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David KORESH
Birth name: Vernon Wayne Howell
Classification:
Homicide
Characteristics: Leader of the Branch Davidians
religious sect
Number of victims: 10 + 79
Date of murders: February 28 / April 19, 1993
Date of birth: August 18,
1959
Victims profile: 4 ATF agents and 6
Davidians / 79 Davidians (men, women and
children)
Method of murder: Shooting
- Fire - CS gas
Location: Waco, Texas, USA
Status: On April 19, 1993, Steve Schneider,
Koresh's right-hand man, probably shot Koresh and killed himself
with the same gun
Holocaust at Waco
By Gary Null
The story
is now a series of fading memories and images in most Americans' minds,
but mention Waco and people still call up many of those discomforting
pieces of the 1993 news story.
There was a Jonestown-like suicide cult down in Texas
headed by a psychopathic megalomaniac, David Koresh, a modern-day
self-proclaimed messiah....
He had a tremendous arms cache....
His Branch Davidian cult abused children....
They were willing to take over the town of Waco....
They were defiant of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
and Firearms, and of the F.B.I....
They were planning to commit mass suicide....
All of
these "facts" were supposed to explain why we saw that final image on
TV--the Branch Davidian compound burning to the ground. They were
supposed to explain why 96 children, women, and men had to die in that
conflagration. The problem is, they are not facts. Many are distortions
or outright lies fed to the media, swallowed, broadcast, and never
questioned.
People in Waco describe
the Branch Davidian community as a group of ordinary people and as
helpful, friendly, and kind. The Branch Davidian sect was founded in
1893 as an offshoot of the Seventh-Day Adventist church. Many of the
approximately 130 people in the compound held regular jobs outside, and
the group had been in Waco since 1935. They had built with their own
hands the house that was destroyed in the 1993 fire.
James Scott Trim, a
researcher who studied the Branch Davidians for more than a year and a
half, offers this perspective: "They were no threat, particularly, to
anybody. They had been there since the 1930s and certainly hadn't done
any damage to anybody thus far. They weren't a group of idiots." Various
members of the group, he points out, were highly educated in theology,
comparative religion, and law.
Was this a cult? One of
the reasons that pejorative label stuck to this group was that film
clips were widely broadcast in which David Koresh, the group's leader,
was shown saying, "You better watch out--I'm God." What wasn't revealed
was that this segment was actually part of a longer film clip. A
reporter from an Australian network had been asking Koresh about
accusations made by an ex-Branch Davidian leader that he, Koresh, had
gotten the former leader's 70-year-old mother pregnant. In reply to this
obviously around-the-bend assertion, Koresh had said that if he could
get a 70-year-old woman pregnant, then you'd better watch out, because
he is God. It was a joke. In the uncut film segment, laughter is heard
in the background. In the clip, Koresh's remark was taken out of context
and played as if it were a serious statement. This deceptive use of a
piece of film was enough to paint Koresh as a nut.
Bill Cooper, a former
member of the Office of Naval Intelligence, also has looked into the
Waco affair. Cooper offers an interesting perspective on the idea of
cults. "The definition of a cult is extremely difficult to pin down," he
says. "It depends largely upon who is labeling something as a cult. If
you really want to get honest with all of this, all of our forefathers
who left Europe to come to the United States to escape religious
persecution belonged to cults. You could say that this nation was built
by cultists. Many of our forefathers belonged to the fraternity known as
Freemasonry, which throughout history has been labeled a cult and
persecuted."
David Koresh believed
that God wanted him to deliver the message of the Book of Revelations to
the world. But concerning the apocalyptic aspects of the Branch
Davidians' beliefs, Cooper points out that "the entire Christian
religion and segments of the Jewish religion are apocalyptic. Both
religions believe in the imminent return of a messiah and the end of the
world as we know it, and the beginning of a new heaven on earth. That is
certainly apocalyptic. The view of the Branch Davidians was no
different. They believed in the interpretation of the Book of
Revelations just as the church that they branched off from."
And, Cooper adds, "The
truth is that we have protection in this country under the Constitution
to practice whatever religion we wish, as long as we're not harming
anyone else in the practice of that religion. The truth is that the
members of the Branch Davidian religion, their church, were adults and
had the right to believe and practice whatever they wished."
To support people's
right to follow David Koresh as a leader does not mean that you have to
agree with his teachings. Yes, the man may have been a fanatic. Yes, his
followers may have been equally zealous. But being a religious zealot is
not a crime. Christian fundamentalist groups and Jewish ultraorthodox
groups may keep to themselves, or dress, eat, and act in ways others
find strange. And many religious groups follow charismatic leaders who
act as if they have the inside word from God. You can call these leaders
and their followers zealots or fanatics or cultists if you like, but
they still have a right to live as they choose. The Branch Davidians had
that right, too.
At least they thought
they did. Two of the people who found out that this was not the case,
and who managed to live through that discovery, were Sheila Martin and
Clyde Doyle. Martin had lived at the Waco complex at Mt. Carmel for five
years, with her husband and seven children. She lost five members of her
family in the fire. Doyle had lived with the group for at least three
years, and he lost his daughter in the fire. Their descriptions of life
at the compound are certainly at odds with the picture of a bunch of
crazed cultists that the media portrayed.
People came to Mt.
Carmel from many different walks of life, Doyle recalls. "Many of them
were educated. They were high school teachers, computer programmers,
university teachers, and so forth. They were ministers, and they were
common people. They were from all different countries and all different
nationalities. We lived in harmony. We got along great for such a
diverse group of people."
Although people lived
communally, they had their independence, Martin says. "Some people say
we were controlled and that we had to live a certain way, but that's
untrue. We had a choice." She goes on to refute the myth that the Branch
Davidians stayed within their complex and never came out. "That's not
how it was. We had freedom there. We could go into town. We could go
shopping. We had all different types of things, but the main object was
to know that we were there to read the Bible."
Daily
life was primitive, but since people were there for Bible study, they
were usually able to overlook the lack of amenities. Doyle recalls that
the Mt. Carmel complex was evolving. "When we first began to develop the
place, there were a series of small houses in poor condition. Many of
them were deteriorating so badly that we began to tear them down. We
took the ones that were worst first and used what lumber we could. We
bought new lumber and began to build the complex [shown in media
coverage of Waco]. There was continual building going on. New rooms were
being added to make new room for people to come and stay."
The
government has never presented
any evidence that any child was ever
abused at the Waco compound.
But what
of the allegations of child abuse at the Davidians' compound? They are
not true, says Martin. "There was no abuse of children. David said the
worst abuse children could suffer was when their mothers and fathers did
not bring them up to love God and to respect their parents and other
people. David said that any of us there who did not treat our children
with love and respect were really abusing them."
So where did the
allegations come from? Linda Thompson, a lawyer who is investigating the
case, believes they started with one man--Mark Breault, often described
as a disgruntled former member of the Branch Davidians. A documentary
produced by KPOC-TV in Oklahoma reported that some other former Branch
Davidians may have alleged that child abuse was taking place in the
complex. In any event, the government has never presented any evidence
that any child was ever abused at the Waco compound.
And what about
allegations of illegal gun caches at the group's compound? For one
thing, Thompson says that the Waco sheriff's department found these
allegations to be false. Bill Cooper elaborates, "The sheriff
investigated on several occasions the allegations that they had illegal
weapons, were engaging in illegal activities with those weapons, and had
one time even confiscated all their weapons and taken them to the
sheriff's facilities for inspection, and ended up returning them all.
There were no illegal weapons, nor illegal activity concerning those
weapons, whatsoever. In fact, [per capita] the people at the Mt. Carmel
facility possessed less than half the number of weapons possessed by the
average citizen of the state of Texas."
Doyle and
Martin, as Branch Davidians, certainly have a stake in proclaiming the
group's innocence. But this claim has been corroborated by others. A
special investigative team under former United States attorney general
Ramsey Clark has been researching the events leading up to the deaths at
Waco. They found a number of discrepancies between the public story and
the actual events, and they support what Doyle and Martin are saying.
And Dave Hall, a reporter and the manager of KPOC-TV, has done extensive
work on the Waco story. Much of what he and his colleagues at the
station have uncovered about this tragedy has been so disturbing that
Hall has presented his findings to the members of the Senate Judiciary
Committee, with the hope that they will commission a special independent
investigation of the whole affair. Hall's is another voice that asserts
there was no evidence of illegal firearms at Waco. He mentions something
else, too. "We saw evidence the A.T.F. admitted that they had left their
weapons mingle d in with the weapons that were taken into evidence [at
the trial].... That was put in the court records. So the evidence that
was admitted in court in the trial period was contaminated. Why the
judges let it happen, I do not know."
The
Initial Raid
No crimes
had been committed by David Koresh or the members of his group when, on
February 28, 1993, they were invaded by agents of the Bureau of Alcohol,
Tobacco, and Firearms. There had been some unsubstantiated talk about
the group planning to commit mass suicide, but even if it had been true,
this is not within the A.T.F.'s purview. Nor is child abuse--not that
that charge had been substantiated, either, nor had the weapons-cache
charge. So the first attack on the compound was totally uncalled for.
