Tuesday, March 20, 2018

"I'm from the Government, and I'm Here to Kill You." - Waco: The Untold Story


This year marks the 25th anniversary of the Waco atrocity, the bloodiest and most expensive law enforcement operation in the history of the United States.  The gun battle, siege, and lethal fire have already been the subject of three commemorative documentaries and docudramas on the subject, with more to come.  The sad fact is that the documentaries to date contain major errors.  I know this because I spent three years in Freedom of Information Act lawsuits in a quest for the truth.

The 1993 operation was begun by the then-Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) and directed at a religious group sometimes called the Branch Davidians, led by David Koresh.  The basis for the raid was flimsy evidence that the Davidians possessed unregistered machine guns.  On February 28, eighty agents, backed by three borrowed military helicopters, tried to storm the Branch Davidian center near Waco, Texas.  Shooting broke out that left four agents and six Davidians dead and led to a 51-day siege.  The siege in turn ended with a fire that killed more than 80 additional people.

2 comments: