan Mulloney and I were at the intersection of the road that led to the compound when we saw three National Guard helicopters flying overhead. That was very unusual, so we got out of the car and started videotaping it. While we were standing there, we heard something rumbling down the road behind us. I turned around and saw two pickup trucks pulling cattle trailers that were covered with tarps. As they turned down the road toward the compound, we could see that they were packed with federal agents. We had been expecting ten or fifteen police officers—sheriff’s deputies or something—to make a couple of arrests and come out with some illegal weapons. This was bigger than anything we had imagined.
Hustmyre I happened to be standing near a seam in the tarps, so I could see out a little, and as we rolled down the road toward the compound, I told the team leader, “It’s all quiet out here.” I mean, it was eerily quiet. I remember telling an agent near me, “This doesn’t seem right. This is spooky.”
“‘. . . THAT LAST EXHALATION OF BREATH, LIKE THE DEATH
KNELL . . .’”
At 9:48 a.m., ATF agent Roland Ballesteros led the first team of agents off the trailers and approached Mount Carmel’s entrance, shouting, “Police! Search warrant! Lay down!” He pointed his shotgun in the direction of Koresh, who had answered the door, unarmed. Which side fired the first shot has never been determined. ATF agents say that a hail of bullets greeted them after Koresh slammed the door shut, while Branch Davidians claim that the ATF fired first, from either the ground or the helicopters above. The crime scene, which might have yielded answers, was later destroyed by the fire.
Hustmyre Somebody in the back of the trailer threw the doors open, and we jumped out and rushed to our assigned positions. There was gunfire going off before my feet hit the ground. We were taking gunfire from multiple points inside the compound.
Doyle David opened the front door, and the next thing I knew, he was yelling: “Hey, wait a minute! There are women and children in here!” And almost immediately there was a huge barrage of gunfire outside, and then all hell broke loose.
Catherine Matteson, 92, is a Branch Davidian who was living at Mount Carmel at the time of the raid. She lives in Waco. The windows were shot out, and there was glass all over the floor. You could hear bullets ripping through the walls. The women took the children into the hall on the second floor and put their bodies over them to shield them. This was war.
Sheila Martin, 60, is a Branch Davidian who was living at Mount Carmel at the time of the raid. She works at a day care center in Waco. My son Jamie—who must have been ten, I think—was lying under a window. He’d had meningitis when he was a baby, so he wasn’t able to walk or stand up or anything. It left him blind. And he was just lying there, with bullets coming in and glass falling on him. I remember thinking, “Is this how he dies? After all this sickness, is this how he leaves me?” When the gunshots stopped, I crawled to him on my hands and knees. As I reached him, the shooting started again. I carried him to the other side of the bed, where my two youngest kids were, and I pulled the mattress over us. He had blood around his mouth, and at first I thought that he’d been shot, but he’d gotten cut by all that glass. The poor little thing was just sitting there, in all that chaos, screaming, just screaming at the top of his lungs.
Doyle The government tells it as though we were waiting for them in ambush, and then we just opened up and blasted the daylights out of them. That’s not true. If we had been waiting for them, they would never have gotten out of those trailers. Now, David had shown us in the Scriptures that it was okay to defend your family and your property. So after that huge barrage of gunfire, some people grabbed guns. Whether they already had them or whether they went and got them, I don’t know, but they retaliated.
Buford Oh, it absolutely was an ambush. They had set up and were waiting for us to arrive. It was as intense as any ambush I was in when I was in Vietnam. Before I could even get out of the trailer, I was able to hear specific weapons, like AK-47’s and an M60 machine gun, which makes a very distinct sound. And we didn’t have any of those.
Hustmyre We were trapped. It was just a big open field, and the only place to take cover was behind some junked cars in front of the compound. They could pick us off left and right. Once in a while I would hear an explosion. I found out later that they were chunking homemade hand grenades out the windows at us. Most of the agents were armed with only 9mm pistols, so we weren’t quite evenly matched.
Buford The agents out front weren’t able to make entry because of the volume of gunfire. We went around to the side of the building, put ladders up, and made it onto the roof. One of the guys, Conway LeBleu, was shot almost immediately. Glen Jordan, Keith Constantino, and I broke the window of the Davidians’ arms room and stepped inside. Shortly after that, Glen yelled out that he had been hit. He was bleeding very badly. Rounds were coming through the walls, and I was returning fire.
McLemore Mulloney and I were crouched behind a bus about fifteen yards from our news unit. The bus was being fired at from every direction. I can still recall hearing the sounds of gunfire and people screaming. One agent started yelling, “Hey, TV man! Run and call for help!” And I’m thinking, “Me? I’m fine right here behind this bus.”
Buford Shots started coming up through the floor. The first round that hit me got me square in the butt and lodged in my thigh. I was trying to talk to Glen to find out if he could move, because we needed to get out of there. The next thing I knew, I’d been hit in the hip and the upper thigh with an AK-47. That knocked me down. Constantino covered us, and somehow Glen and I got out the window we had come in. I pulled myself down to the edge of the roof and rolled off. When I hit the ground, I broke a bunch of ribs. At that point, I thought I’d been shot in the chest.