Film
footage of the raid is included in a revealing video put together by
Linda Thompson. (The video, "Waco: The Big Lie," can be obtained from
the American Justice Federation, 3850 South Emerson Avenue,
Indianapolis, Indiana 46203; (317) 780-5204 or (800) 749-9939; fax:
(317) 780-5209. A second video, "Waco II: The Big Lie Continues," is
also available.) In the first video, the viewer can see A.T.F. agents
firing at the Branch Davidian compound with automatic weapons. There are
helicopters flying overhead. The A.T.F. fire does not seem to be
returned.
As reporter Dave Hall
explains his findings, "For nine to 12 minutes, these people were being
attacked, unannounced, with bullets flying indiscriminately through that
building. They were calling for help from the sheriff's department....
Wayne [a Davidian] is telling the 911 operator that there are men out
there shooting at them. He was asking them to get the police out to call
these people off of them.... We have reporters that have told us that
the A.T.F. did not announce themselves until well into the shooting. And
judging from the 911 tape, we come to the conclusion that, at the very
least, they were under attack for nine minutes by over 100 men, and
possibly as much as 15 minutes, before firing back."
Hall
points out that the A.T.F. men were not identifiable to the people in
the house because the lettering labeling them as A.T.F. agents appears
on the back of their black uniforms, not the front. So to the Davidians,
the men attacking them were unknown assailants dressed in black. Adding
to the confusion and fear of February 28, as well as to the body count,
was a helicopter gunship firing down on the roof of the house. Why this
brutal military-style assault, in which six Davidians died, was
necessary is puzzling. Hall asks, "Why did they not take the sheriff out
there, who several times before had served warrants down there and never
had a problem? Why didn't they just go down there with a couple of men
in business suits?"
Koresh
said, "Hold on....
There are women and children here...."
Before he could get the last words out,
shots came from the outside.
An
account of the raid by a Davidian survivor is chilling. Clyde Doyle
recalls, "David [Koresh] advised everybody to stay cool and to go back
to their rooms. He would go and talk to [the officials] at the front
door. I then went back to my room, which was in the front of the
building on the first floor, up towards the north end. Within a minute
or so, I heard his voice at the door saying, 'Hold on a minute. There
are women and children here. We need to talk about this.' Before he
could get the last words out of his mouth, shots came from the
outside....
"My reaction was to run
down the hall towards the front door. I was thinking that some people
were bound to be shot and hurt. As I ran down the hall towards the door,
I found Perry Jones laying in the hall crying in great pain, saying he
had been shot. Perry Jones was an older man, in his sixties. He
apparently had been standing behind David as David opened the door. I
asked him if he could hang in there a minute. I wanted to see if anyone
else was hurt, but as I ran towards the door, I found nobody there....
"I ran back to Perry and
helped him up. A young black man from England appeared and gave me a
hand. As he began to lift Perry up on the left side, Perry let out a
scream. We helped Perry up into the north end of the building, where the
men's quarters were, and put him on a bunk bed away from the front wall,
where the bullets were continuing to fire. Perry was in great pain.
"I asked two or three
guys to stay with him to help him with whatever he needed and went
running back down the hall to see what had happened at the door. As I
was running, people were yelling at me to get down. People were shooting
through the walls from the outside. I noticed a line of bullets down the
hallway from the kitchen on down through the front door. It was as if
somebody with a machine gun on the outside blindly sprayed bullets,
hoping to hit somebody running down the hall without being able to see
them because there were no windows. It was like somebody made a sweeping
arc with a machine gun. This row of bullet holes penetrated into the
hallway.
"Wayne Martin was in the
process of getting the 911 calls going. During the shootings that day, I
spent part of my time running back and forth, getting messages. The
sheriff's deputy that was talking on the 911 line with Wayne was asking
various things.
"He was trying to get
things set up, because we didn't have any communications with David. You
would have to run up and down stairs to verbally pass these messages
along. We eventually did get a cease-fire, but in the course of running
back, I was told that Winston Blake had been shot.
"I went
to [Blake's] room, which was at the very far north end of the men's
section, on the inside. His was the only room on the right-hand side of
the hall looking north that had any windows in it. All the rest didn't
have windows in the bedroom because they were up against the cafeteria.
You couldn't see out of his windows because there were three big plastic
water tanks outside, where our water supply was.
"The
women were all laying in the halls....
One of the women had been shot in her bed.
