At Mount Carmel in Waco, Texas, agents of the U.S. Treasury Department’s Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) launch a raid against the Branch Davidian compound as part of an investigation into illegal possession of firearms and explosives by the Christian cult.
As the agents attempted to penetrate the complex, gunfire erupted, beginning an extended gun battle that left four ATF agents dead and 15 wounded. Six Branch Davidians were fatally wounded, and several more were injured, including David Koresh, the cult’s founder and leader. After 45 minutes of shooting, the ATF agents withdrew, and a cease-fire was negotiated over the telephone. The operation, which involved more than 100 ATF agents, was the one of the largest ever mounted by the bureau and resulted in the highest casualties of any ATF operation.
David Koresh was born Vernon Wayne Howell in Houston, Texas, in 1959. In 1981, he joined the Branch Davidians, a sect of the Seventh Day Adventist Church founded in 1934 by a Bulgarian immigrant named Victor Houteff. Koresh, who possessed an exhaustive knowledge of the Bible, rapidly rose in the hierarchy of the small religious community, eventually entering into a power struggle with the Davidians’ leader, George Roden.
For a short time, Koresh retreated with his followers to eastern Texas, but in late 1987 he returned to Mount Carmel with seven armed followers and raided the compound, severely wounding Roden. Koresh went on trial for attempted murder, but the charge was dropped after his case was declared a mistrial. By 1990, he was the leader of the Branch Davidians and legally changed his name to David Koresh, with David representing his status as head of the biblical House of David, and Koresh standing for the Hebrew name for Cyrus, the Persian king who allowed the Jews held captive in Babylon to return to Israel.
Koresh took several wives at Mount Carmel and fathered at least 12 children from these women, several of whom were as young as 12 or 13 when they became pregnant. There is also evidence that Koresh may have harshly disciplined some of the 100 or so Branch Davidians living inside the compound, particularly his children. A central aspect of Koresh’s religious teachings was his assertion that the apocalyptic events predicted in the Bible’s book of Revelation were imminent, making it necessary, he asserted, for the Davidians to stockpile weapons and explosives in preparation.
Following the unsuccessful ATF raid, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) took over the situation. A standoff with the Branch Davidians stretched into seven weeks, and little progress was made in the telephone negotiations as the Davidians had stockpiled years of food and other necessities before the raid.
On April 18, U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno approved a tear-gas assault on the compound, and at approximately 6:00 a.m. on April 19 the Branch Davidians were informed of the imminent attack and asked to surrender, which they did not. A few minutes later, two FBI combat vehicles began inserting gas into the building and were joined by Bradley tanks, which fired tear-gas canisters through the compound’s windows. The Branch Davidians, many with gas masks on, refused to evacuate, and by 11:40 a.m. the last of some 100 tear-gas canisters was fired into the compound. Just after noon, a fire erupted at one or more locations on the compound, and minutes later nine Davidians fled the rapidly spreading blaze. Gunfire was reported but ceased as the compound was completely engulfed by the flames.
Koresh and at least 80 of his followers, including 22 children, died during the federal government’s second disastrous assault on Mount Carmel. The FBI and Justice Department maintained there was conclusive evidence that the Branch Davidian members ignited the fire, citing an eyewitness account and various forensic data. Of the gunfire reported during the fire, the government argued that the Davidians were either killing each other as part of a suicide pact or were killing dissenters who attempted to escape the Koresh-ordered suicide by fire. Most of the surviving Branch Davidians contested this official position, as do some critics in the press and elsewhere, whose charges against the ATF and FBI’s handling of the Waco standoff ranged from incompetence to premeditated murder. In 1999, the FBI admitted that they used tear-gas grenades in the assault, which have been known to cause fires because of their incendiary properties.
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It was murder.
Yeah, I once believed the conspiracy of those “4 dead ATF agents” supposedly being Clinton’s former security detail who knew too much and were sacrificed. It sounded really good- but it was a bogus theory the government actually floated.
Yes, it was a wild conspiracy until common sense took over and you start to ask serious questions about Waco. Between all the numerology and April 19th, I knew something was fishy.
As usual, the players are highly suspect and the dead people show up alive years later. http://mileswmathis.com/waco.pdf
Where would we be without Miles and Miles and Miles and Miles of….
Perception is everything, and whatever Koresh may have been, witnessing tanks push down walls and the resulting fire, ending the shitshow with nearly 100 dead ?
was enough to wake me up fully to the evil of the USG, and realize we are the Native Americans now and a trail of tears await us.
The Clintons were past due on their whole burnt offerings to Moloch.
“Koresh, who possessed an exhaustive knowledge of the Bible…”
I beg to differ.
Koresh had quite some knowledge of the bible but he mixed his own “revelations” into his teachings, which sometimes did not line up with the Word of God.
If the other community members would have read the whole bible for themselves, they could have discovered the contradictions Koresh was teaching.
But unfortunately many blindly followed his teachings without questioning as it happens in the churches many times.
Others left the community and then slandered Koresh, which too is against the commandments of Yehovah and fueled the false accusations of the feds.
After the terrorists destroyed the compound and murdered just about everyone in it, the terrorists placed an
American flag on top of it. You just can’t make this stuff up. The FBI or ATF shot two sheriff’s deputy’s in
the back because they were against the attack. The Sheriff was friends with Koresh and his followers.
What a co-winky dink, that’s when I started prepping.
Janet Reno – the Butcher of Waco – may she rot in Hell forever.
I bet when that witch hit the fires of Hell, they roared up and libs everywhere declared “global warming”.
I read the book “Waco: A survivor’s story” by David Thibodeau.
This statement does not line up with Thibodeau’s statements at all. Thibodeau portraits a very calm and peaceful Koresh in his book, which lines up fully with Koresh’s calm actions during the siege.
This also does not line up with Thibodeau’s account. According to Thibodeau, Koresh fathered children with other women inside the community, but he did not marry them and the offspring was raised by their mothers and respective stepfathers.
The following documentary includes infra red footage, explained by the infrared camera (FLIR) inventor himself.
“Following the unsuccessful ATF raid, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) took over the situation.”
It became FBI jurisdiction as soon as a federal agent was killed.