McLemore I took off from behind the bus and ran for the news unit, and there were bullets hitting everywhere. I called the station and got the news director on the phone and said, “It’s a war zone. Get every ambulance in the county out here.”
Buford An agent who was assigned to our Little Rock office, Rob Williams, was about ten feet from me. He shot at a Davidian who had shot at me while I was lying on the ground. But in doing so they were able to see where he was, and he was shot and killed. Rob was a great kid. The next day would have been his twenty-sixth birthday. In Vietnam I saw a lot of people get shot, and the minute he was hit, I knew he was dead.
Byron Sage, 60, was the supervisory senior resident agent in the FBI’s Austin office and the bureau’s primary negotiator during the standoff. Now retired, he lives in Round Rock. Shots were still being fired when I got there. I went to the basement of the Waco Police Department, where their 911 consoles are, and Larry Lynch was talking on two different phones to people inside the compound, trying to secure a cease-fire. That was the first time I got to speak with David. I identified myself, and then I asked him, “Is it ‘Kor-esh’ or ‘Kor-esh’?” David said matter-of-factly, “Mr. Sage, have you ever heard a person die?” And I said, “Yes, I have.” He said, “Then you know how to pronounce my name.” I said, “What do you mean by that?” And he said, “It’s like that last exhalation of breath, like the death knell: ‘Koreshhhhh.’ He strung it out for a few seconds like that. I mean, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. It does even now, revisiting it. I looked over at Larry, and both of us shook our heads like, “We’re in for a hell of a ride.”
“‘CEASE FIRE!’”
Negotiations had begun minutes after the raid started, when Sheila Martin’s husband, Wayne, called 911 and pleaded with Lynch to ask the ATF to pull back. “Tell them there are women and children in here and to call it off!” he cried. Lynch tried in vain to reach ATF commanders, who did not respond. Thirty-one minutes passed before radio contact was established, and it was an hour before he could reach the ATF on a secure line.
The shoot-out lasted, on and off, for nearly two and a half hours, until Lynch secured a cease-fire at around noon. Each side agreed to hold its fire so the ATF could retrieve its dead and wounded. In the end, four federal agents and six Branch Davidians had been killed.
McLemore About an hour passed and nobody moved. There was dead quiet, dead silence. And then in the rearview mirror, I saw an ambulance creeping toward us. It was just crawling along, going about five miles an hour. Apparently the Davidians had allowed the ATF to bring one ambulance onto the property to care for the wounded.
Hustmyre Agents were yelling back and forth, “Cease fire! Only shoot if they shoot at you.” One of our guys, Eric Evers, had been bleeding in a ditch forever, and I said, “What are we going to do about him?” I think everyone was wondering if the Davidians were trying to lure us in to kill us, so nobody said anything. I said, “Hell, I’ll go get him.” A guy with an MP5 went with me. We sloshed through the mud until we reached a fence that extended about fifteen feet out from the compound, and when we looked around it, we saw two Davidians pointing their rifles right at us. I thought, “That’s it. We’re dead.” But they didn’t shoot. I left my pistol in my holster and kept my hands away from my side and yelled, “We’re supposed to pick up the wounded guy.” They started gesturing with their rifles and shouting, “Hurry the f— up!” Evers was still alive, down in this muddy ditch, and we pulled him out. We put his arms around our shoulders and walked him out of there. Once we got him to the road and I could see how many guys were wounded, I started to realize how bad things were.
Jim Peeler, 55, was and is a cameraman at KWTX-TV. I was standing by the side of the road when I saw a guy beating on a car, crying. He was dressed like a civilian. It wasn’t until later, when we were watching the video and we had found out more about the ATF’s investigation, that we realized it was Robert Rodriguez, their undercover guy. He was hitting the car and hollering, “I told them! I told them! I told them!”
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I think the best information out there for the public is the film "Waco The Rules of Engagement".Essentially proves the FBI deliberately killed the compound inhabitants with CS Gas in retaliation for the Davidians' lawful use of weapons in self defense of their lives but resulting in 4 BATF agents getting killed.The whole thing could have been avoided with just a little government restraint. But no, the feds had to prove they were the big bully on the block. Clinton and Reno should be held responsible for these murders. The lies of the federal government are appalling and apparent in this film. If you haven't seen it yet, its worth the time for sure.
I think the best information out there for the public is the film "Waco The Rules of Engagement".
Essentially proves the FBI deliberately killed the compound inhabitants with CS Gas in retaliation for the Davidians' lawful use of weapons in self defense of their lives but resulting in 4 BATF agents getting killed.
The whole thing could have been avoided with just a little government restraint. But no, the feds had to prove they were the big bully on the block. Clinton and Reno should be held responsible for these murders. The lies of the federal government are appalling and apparent in this film. If you haven't seen it yet, its worth the time for sure.
Let us never forget why God exhorts us to pray,
1 Timothy 2:1-4
I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;
For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;
Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
I was freaking out while it was happening and feel very strongly it was murder.
maybe it was a cult that is not illegal the people were murdered and out right burned to death that day because a bully bigger than a cult head leader got a hair on his a$$ .
i have not seen the movie but just from the reports and the events of the day I believe strongly it was MURDER by the FBI for no reason other than they could.
we have a right in this country to live in a "cult" we have the right to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law we have a right to due process if the police and fbi had issues they could have used legal means instead of force to arrest what ever the problem was they chose to kill innocent people and they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law for the doing of that.