She had a nursing baby,
just a few months old."
"As I
went up towards his room, I could hear water running. By the time I got
to the doorway, I could see Winston laying down in a pool of water. The
water tank, which was right up against his window, was riddled with
bullets. Since the tank was at an angle, I would almost bet my life on
it that Winston was shot from a helicopter. That was the only thing out
there that could shoot at that angle. There weren't any buildings there.
There weren't any A.T.F. people on the ground who would be able to shoot
at that angle. I checked his pulse and was convinced that he was dead.
"There was a lot of
pandemonium. I went upstairs with messages for David and the whole
top-level hallway, where the women and children were. The women were all
laying in the halls, almost one on top of the other, so as not to get
shot. One of the women, Jadine Wendell, had been shot in her bed. She
had a nursing baby, just a few months old."
Doyle reports that David
Koresh had been shot twice, once in the wrist and once through his
abdomen. The bullet had gone through his back. For a time, Doyle says,
Koresh believed he might die from his wounds.
"I never saw anybody
shoot back," Doyle says, "although I'm not saying that they didn't. From
all the evidence presented, I believe there were a few people who
grabbed some weapons. I believe they retaliated because Perry and David
had both been shot at the front door without being armed. I guess some
people took the stand that they were defending the women, the children,
and their teacher. You might say it was in self-defense, or as a
reaction to seeing people gunned down for no reason."
Among the
results of Dave Hall's KPOC-TV investigation are these:
A.T.F. agent Darrell Dyer, when he arrived at Waco on
February 23, 1993, was stunned to find that no mandatory
documentation of the raid plan had been made. Dyer and agent William
Krone set out to draft a plan. But on the morning of February 28,
the plan was never distributed. It remained in
Krone's desk.
The very warrant they were to serve was also left
behind.
Ten days after the raid, A.T.F. agent Roland
Ballesteros made two statements to the Texas Rangers that the A.T.F.
shot first and made no announcement that they were federal agents.
A.T.F. agent Eric Ever made a tape-recorded statement
to the Texas Rangers just after the raid that the first shots he
heard came from a team of agents with dogs.
It is well-documented that David Koresh had left the
complex many times while under the surveillance of as many as eight
A.T.F. agents. Agent Robert Rodriguez told Hall that the reason
Koresh was not arrested when he was observed leaving was that they
had a search warrant, but no arrest warrant. But when Hall checked
at the courthouse in Waco, he found that the warrant was, in fact,
an arrest warrant.
Linda
Thompson's video footage raises other questions. It shows a group of
four agents climbing ladders to reach a first-floor roof. Once there,
they break into a second-floor window, apparently after throwing some
kind of smoke grenade into the house. No one seems to be firing at them
as they do so. The fourth man seems to throw a grenade and then fire a
machine gun into the room. Is the fourth man attacking his fellow
agents? As the film narrator informs us, the three agents who entered
that window died in the assault.
If the
media had been fully informed,
there would have been
outraged protests by the American people,
who were paying for the killings.
Branch
Davidian Mike Schroeder's death that day was particularly shocking. He
had left the compound before the raid and later attempted to return
home. He never made it. According to his father, Ken Schroeder, who has
spent enormous energy investigating the death of his son, "There was an
outer perimeter already established at that time. And he and these two
other guys that were with him were disarmed by the Texas Rangers and let
go to go on in. At that time, they were ambushed.... Surprisingly, the
particular spot where his body was found, all the ground 20 feet around
where he was found, a foot deep, has been removed." Schroeder's son had
been shot seven times, with most of the shots in his back, and his body
had been left to rot for several days. The official lie at the time was
that Mike and his compatriots had tried to shoot their way out of the
compound. Ken Schroeder's attempts to get his legislators to do
something about this aspect of the Waco tragedy and cover-up have been
met by bureaucratic non -answers.
The F.B.I. took charge
of the Waco scene a few days after the initial assault, and during that
bureau's long siege of the compound, the media was kept three miles from
the Mt. Carmel center. Every morning at 10:30, a press conference was
held in which an F.B.I. spokesman told the nation what was supposedly
going on.
If the
news media had been fully informed about the Branch Davidians and about
the nature of the attacks against them, there would probably have been
outraged protest by the American people, who were paying for the siege
and for the killings.
The Siege
During
the 51 days between the initial A.T.F. raid and the final holocaust at
the compound, the F.B.I. cut off all utilities and sanitation. Phone
lines to everyone but the F.B.I. were severed, and radio communications
were jammed. Government loudspeakers blared nonstop with such sounds as
chants by Tibetan monks, jet planes, Nancy Sinatra singing "These Boots
Are Made for Walking," and the cries of rabbits being slaughtered. Tanks
fired percussion grenades. Stadium lights kept the house illuminated
around the clock. Black helicopters flew overhead. Linda Thompson notes
that around the 40th day of the siege, Koresh indicated that the
children and babies were out of milk. Yet relief efforts to bring baby
food to the compound were turned back. The authorities were supposed to
be concerned about the children inside the compound; in fact, that was
the main rationale for the government's actions. So why were its agents
trying to starve the children?
Sheila
Martin describes the aftermath of the February 28 raid. "We began to
stock up on water," she says. "When it rained, we collected water in
buckets and brought it back into our rooms to wash our hands and
clothes. We stayed close to our rooms and didn't venture down hallways
as much. We tried to avoid walking past windows.
"We were in the dark
every night. Except for the lights outside, we couldn't see anything. We
were glad when the morning came because we felt they weren't going to
get us then. We stayed as close as possible to each other for
encouragement. We prayed a lot and read our Bibles.
"One time they told
David to tell the people to come out, and he answered that he didn't see
us. For three weeks we did not really see him. We did not have studies.
We stayed there because we wanted to. We believed that if we stayed
close to each other, they would not do anything to hurt us. We believed
that God would take care of us.
"We didn't know what was
going to happen to us. One Tuesday morning, Margaret and Catherine
Madison went out and were taken to jail. David said, 'Those are
70-year-old women. How could they put them in jail? How could they
accuse them of conspiracy to murder?' The government removed those
charges after they stayed in jail for a week or so.
"After that happened, we
knew that we would be going to jail. We accepted that. Since we didn't
do anything, we believed that we would be out just as soon as they
realized that we weren't capable of committing any of those actions."
The
F.B.I. was supposedly urging the Branch Davidians to surrender all this
time. Yet Linda Thompson reports that a bureau spokesman announced on
April 17, that "anyone who came out would be considered a threat to the
A.T.F. agents and would be shot. Shots and percussion grenades were
fired at a person who tried to leave through a window that day."
Holocaust
A
sickening event occurred early in the morning of April 19, 1993. A tank
maneuvered repeatedly back and forth over a large underground bunker.
This bunker was a short distance from the house, connected to it by an
underground passageway. The tank shown in the video seems to be
destroying the means of egress for the people in the bunker, and the
viewer sees smoke coming up out of the ground there.
The fire
in the house started at about noon. The video shows a tank with an
extension that looks like a blazing blowtorch pushing into the house,
then pulling out. Also, A.T.F. agents are shown jumping from the burning
building, and it looks as if they are removing fire-repellent clothing
as they head away from the building. The question of government men
being inside the compound and then leaving during the fire has never
been investigated.
"People began to gather
in that area, not knowing what to do. They would ask, 'Where's the
fire?' 'What's going on?' 'What should we do?' 'Should we jump out?'
More and more people crowded into this narrow area. I was closest to the
opening.
"We made efforts to
throw a little dog out, but she attached herself to me and kept coming
back in. She had pups in the church during the siege. David Tibida kept
on throwing her out. He said he didn't want to see the dog get burned.
Eventually, she stayed out.
"Just about that time, a
lot of smoke started coming in. Within 30 seconds to a minute, the whole
place was pitch-black. You could hardly see a thing. You had the feeling
you were totally surrounded by heat. You couldn't see any flames for a
while, but you could feel this tremendously unbearable heat.
"One time a tank came in
the front door and sprayed gas. It got all over a couple of the guys.
All they had on were tank tops. Their discomfort was unbearable, and
they were hollering from the stinging sensations.
"[The authorities said]
that they stepped up the gas after 200 rounds of firing went off from
the inside that day. That's not a true statement. There was no firing
going on from inside. I have never seen any proof of it, but they
continue to claim that is the reason they stepped up the gassing.
"I put on as much
clothing as I could. I had on a couple of jackets, a hood, and a gas
mask.... I began to feel the heat in gusts. The wind caused the heat to
hit us in tremendous waves. The next thing I knew, I was on the floor. A
lot of people further into the building were also on the floor. I could
hear them rolling around in pain and praying and screaming, 'Oh my God!'
Hearing that voice, the pain, the trauma, and everything that was going
on galvanized me to jump up and make a lunge for the hole that was in
front of me. I couldn't see it in the smoke and darkness, but I knew it
was there, and I lunged for it.
"I landed on a heap of
Sheetrock and wood, and didn't make it to the outside. I just bellied
down this Sheetrock and slid over it until I landed on a heap outside.
