A number of people, both witnesses and historians, have tried to accurately document the facts of what happened on February 28th, 1993 in Waco, Texas in the clash between law enforcement and a religious group known as the Branch Davidians. No one seems able to write about those events in an unbiased manner, since it seems that the whole thing was preventable. Even the academics appear to have a cause, so it's difficult at times to piece together what actually happened and who was to blame. Was Koresh a manipulative psychopath who exploited an opportunity, as many FBI agents claim, or was he just a deluded religious leader whose private play was suddenly exposed on the world's stage? Perhaps we'll never know.
Hostage negotiator Christopher Whitcomb, writing in Cold Zero, and true crime writer Clifford Linedecker in Massacre at Waco, Texas both present a chronology of the facts on that momentous Sunday morning.
Somewhere between 70 and 76 armed agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) prepared to move on a group of wooden buildings outside the central Texas town of Waco. Known as the Mount Carmel Center, the place was occupied by members of an apocalyptic religious group that was led by a man named David Koresh. Rumored to be stockpiled inside was an arsenal of explosives and weapons, some of which reportedly had been illegally converted to rapid-fire automatic.
That put them under the ATF's jurisdiction. A UPS driver had tipped off the government when a package bound for Mount Carmel had broken open to reveal casings for hand grenades. While the group did earn money from gun sales and were legally allowed to trade in arms, it appeared that they weren't following protocol. Some neighbors also reported a lot of target practice.
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