Yes,it is very sad thats true,but also sad is Jonestown,and what CULTS do to people,and innocent children that do not have the choice to make(whether they want to be in a cult..that is abuse)
David Koresh abused these people, a pedophile is against the law,if you read the whole artical their are two side to the story
the agents were just doing there job ,the Davidians had every chance to come out(51 days)the choose NOT to because of
their "leader" who set the "flames" and destroyed his own people.
The authorities began to take notice. In February 1992 Child Protective Services (CPS) social workers made the first of several visits to Mount Carmel to check into allegations by apostates of child abuse; Koresh was said to have spanked an eight-month-old for forty minutes. But the CPS didn’t find enough evidence to take action. Then, in the spring of 1992, a UPS package being delivered to the Davidians broke open, revealing empty grenade hulls. The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) started investigating the Davidians and found receipts for deliveries of other ammo and arms, including black gunpowder and powdered aluminum that could be mixed to make homemade grenades and devices for converting semiautomatic weapons into automatics. No law prevented them from stockpiling weapons, even automatic ones, but Koresh hadn’t obtained a license or paid the expensive per-weapon fee. The ATF began surveillance at Mount Carmel. By December, agents had occupied a house across the street from the compound and were watching its residents closely.
Soon the ATF had drawn up a plan: storm the compound, subdue the residents, and search for illegal firearms and explosives. Despite the fact that agents knew that the Davidians had been accidentally tipped off, at nine-thirty on the morning of February 28, 1993, three helicopters approached from the rear, and two cattle trailers, with tarps hiding fifty agents, sped up the front driveway. About fifty feet from the front door of the compound, they burst from the trailers, armed and dressed in black. To the Davidians, some of whom had gone to get their own weapons, it was as if everything Koresh had predicted was coming true.
If kids would ask about my father, I’d say he died in a fire. If they asked for more and I told them more, they’d say, ‘You’re one of those people who followed that madman?’ All this happened where I was born. That’s where my family died.—Kimberly Martin, 14, Davidian survivor
In the months after the fire, a sixty-year-old woman named Amo Bishop Roden claimed it was she. Amo said she was a prophet and that the land was hers because she had been married by common law to George Roden. (George, who’d lost control of the compound to Koresh in 1988, killed his roommate with an ax and was sent to a mental hospital, where he died trying to escape, in 1998.) For a while, Amo lived in a clapboard shack and sat under the large tree near the front gate, welcoming visitors, selling T-shirts, and giving her own spin on Koresh. He was a false prophet, she would tell tourists, and then charge them an entrance fee. She set up a couple of little clapboard museums too, which were both anti-Koresh and anti-government, but they burned, along with her shack, in a suspicious 2000 fire. She returned a few years later to find Clive with the keys to a new church and visitors center.
Around this time, Clive sued to establish his trusteeship of Mount Carmel, and he got signatures from 75 Davidians around the world supporting his claim. Amo filed a similar claim, while Charlie called the whole thing a family matter. Essentially, a judge and jury agreed: The judge declared that the property belonged to the church, and the jury said that neither Clive nor Amo was a legitimate trustee. They’ll all just have to share. Amo, who could not be reached for this story, left; in May 2001 she was stopped for questioning at the site of the Oklahoma City bombing for driving a truck covered with signs, photos of the burning Davidian compound, and bumper stickers, including one that read “Waco, Texas, and Oklahoma City are where the one-world government shot itself in the foot.” No charges were filed.
The past is never past, especially at Mount Carmel, where nobody is absolutely sure what happened back in 1993. In the aftermath, the government was shown to have handled so many things so badly that conspiracy theories ran wild—from tanks setting the fire and FBI agents shooting at fleeing Davidians to soldiers from the Delta Force slaughtering women and children. In 1999 Attorney General Reno appointed a special counsel to look into the government’s actions. After ten months, former Republican senator John Danforth concluded that although a lot of serious mistakes were made by the ATF and the FBI in the aftermath, mostly regarding the withholding of evidence, there was no systematic cover-up. Danforth also found that the FBI had not shot at anyone on April 19. Most important: the Davidians set the fire. Bugs planted by the FBI inside the compound revealed dozens of references to fuel and fire in the final six hours.
Conspiracists still cry foul, but ultimately, ten years later, we have to conclude that both sides share the blame for what happened. It’s obvious that the Davidians set the fire; it’s also obvious that the FBI knew all about their apocalyptic theology. It’s obvious that Koresh saw the whole thing as a fulfillment of prophecy; it’s also obvious that those government agents had a higher duty to protect the innocents inside the compound and that they breached it by driving an unstable bunch even crazier.
At Mount Carmel, at least, the small group of remaining Davidians is trying to focus on the time to come. They are waiting. Charlie foresees war and talks about the connections between September 11 and April 19: “September 11 was just a taste of what has yet to take place worldwide, a worldwide spiritual war, the battle between the descendants of Ishmael and the descendants of Isaac.” Clive sees similar things. When asked about a timetable for Koresh’s return, he says, “We’re always looking to the Middle East.” It’s not surprising, really, that the Davidians would see connections between 9/11 and their troubles——the central players that caused each drama share the passionate arrogance of those who believe they are entitled to more of God’s favor than the rest of us. Some prove their faith by setting fire to a building full of their own children; others do it by flying airliners full of human beings into skyscrapers.