"As I stood up, I could
see the skin rolling off my hands. I wasn't blistering regular blisters.
The skin was just rolling off in big rolls. My hands were badly burned.
I looked back over my shoulder at the hole I had just come out of. It
was a mass of flames. I thought, 'My God, I'm the only one who got
out.'"
Doyle wound up in a
medical tent, where he lost consciousness. He woke up the next day in
the hospital.
This is some of what
Sheila Martin remembers of the inferno:
"Five members of my
family died in the fire. My husband, Larry Lynch, was killed on April
19. We did not know the complex was on fire at first, but we started
smelling smoke. We didn't know what to do. We were afraid that if we
came out of the building, we would be shot. All of a sudden, the smoke
came. I couldn't see my husband any more.
"Recently, Marjorie
Thomas, a woman who was burned very badly in the fire and who lives in
England now, said that she came down a ladder from the third floor on
the left side, facing the building that eventually started leaning. She
stepped on someone and realized that it was my daughter, Sheila, and
apologized. She said, 'Oh, I'm sorry,' and my daughter replied, 'That's
all right.'
"My first
thought was, 'Oh, my goodness, that means she was alive during all that
smoke and fire and hadn't died yet.' Then I thought, here we are, in the
midst of all this horror, and we had the time to say, 'I'm sorry.'"
At noon,
tanks hit the compound
with an atomized mixture heated
so that it would release hydrogen cyanide
and carbon monoxide.
The
Suicide Story
It has
been said and generally accepted that the Branch Davidians committed
suicide. But Gordon Novel, the strategic planner for Ramsey Clark's
investigative team, believes that the government may have murdered
people.
According
to investigators, C.S. gas was pumped into the compound from 6:00 AM
to 12:00 noon on the day of the fire. C.S. is a toxic tear gas designed
for open-air use to disperse riots. In confined spaces, it has been
known to combine with other compounds to form the deadly hydrogen
cyanide gas. At noon, government tanks hit the compound with a big
injection of an atomized mixture of orthochlorobenzylidene malononitrile
and ethanol. The mixture was heated so that it would release hydrogen
cyanide and carbon monoxide into a vapor. Autopsies indicate that large
numbers of people were already dead from hydrogen cyanide gas before the
fire. People died from cyanide poisoning within four to five minutes.
In a documentary
videotape produced by KPOC-TV and aired on more than 100 stations last
year, Novel states, "I believe [the government's] intent was to trap
them, and to incapacitate them, and to poison them with cyanide gas, and
they probably came through there in the last three or four minutes,
right when the fire began to ignite and the hydrogen cyanide was in
there--we have indications of that from the F.B.I. agents taking their
respirators off right after the fire started, and you can see them
exiting the building--so based upon...the fact that the Davidians had no
.45-caliber pistols, one can reasonably deduct that they were shot while
they were wriggling on the ground, including the babies."
According to Novel, .44-
and .45-caliber pistols were found at the scene of the fire. But the
government must have known that the Davidians did not own these types of
guns, because they had a list of every weapons purchase the Davidians
had made. Although the government claimed many of the Davidian deaths
were demonic suicides, Novel says, "The Davidians were totally
nonsuicidal...very Christian in their mentality."
The government's use of
C.S. gas inside the house is one of the most disturbing aspects of the
entire tragedy. C.S. gas is never supposed to be used inside a building.
Used inside, it can create fires, and it can produce cyanide, which can
immobilize and kill. Dave Hall, who has conducted his own exhaustive
investigation of the role of C.S. gas, believes that the gas contributed
to the mass casualties at Waco. He talked with the manufacturer of C.S.
gas, Aldridge Chemicals. The company emphasized that this product was
intended for outdoor riot control only; it was not supposed to be a
weapon. In fact, the company says it stopped selling C.S. to Israel in
1988 because the government there was shooting the chemical into
buildings occupied by Palestinians. Many of those people subjected to
the gas became ill, and others died from the exposure in enclosed
quarters, as reported by Amnesty International's Chemical Report on C.S.
Agent #6.
Hall has learned that
the C.S. gas played a large part in the Waco tragedy. It both
contributed to the very high temperature fire and incapacitated its
victims so that they could not move to escape the building. In the
autopsies of Waco fire victims, cyanide--from breathing C.S. gas--was
found in the victims' blood. Also, Hall reports, "Our state fire marshal
says they aerated the building in such a way as to create the fire and
to contain the gas in there, which was as flammable as coal dust. They
knew all these things."
