No one was going to back down after these losses - that's probably the same way wars between nations begin. ATF went into the Davidian compound to make arrests concerning alleged federal firearms violations and wound up burying four brave federal agents, while the Davidians were left to grieve their own losses. The initial confrontation between the Davidians and the ATF had cost lives on both sides, including four ATF Agents and six Branch Davidians. In a later radio broadcast he asked Koresh to listen to us, again to no avail. Despite the host's disgust for the government, he believed that the FBI wanted to end the siege peacefully. We tried to convince Koresh to end the confrontation peacefully, even through "off-channel contacts." I met with a local right-wing radio talk show host on some lonely, wind-swept dirt crossroad just outside of town to discuss the ongoing standoff. (The negotiators also banged heads with the FBI tactical team, but that’s another story.) We made many concessions that went unanswered by the Davidians. There were 850 individual conversations between negotiators and the Davidian members, all to no avail. The key to Koresh was meeting him on a Biblical level, and I was told "never again"…Īnd so it went. The next morning I was told by the on-scene commander’s representative, “No more Bible babble.” They just didn’t get it. By his own definition, he was the only one who really understood and who could unlock the seals as described in that complicated book of the Bible. He rebuffed our efforts to bring negotiations to his level though, passing us off as people who obviously didn’t understand the book of Revelation and the seven seals. Koresh was not accustomed to being challenged on his interpretation of the scriptures, as his small congregation was said to accept whatever David said, (i.e., The Gospel according to David). In John 10, for example, it says, ‘I am the good Shepherd the good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep.’ You’re talking about taking the lives of your entire flock, not saving them.” “David,” I said, “we may agree and disagree on a number of things, but your actions do not appear to agree with those of Christ. When we talked one night, David said, “Brother Clint” (as he called me), “do you know who I am? I’m the Christ.” We’d race from book to book and chapter to chapter with Koresh trying to use scripture to justify his actions, including his sexual contact with prepubescent girls and the other female members of his clan. We talked about many things for the next few hours, but mostly we discussed the Bible, or Koresh’s interpretation of it. I was one of many, but the negotiations team that I led suggested Koresh and I speak, and so we did. I remember one particular night when Koresh asked to speak to a Christian FBI agent. I had the chance to speak directly with David Koresh on multiple occasions during the many weeks that I spent at Waco as an FBI hostage negotiator. It was fire that had been ordered set by their 33-year-old leader, David Wayne Howell, aka Vernon Howell, aka David Koresh.īut the tunnels were not real and my prayers would go unanswered that morning on that windy hilltop. As the flames grew higher and higher in the Texas sky, I silently prayed that the secret tunnels we had been told existed (they supposedly led out of the Davidian’s large, warehouse-like group home) were somehow filled with children and adults who had fled the fire. I stood there watching as that black, emotionless fire roared across and ultimately consumed the Branch Davidian compound that fateful day. It ended with the government using armored vehicles to insert CS gas into a large, poorly-constructed wooden building that was subsequently set afire by its very occupants, resulting in the death of almost all of the members of this doomsday cult, sect, group, or extended family. Most of us do not think of Waco as the home of the Texas Ranger Museum, but as the location of the fatal confrontation between agents of the federal government and a group of heavily-armed Americans. It said, “I love my country, it’s the government I’m afraid of.” Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Okla., I’m reminded of a bumper sticker I saw on a pickup truck shortly after the conflagration at Waco. It is also the date of at least two other major incidents in our country’s collective history: the siege at Waco and the Oklahoma City bombing.Īs I consider the 10 and 12-year anniversaries of the death and destruction that occurred at the Branch Davidian compound at Waco, Tex., and the Alfred P.
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