“People say we’re apocalyptic,” says Clive, “all doom and gloom. Well, sure there’s a lot of doom and gloom, but there’s also a lot of hope and promise.” In his last letter, Koresh wrote that the earthquake would strike near Lake Waco, the land settled by Victor Houteff in 1935, and put Waco underwater. On Mount Carmel, high above the city, everything will be just fine.
I've seen "Waco, the Rules of Engagement" a number of times and it CLEARKLY shows how the fire started and it CLEARLY shows BATF agents firing on and dropping unarmed people trying to escape the inferno...including children.
Janet "Shake and Bake" Reno claimed it was "doing it for the children". Unfortunately, burning the children alive in order to protect them from a non fedgubmnt approved religion isn't in our Constitution.
As I said, I've seen the film several times and since Michael Moore or Al Gore had nothing to do with it, we can reasonably assume it offers truth.
I know one of the snipers for the gubmnt was Lon Horiuchi who was decorated for his actions...just like he was for killing the 14 year old unarmed boy who was running away, his dog and later his mom by shooting her in the face while she was standing at her front door holding her infant daughter in Idaho.
I seem to recall Koresh was acquitted of any firearm charges and any child abuse/endangerment charges just a few weeks earlier in a Waco Federal Court.
At least Randy Weaver got to sue the gubmnt on behalf of his deceased son, wife and dog and was not only acquitted of all charges against him, but was awarded $13,000,000 (I think) in damages. That's small compensation for his loss at the hands of murdering thugs, but when the gubmnt is run by socialist murdering thug libtards like the Clintons, that's quite a bit, I guess.
I guess ya gotta give ol' Horiuchi credit...when he shot the 14 year old boy who was running away from him in the back, he hit dead center blowing the boys heart out of his chest...at least he's a good shot and the boy didn't suffer too long. Any good HITLERy supporter should be proud.
why is it when any person accuses another of sexual abuse or child abuse they should be kill without mercy before any trial or conviction?
we do not kill child molesters we barely prosecute them . these people were murdered by a zealot group hell bent on taking justice into their own hands and deciding who was right and wrong .
who was more wrong the cult heads or the people who get to decide to murder them because they didnt like what they thought they knew about them?
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cheranne
There are no signs that point the way to Mount Carmel. Past the chapel, which was built after the fire, all that remains are a few ruined outbuildings and a lonely stretch of prairie grass. It was here, ten miles east of Waco, that David Koresh prepared his acolytes for an apocalyptic confrontation between good and evil. His followers, a disavowed splinter group of the Seventh-Day Adventist Church, believed themselves to be living in the end times, when God’s final judgment was at hand. A stuttering high school dropout with a gift for illuminating Scripture, Koresh preached the “New Light,” a self-styled gospel that required him to take multiple wives so that he could father enough children to sit on the 24 heavenly thrones described in the Book of Revelation. One of his wives was fourteen years old, another twelve. To his detractors, he was a false prophet, a con man, and a pedophile. To his followers, he was the messiah.
Life in the Branch Davidians’ austere two-story wooden dormitory revolved around strict discipline, healthy eating, physical labor, and rigorous study of the Bible. But in the summer of 1992, the group caught the attention of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms after a UPS driver reported delivering a package of dummy grenades to Mount Carmel. Koresh and other Davidians, who had been earning income for the group by working at weekend gun shows, had built up an arsenal of weapons, as well as an inventory of MREs (meals ready to eat), gas masks, and paramilitary gear that they called David Koresh Survival Wear. An ATF investigation suggested that the Davidians were also illegally converting semiautomatic weapons into fully automatic weapons. The agency, which was due for a congressional budget review in the spring of 1993, devised an elaborate plan to raid Mount Carmel that, it hoped, would net not only the sect’s illegal weapons but some positive publicity as well. And so Operation Trojan Horse was born. Rather than bringing Koresh in for questioning, the ATF trained its agents at Fort Hood to take the building by force.
In doing so, federal authorities inadvertently fulfilled Koresh’s prophecy of a pitched battle in which God’s people would be called to defend themselves. What ensued was the deadliest law enforcement operation in U.S. history. To mark the fifteenth anniversary of the standoff, we asked the people who were there to share their stories.
“‘THEY KNOW WE’RE COMING!’”
On the morning of February 28, 1993, ATF agents gathered at a staging area near Waco and prepared to serve a search warrant on the Branch Davidians’ residence. KWTX-TV cameraman Dan Mulloney, who had received a tip about the raid, headed for Mount Carmel with reporter John McLemore. A colleague, cameraman Jim Peeler, was supposed to meet them there but got lost. As Peeler studied a map by the side of the road, a mailman stopped to ask if he needed directions. Peeler did not know that the mailman was David Jones, a Branch Davidian who was Koresh’s brother-in-law.