There was a very long
delay before fire trucks reached the site. Hall explains that the fire
trucks were held back by the A.T.F. because, had they shot water on that
fire, the gas present would have combined with the water to create a
hydrogen cyanide steam cloud that would have been deadly to the agents
surrounding the place.
Hall
provides this chronology: Smoke was seen coming from the complex at
12:05 PM.
Within minutes, fire was spotted in four different locations. But fire
trucks were not called until approximately 12:30 PM.
They were held back under the claim of danger from exploding ammunition.
Dr. George F. Uhlig is a
professor of chemistry at the College of Eastern Utah and a retired Air
Force lieutenant colonel. Here's some of what he had to say in a report
for KPOC-TV:
"In my opinion, the C.S.
was diluted with either acetone or ethanol, as the autopsies indicated
both solvents were in the lungs of the individuals killed at the Branch
Davidian complex.... The liquid aerosol...came into contact with a
flame, and the flame front traveled from particle to particle rapidly to
create the 'fireball' described by survivors. We used a similar concept
in designing fuel-air explosive devices in the Air Force. An explosive
device would detonate, sending out an aerosol of either liquid or solid
material of the proper particle size. A second explosion would then
'touch off' the aerosol mix, with devastating results. While the flame
front in the case of the Branch Davidians' complex did not generate the
overpressure of the fuel-air explosive device, the results were similar.
The structure burned rapidly to the ground, and the C.S. agent was
burned in the process. Cyanide radicals were generated as the C.S.
burned, combining with normal fluids in the lungs of the people to
generate hydr ogen-cyanide gas....
"It was probably a good
decision on the part of federal agents on the scene not to attempt to
put out the fire using water. The resulting steam generated by the water
coming into contact with the hot structure would further generate
hydrogen cyanide, and the resulting cloud of cyanide gas and steam could
have been carried by the prevailing winds over populated areas. This
could have killed people not even involved in the incident, or at least
made them extremely sick."
Dave Hall
says that for six hours straight--from 6 AM
to noon on the day of the fire--massive amounts of the C.S. gas were
injected into the Davidians' home. This was despite a previously
agreed-upon plan to use "light doses" because the children had no gas
masks. At this point, Hall notes, we must keep in mind that the F.B.I.
and the A.T.F. were fully aware that the Davidians were using kerosene
lanterns inside the compound both day and night. They knew this because
they had infrared surveillance equipment in the air and on the ground at
the complex. They were also, of course, aware of the lethal capabilities
of C.S. gas, because these were spelled out in their manual.
A telling fact is that
after the fire, the A.T.F. destroyed everything that remained of the
Branch Davidians' home and its site. Usually, after a disaster,
authorities take pains to preserve evidence so that it can be studied to
fully understand what happened. So why would they immediately level the
evidence at Waco?
Texas state fire
marshals were refused access to investigate the fire scene. They were
told it was the jurisdiction of the A.T.F. (After the whole thing was
over, the A.T.F. raised its own flag over the ruins.)
A disturbing
constitutional aspect of the events at Waco is that helicopters from the
Texas National Guard were supplied, along with military tanks and
manpower from Ft. Hood, Texas, for a police action against civilians.
This is probably illegal. How did this happen? How did the military get
involved? The F.B.I., through the Department of Justice, requested that
Texas Governor Ann Richards allow the use of helicopters from the Texas
National Guard at Waco. Texas law forbids the use of the National Guard
in police action against a citizen of the state, except when drugs are
involved in a criminal action. But the A.T.F. apparently fabricated a
drug charge to gain the use of the helicopters. Later, Governor Richards
stated publicly that she had been lied to by the Department of Justice.
One other fact was not
publicized. The Davidians would have run out of water a week or two
after the fire date. To achieve their total subjugation, there was never
really any need to incinerate their home.
The survivors of the
fire at Mt. Carmel have not had an easy time. Clyde Doyle recalls his
agony in the hospital after the fire. "When I finally came to, the
doctors and nurses asked me to identify two females who were brought in
who were badly burned," he says. "They didn't want me to get of bed, but
they described them to me. The first woman they described as tall,
black, and around 30. The only tall black woman I could think of was
Marjorie Thomas. It turned out that I was correct. She was badly burned
on her face and just about all over.
"Then they began to
describe the other woman. All of a sudden, I welled up, thinking that it
might be my 18-year-old daughter. I wanted to see her, but they told me
I couldn't. They said they would get something and that I might be able
to identify her from that. I was thinking they would bring me some
clothing to look at. Instead, one of them walked in with a great big
hunk of hair, like a scalp. They said, 'Do you think this is your
daughter?' Looking at the hair, I had the feeling it wasn't hers, unless
the fire had changed the color slightly. But I still wasn't sure.
"The next day, I was
watching television when the news came on and identified two of the
bodies," Doyle continues. "One, they said, was David Jones. The other
was identified as my daughter.... Usually on the news, names are
withheld until the next of kin is first notified. Here, my mother was
never told. My other daughter was never told. And I was never told. We
learned about my daughter's death from television. To me, this was just
another indication that we were not considered normal people, and that
anything was good enough for us. They could do anything they liked and
it would be all right."
Sheila Martin was
similarly mistreated by the authorities, but she overcame her hardship
through prayer and faith. "With all our people dead," she says, "we
didn't have a normal life. We couldn't see family and friends. We
couldn't go anywhere. We had to stay in the correctional institution. We
were watching TV, seeing the building burn, hearing them say there are
20 survivors, there are nine. We wondered what was really going on.
"They
asked us who died, and wanted to know their ages. It's not like someone
came and put their arms around you and said, 'Oh, we're so sorry.' We
had none of that. We had to be strong. We didn't want to look like we
were giving up or that we hated anyone. At the same time, we wanted to
cry our eyes out. I had three children who still needed me, and they
were somewhere else. I only got to see them one hour a week for three
weeks."
The Trial
The
surviving Branch Davidians were sentenced harshly in the aftermath of
Waco. According to Doyle, "We've been accused of killing four A.T.F.
agents and wounding 15 other people. I feel sorry that four agents died
and that some of them are badly wounded, but I went through a trial in
San Antonio and spent ten months in jail after the fire. I was one of
three who were eventually totally acquitted, although everyone was found
not guilty of any major crime, such as conspiracy, murder, and aiding
and abetting murder.
"[The
judge] did not follow the recommendations of the jury. In fact, during
the sentencing, which was in July [1994], he made a statement that he
personally believed that we were all guilty. He said the only reason
some of us were not being sentenced that day was that some of us had
better lawyers. He said we were all guilty of conspiracy and murder.
"Back in February, when
the verdict was handed down, we were found not guilty on count one and
not guilty on count two. Then the jury turned around. It might have been
due to a confusion on their parts. We talked to a few of them, and that
seems to have been the case. There were so many instructions and
misconceptions that they basically made a grave mistake as far as
certain charges go....
"[But] I believe that as
a result of the trial, for the first time, the media began to have a
different feeling about this whole thing. During the 51-day siege, very
few people in the media bothered to question what was happening. They
never asked hard questions or rocked the boat in any way. Instead, they
just printed up whatever was told to them in the morning briefings from
the F.B.I. and the A.T.F.
"By the time this case
came to trial, based on all the evidence that was being compiled at the
time, I believe they began to see that there was a massive cover-up and
a massive injustice done."
Sheila
Martin adds, "It's very sad. The people who put this whole thing
together have said that they're sorry. They've taken the blame for it,
but our people are still in jail. How can you say you're the cause of it
and that all this has happened as a result of things you did wrong, but
still keep our people in jail?"
"The
government proved
that it could use the major media
to tell the government's version
of the story to the public. It was a
victory for mass propogranda."
In his
letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee asking for an independent
investigation, Dave Hall summarizes the conclusions of his TV station's
investigation of the tragedy. Those conclusions read, in part, "The
Branch Davidians were shot upon without warning; subjected to
psychological warfare tactics; their children were killed before their
very eyes; and, finally, after 51 days, they were cyanided, many to the
point of incapacitation, others to the lethal point. The building was
set on fire with pyrotechnic tear-gas shots to destroy the evidence of
the crimes the agents had committed. Within two days, bulldozers were
brought in to further complicate any further investigation."
Why did this nightmare
happen?
The government's
confrontation with the Branch Davidians may have started as a kind of
public-relations ploy to show how good the government was at maintaining
law and order by cracking down on cults with illegal arms caches and
weird ways. But then the publicity stunt got out of control.
Linda Thompson's opinion
is that "Waco was merely one of the first tests of using federal law
enforcement with military, and using military tactics. The government
proved it could use the major media to tell the government's version of
the story to the public. It was a victory for mass propaganda.
"They murdered 96 people
in front of our eyes on national TV, and the public bought it."
And Waco has one final,
totally chilling message to the people of America: "It is useless to
resist.... Don't confront your government, or you'll be dealt with."
Anyone who accepts without question the official version of the
government's war against the Branch Davidians has, in reality, already
surrendered.