Jones hurried back to Mount Carmel to tell Koresh of his encounter. Koresh then took aside Robert Rodriguez, a new devotee whom he correctly suspected was an undercover agent, and told him that he knew a raid was imminent. Rodriguez made a frantic exit and called ATF commander Chuck Sarabyn. “Chuck, they know!” he cried. Sarabyn, who would later claim that he was unaware that the element of surprise had been lost, decided to proceed with the raid anyway.
Larry Lynch, 61, was a lieutenant at the McLennan County Sheriff’s Office. He is now the county’s sheriff. I was at the staging area that morning when one of the ATF supervisors ran in and said, “Let’s go! Let’s go! They know we’re coming!”
Bill Buford, 63, was the resident agent in charge at the ATF’s Little Rock, Arkansas, office, whose agents—along with those from the New Orleans office—were called in to assist. He is now the bomb squad commander for the Arkansas State Police. I remember thinking, “What do you mean ‘They know we’re coming’?” Once we knew the element of surprise had been lost, we should have called it off. In hindsight, I wish that I had said, “No, I’m not taking my team.” I probably would have been fired, but knowing what I know now, I would have loved to have been fired for making that decision.
Chuck Hustmyre, 44, was an ATF special agent. He is a crime writer in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. There were 76 agents on the operation. Before we left the staging area, we were loaded up into cattle trailers. That was highly unusual, to say the least, but that part of Texas is just a big, barren, windswept prairie, and there’s nothing to hide behind. The idea was to get us to the door of the compound covertly and not announce that we were government agents. Somebody decided that cattle trailers blended in a lot better than a convoy of unmarked cars with tinted windows. So we were jammed, shoulder to shoulder, into two trailers that were covered in tarps so you couldn’t see in.
Buford As I was getting people to put their gear on, I had a bad feeling. I asked, “What do you mean ‘They know we’re coming’? Are they getting ready for us?” I was told that all the Davidians were in the chapel, praying. My logic was, well, if they’re all in the chapel, maybe we can still get in there and cut the men off from their guns. We knew that they usually kept their guns in their living quarters, under their beds. I didn’t know that 45 minutes had elapsed since Robert [Rodriguez] had seen anything.
Clive Doyle, 67, is a Branch Davidian who was living at Mount Carmel at the time of the raid. He lives in Waco. I heard all this hubbub in the cafeteria, so I went back there to find out what the excitement was all about. People were saying, “We just heard there’s going to be a raid.” David [Koresh] walked in and confirmed that something was about to go down. He said, “I want everybody to go back to their rooms. Just stay calm.”
Buford The information we had, which turned out to be true, was that the Branch Davidians were taking semiautomatic weapons and converting them into fully automatic weapons. They had also been converting practice hand grenades into live grenades. It was in preparation for the Armageddon that David Koresh had prophesied.
John McLemore, 44, was a reporter for KWTX-TV, in Waco. He is now the director of Internet communications for Conoco-Phillips in Houston. Dan Mulloney and I were at the intersection of the road that led to the compound when we saw three National Guard helicopters flying overhead. That was very unusual, so we got out of the car and started videotaping it. While we were standing there, we heard something rumbling down the road behind us. I turned around and saw two pickup trucks pulling cattle trailers that were covered with tarps. As they turned down the road toward the compound, we could see that they were packed with federal agents. We had been expecting ten or fifteen police officers—sheriff’s deputies or something—to make a couple of arrests and come out with some illegal weapons. This was bigger than anything we had imagined.
Hustmyre I happened to be standing near a seam in the tarps, so I could see out a little, and as we rolled down the road toward the compound, I told the team leader, “It’s all quiet out here.” I mean, it was eerily quiet. I remember telling an agent near me, “This doesn’t seem right. This is spooky.”
“‘. . . THAT LAST EXHALATION OF BREATH, LIKE THE DEATH
KNELL . . .’”
At 9:48 a.m., ATF agent Roland Ballesteros led the first team of agents off the trailers and approached Mount Carmel’s entrance, shouting, “Police! Search warrant! Lay down!” He pointed his shotgun in the direction of Koresh, who had answered the door, unarmed. Which side fired the first shot has never been determined. ATF agents say that a hail of bullets greeted them after Koresh slammed the door shut, while Branch Davidians claim that the ATF fired first, from either the ground or the helicopters above. The crime scene, which might have yielded answers, was later destroyed by the fire.
Hustmyre Somebody in the back of the trailer threw the doors open, and we jumped out and rushed to our assigned positions. There was gunfire going off before my feet hit the ground. We were taking gunfire from multiple points inside the compound.
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cheranne
Doyle David opened the front door, and the next thing I knew, he was yelling: “Hey, wait a minute! There are women and children in here!” And almost immediately there was a huge barrage of gunfire outside, and then all hell broke loose.
Catherine Matteson, 92, is a Branch Davidian who was living at Mount Carmel at the time of the raid. She lives in Waco. The windows were shot out, and there was glass all over the floor. You could hear bullets ripping through the walls. The women took the children into the hall on the second floor and put their bodies over them to shield them. This was war.
Sheila Martin, 60, is a Branch Davidian who was living at Mount Carmel at the time of the raid. She works at a day care center in Waco. My son Jamie—who must have been ten, I think—was lying under a window. He’d had meningitis when he was a baby, so he wasn’t able to walk or stand up or anything. It left him blind. And he was just lying there, with bullets coming in and glass falling on him. I remember thinking, “Is this how he dies? After all this sickness, is this how he leaves me?” When the gunshots stopped, I crawled to him on my hands and knees. As I reached him, the shooting started again. I carried him to the other side of the bed, where my two youngest kids were, and I pulled the mattress over us. He had blood around his mouth, and at first I thought that he’d been shot, but he’d gotten cut by all that glass. The poor little thing was just sitting there, in all that chaos, screaming, just screaming at the top of his lungs.
Doyle The government tells it as though we were waiting for them in ambush, and then we just opened up and blasted the daylights out of them. That’s not true. If we had been waiting for them, they would never have gotten out of those trailers. Now, David had shown us in the Scriptures that it was okay to defend your family and your property. So after that huge barrage of gunfire, some people grabbed guns. Whether they already had them or whether they went and got them, I don’t know, but they retaliated.
Buford Oh, it absolutely was an ambush. They had set up and were waiting for us to arrive. It was as intense as any ambush I was in when I was in Vietnam. Before I could even get out of the trailer, I was able to hear specific weapons, like AK-47’s and an M60 machine gun, which makes a very distinct sound. And we didn’t have any of those.
Hustmyre We were trapped. It was just a big open field, and the only place to take cover was behind some junked cars in front of the compound. They could pick us off left and right. Once in a while I would hear an explosion. I found out later that they were chunking homemade hand grenades out the windows at us. Most of the agents were armed with only 9mm pistols, so we weren’t quite evenly matched.
Buford The agents out front weren’t able to make entry because of the volume of gunfire. We went around to the side of the building, put ladders up, and made it onto the roof. One of the guys, Conway LeBleu, was shot almost immediately. Glen Jordan, Keith Constantino, and I broke the window of the Davidians’ arms room and stepped inside. Shortly after that, Glen yelled out that he had been hit. He was bleeding very badly. Rounds were coming through the walls, and I was returning fire.
McLemore Mulloney and I were crouched behind a bus about fifteen yards from our news unit. The bus was being fired at from every direction. I can still recall hearing the sounds of gunfire and people screaming. One agent started yelling, “Hey, TV man! Run and call for help!” And I’m thinking, “Me? I’m fine right here behind this bus.”
Buford Shots started coming up through the floor. The first round that hit me got me square in the butt and lodged in my thigh. I was trying to talk to Glen to find out if he could move, because we needed to get out of there. The next thing I knew, I’d been hit in the hip and the upper thigh with an AK-47. That knocked me down. Constantino covered us, and somehow Glen and I got out the window we had come in. I pulled myself down to the edge of the roof and rolled off. When I hit the ground, I broke a bunch of ribs. At that point, I thought I’d been shot in the chest.
McLemore I took off from behind the bus and ran for the news unit, and there were bullets hitting everywhere. I called the station and got the news director on the phone and said, “It’s a war zone. Get every ambulance in the county out here.”
Buford An agent who was assigned to our Little Rock office, Rob Williams, was about ten feet from me. He shot at a Davidian who had shot at me while I was lying on the ground. But in doing so they were able to see where he was, and he was shot and killed. Rob was a great kid. The next day would have been his twenty-sixth birthday. In Vietnam I saw a lot of people get shot, and the minute he was hit, I knew he was dead.
Byron Sage, 60, was the supervisory senior resident agent in the FBI’s Austin office and the bureau’s primary negotiator during the standoff. Now retired, he lives in Round Rock. Shots were still being fired when I got there. I went to the basement of the Waco Police Department, where their 911 consoles are, and Larry Lynch was talking on two different phones to people inside the compound, trying to secure a cease-fire. That was the first time I got to speak with David. I identified myself, and then I asked him, “Is it ‘Kor-esh’ or ‘Kor-esh’?” David said matter-of-factly, “Mr. Sage, have you ever heard a person die?” And I said, “Yes, I have.” He said, “Then you know how to pronounce my name.” I said, “What do you mean by that?” And he said, “It’s like that last exhalation of breath, like the death knell: ‘Koreshhhhh.’ He strung it out for a few seconds like that. I mean, the hair on the back of my neck stood up. It does even now, revisiting it. I looked over at Larry, and both of us shook our heads like, “We’re in for a hell of a ride.”
“‘CEASE FIRE!’”
Negotiations had begun minutes after the raid started, when Sheila Martin’s husband, Wayne, called 911 and pleaded with Lynch to ask the ATF to pull back. “Tell them there are women and children in here and to call it off!” he cried. Lynch tried in vain to reach ATF commanders, who did not respond. Thirty-one minutes passed before radio contact was established, and it was an hour before he could reach the ATF on a secure line.
The shoot-out lasted, on and off, for nearly two and a half hours, until Lynch secured a cease-fire at around noon. Each side agreed to hold its fire so the ATF could retrieve its dead and wounded. In the end, four federal agents and six Branch Davidians had been killed.
McLemore About an hour passed and nobody moved. There was dead quiet, dead silence. And then in the rearview mirror, I saw an ambulance creeping toward us. It was just crawling along, going about five miles an hour. Apparently the Davidians had allowed the ATF to bring one ambulance onto the property to care for the wounded.
Hustmyre Agents were yelling back and forth, “Cease fire! Only shoot if they shoot at you.” One of our guys, Eric Evers, had been bleeding in a ditch forever, and I said, “What are we going to do about him?” I think everyone was wondering if the Davidians were trying to lure us in to kill us, so nobody said anything. I said, “Hell, I’ll go get him.” A guy with an MP5 went with me. We sloshed through the mud until we reached a fence that extended about fifteen feet out from the compound, and when we looked around it, we saw two Davidians pointing their rifles right at us. I thought, “That’s it. We’re dead.” But they didn’t shoot. I left my pistol in my holster and kept my hands away from my side and yelled, “We’re supposed to pick up the wounded guy.” They started gesturing with their rifles and shouting, “Hurry the f— up!” Evers was still alive, down in this muddy ditch, and we pulled him out. We put his arms around our shoulders and walked him out of there. Once we got him to the road and I could see how many guys were wounded, I started to realize how bad things were.
Jim Peeler, 55, was and is a cameraman at KWTX-TV. I was standing by the side of the road when I saw a guy beating on a car, crying. He was dressed like a civilian. It wasn’t until later, when we were watching the video and we had found out more about the ATF’s investigation, that we realized it was Robert Rodriguez, their undercover guy. He was hitting the car and hollering, “I told them! I told them! I told them!”
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oldiesman
I think the best information out there for the public is the film "Waco The Rules of Engagement".Essentially proves the FBI deliberately killed the compound inhabitants with CS Gas in retaliation for the Davidians' lawful use of weapons in self defense of their lives but resulting in 4 BATF agents getting killed.The whole thing could have been avoided with just a little government restraint. But no, the feds had to prove they were the big bully on the block. Clinton and Reno should be held responsible for these murders. The lies of the federal government are appalling and apparent in this film. If you haven't seen it yet, its worth the time for sure.
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cheranne
CULT LEADERS WILL BE RESPONSIBLE FOR THERE ACTIONS SOONER OR LATER
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Neo
Let us never forget why God exhorts us to pray,
1 Timothy 2:1-4
I exhort therefore, that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men;
For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.
For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour;
Who will have all men to be saved, and to come unto the knowledge of the truth.
God bless,
Neo <_<
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pond
this incident haughts me.
I was freaking out while it was happening and feel very strongly it was murder.
maybe it was a cult that is not illegal the people were murdered and out right burned to death that day because a bully bigger than a cult head leader got a hair on his a$$ .
i have not seen the movie but just from the reports and the events of the day I believe strongly it was MURDER by the FBI for no reason other than they could.
we have a right in this country to live in a "cult" we have the right to be innocent until proven guilty in a court of law we have a right to due process if the police and fbi had issues they could have used legal means instead of force to arrest what ever the problem was they chose to kill innocent people and they should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law for the doing of that.
but they are not.
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cheranne
Yes,it is very sad thats true,but also sad is Jonestown,and what CULTS do to people,and innocent children that do not have the choice to make(whether they want to be in a cult..that is abuse)
David Koresh abused these people, a pedophile is against the law,if you read the whole artical their are two side to the story
the agents were just doing there job ,the Davidians had every chance to come out(51 days)the choose NOT to because of
their "leader" who set the "flames" and destroyed his own people.
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cheranne
The authorities began to take notice. In February 1992 Child Protective Services (CPS) social workers made the first of several visits to Mount Carmel to check into allegations by apostates of child abuse; Koresh was said to have spanked an eight-month-old for forty minutes. But the CPS didn’t find enough evidence to take action. Then, in the spring of 1992, a UPS package being delivered to the Davidians broke open, revealing empty grenade hulls. The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) started investigating the Davidians and found receipts for deliveries of other ammo and arms, including black gunpowder and powdered aluminum that could be mixed to make homemade grenades and devices for converting semiautomatic weapons into automatics. No law prevented them from stockpiling weapons, even automatic ones, but Koresh hadn’t obtained a license or paid the expensive per-weapon fee. The ATF began surveillance at Mount Carmel. By December, agents had occupied a house across the street from the compound and were watching its residents closely.
Soon the ATF had drawn up a plan: storm the compound, subdue the residents, and search for illegal firearms and explosives. Despite the fact that agents knew that the Davidians had been accidentally tipped off, at nine-thirty on the morning of February 28, 1993, three helicopters approached from the rear, and two cattle trailers, with tarps hiding fifty agents, sped up the front driveway. About fifty feet from the front door of the compound, they burst from the trailers, armed and dressed in black. To the Davidians, some of whom had gone to get their own weapons, it was as if everything Koresh had predicted was coming true.
If kids would ask about my father, I’d say he died in a fire. If they asked for more and I told them more, they’d say, ‘You’re one of those people who followed that madman?’ All this happened where I was born. That’s where my family died.—Kimberly Martin, 14, Davidian survivor
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cheranne
In the months after the fire, a sixty-year-old woman named Amo Bishop Roden claimed it was she. Amo said she was a prophet and that the land was hers because she had been married by common law to George Roden. (George, who’d lost control of the compound to Koresh in 1988, killed his roommate with an ax and was sent to a mental hospital, where he died trying to escape, in 1998.) For a while, Amo lived in a clapboard shack and sat under the large tree near the front gate, welcoming visitors, selling T-shirts, and giving her own spin on Koresh. He was a false prophet, she would tell tourists, and then charge them an entrance fee. She set up a couple of little clapboard museums too, which were both anti-Koresh and anti-government, but they burned, along with her shack, in a suspicious 2000 fire. She returned a few years later to find Clive with the keys to a new church and visitors center.
Around this time, Clive sued to establish his trusteeship of Mount Carmel, and he got signatures from 75 Davidians around the world supporting his claim. Amo filed a similar claim, while Charlie called the whole thing a family matter. Essentially, a judge and jury agreed: The judge declared that the property belonged to the church, and the jury said that neither Clive nor Amo was a legitimate trustee. They’ll all just have to share. Amo, who could not be reached for this story, left; in May 2001 she was stopped for questioning at the site of the Oklahoma City bombing for driving a truck covered with signs, photos of the burning Davidian compound, and bumper stickers, including one that read “Waco, Texas, and Oklahoma City are where the one-world government shot itself in the foot.” No charges were filed.
hmmmm....makes you wonder
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cheranne
The past is never past, especially at Mount Carmel, where nobody is absolutely sure what happened back in 1993. In the aftermath, the government was shown to have handled so many things so badly that conspiracy theories ran wild—from tanks setting the fire and FBI agents shooting at fleeing Davidians to soldiers from the Delta Force slaughtering women and children. In 1999 Attorney General Reno appointed a special counsel to look into the government’s actions. After ten months, former Republican senator John Danforth concluded that although a lot of serious mistakes were made by the ATF and the FBI in the aftermath, mostly regarding the withholding of evidence, there was no systematic cover-up. Danforth also found that the FBI had not shot at anyone on April 19. Most important: the Davidians set the fire. Bugs planted by the FBI inside the compound revealed dozens of references to fuel and fire in the final six hours.
Conspiracists still cry foul, but ultimately, ten years later, we have to conclude that both sides share the blame for what happened. It’s obvious that the Davidians set the fire; it’s also obvious that the FBI knew all about their apocalyptic theology. It’s obvious that Koresh saw the whole thing as a fulfillment of prophecy; it’s also obvious that those government agents had a higher duty to protect the innocents inside the compound and that they breached it by driving an unstable bunch even crazier.
At Mount Carmel, at least, the small group of remaining Davidians is trying to focus on the time to come. They are waiting. Charlie foresees war and talks about the connections between September 11 and April 19: “September 11 was just a taste of what has yet to take place worldwide, a worldwide spiritual war, the battle between the descendants of Ishmael and the descendants of Isaac.” Clive sees similar things. When asked about a timetable for Koresh’s return, he says, “We’re always looking to the Middle East.” It’s not surprising, really, that the Davidians would see connections between 9/11 and their troubles——the central players that caused each drama share the passionate arrogance of those who believe they are entitled to more of God’s favor than the rest of us. Some prove their faith by setting fire to a building full of their own children; others do it by flying airliners full of human beings into skyscrapers.
“People say we’re apocalyptic,” says Clive, “all doom and gloom. Well, sure there’s a lot of doom and gloom, but there’s also a lot of hope and promise.” In his last letter, Koresh wrote that the earthquake would strike near Lake Waco, the land settled by Victor Houteff in 1935, and put Waco underwater. On Mount Carmel, high above the city, everything will be just fine.
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Ron G.
I've seen "Waco, the Rules of Engagement" a number of times and it CLEARKLY shows how the fire started and it CLEARLY shows BATF agents firing on and dropping unarmed people trying to escape the inferno...including children.
Janet "Shake and Bake" Reno claimed it was "doing it for the children". Unfortunately, burning the children alive in order to protect them from a non fedgubmnt approved religion isn't in our Constitution.
As I said, I've seen the film several times and since Michael Moore or Al Gore had nothing to do with it, we can reasonably assume it offers truth.
I know one of the snipers for the gubmnt was Lon Horiuchi who was decorated for his actions...just like he was for killing the 14 year old unarmed boy who was running away, his dog and later his mom by shooting her in the face while she was standing at her front door holding her infant daughter in Idaho.
I seem to recall Koresh was acquitted of any firearm charges and any child abuse/endangerment charges just a few weeks earlier in a Waco Federal Court.
At least Randy Weaver got to sue the gubmnt on behalf of his deceased son, wife and dog and was not only acquitted of all charges against him, but was awarded $13,000,000 (I think) in damages. That's small compensation for his loss at the hands of murdering thugs, but when the gubmnt is run by socialist murdering thug libtards like the Clintons, that's quite a bit, I guess.
I guess ya gotta give ol' Horiuchi credit...when he shot the 14 year old boy who was running away from him in the back, he hit dead center blowing the boys heart out of his chest...at least he's a good shot and the boy didn't suffer too long. Any good HITLERy supporter should be proud.
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pond
why is it when any person accuses another of sexual abuse or child abuse they should be kill without mercy before any trial or conviction?
we do not kill child molesters we barely prosecute them . these people were murdered by a zealot group hell bent on taking justice into their own hands and deciding who was right and wrong .
who was more wrong the cult heads or the people who get to decide to murder them because they didnt like what they thought they knew about them?
you decide.
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cheranne
don't think too hard youll hurt yourself!
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