WEBVTT - The 1993 Waco Siege 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:04.960 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:13.840 Hey, and welcome into the podcast. I'm Josh and there's 0:00:13.960 --> 0:00:16.279 Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you 0:00:16.280 --> 0:00:19.960 should know. And if you're gonna do it, do it right? 0:00:20.239 --> 0:00:24.560 Do it with us? Is that a song? 0:00:25.280 --> 0:00:29.400 It's a George Michael song. Okay, I don't remember the song. 0:00:30.680 --> 0:00:34.800 He's like, Babe, Babe, I'm your man. Don't you know 0:00:34.800 --> 0:00:35.559 why I am? 0:00:36.440 --> 0:00:37.559 I think that's wham, isn't it? 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:46.200 Maybe could be they're virtually interchangeable. Sorry, Andrew, Oh my goodness. Yeah. 0:00:46.200 --> 0:00:50.600 Did you know George did everything with last Christmas? I 0:00:50.600 --> 0:00:53.199 mean he wrote it all, he composed it, He's sang it. 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:54.840 Andy played the instruments. 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:57.720 Uh No, I didn't know that. I didn't know he 0:00:58.200 --> 0:01:00.600 played instruments. And I even saw a document him. 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:02.640 I didn't either, but I saw that somewhere. I didn't 0:01:02.680 --> 0:01:05.199 follow up about it. Now I'm sweating that it's not true. 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:08.760 Well, hopefully at the end of this episode, no one 0:01:08.840 --> 0:01:11.440 more remembered George Michael's Christmas song. 0:01:11.600 --> 0:01:15.560 Great point, Chuck, because this episode is much more serious 0:01:15.640 --> 0:01:20.440 than George Michael's heart that he gave away. Foolishly last Christmas. 0:01:21.040 --> 0:01:25.240 This is about one of the darkest moments in American 0:01:25.319 --> 0:01:30.600 law enforcement history. Yeah, and very maddeningly one that the 0:01:31.720 --> 0:01:35.680 federal government just basically walked away from, like just kind 0:01:35.720 --> 0:01:37.600 of dusting off his hands, like, yeah, we got out 0:01:37.640 --> 0:01:40.880 of that one. There hasn't really ever been any real 0:01:40.920 --> 0:01:45.080 accountability for Waco, despite attempts, Like there are tons of 0:01:45.120 --> 0:01:48.320 like hearings and stuff like that, but really, like overall, 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:51.880 there just wasn't any huge reckoning over it, and there 0:01:51.920 --> 0:01:55.400 should have been because it was an American tragedy, even 0:01:55.440 --> 0:02:02.160 if in some ways the Branch to Vidian group were, 0:02:02.360 --> 0:02:06.320 you know, at least partially responsible for sure, they're part two. 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:10.400 Yeah, Like I hope that comes across in this episode 0:02:10.480 --> 0:02:13.040 because I know we're going to get a little probably 0:02:13.120 --> 0:02:15.400 riled up here and there about like how it was handled. 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:18.200 But I'll go ahead and just say my takeaway at 0:02:18.240 --> 0:02:22.239 the beginning. You know, you can't you can't hole up 0:02:22.840 --> 0:02:26.480 and be a pedophile in a house, and you can't 0:02:26.600 --> 0:02:31.280 illegally like collect and sell and modify guns into machine 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:34.079 guns and sell those Like no one's disputing that stuff, right. 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:37.720 I think the issue is the way this all went 0:02:37.800 --> 0:02:41.280 down in the end when it could have probably gone 0:02:41.320 --> 0:02:44.480 down with the loss of zero lives, ye, much less 0:02:44.560 --> 0:02:47.519 the loss of what was at eighty six. 0:02:47.320 --> 0:02:50.000 People total, Yeah, including twenty kids. 0:02:50.560 --> 0:02:52.800 Yeah, So that that's sort of the issue at hand 0:02:52.960 --> 0:02:53.799 for me personally. 0:02:54.639 --> 0:02:56.720 Yeah, I think that that hits it on the nose. 0:02:57.080 --> 0:03:01.480 Well, let's talk about the Branch Davidians. A. Yeah, because 0:03:01.600 --> 0:03:07.639 I up until two days ago, I thought that Davidians 0:03:07.720 --> 0:03:10.720 came from David Koresh. I thought they got that name 0:03:10.840 --> 0:03:14.440 from him as their leader, just because I didn't know 0:03:14.560 --> 0:03:16.480 a ton about it aside from, you know, kind of 0:03:16.480 --> 0:03:18.560 following it as it happened when I was in college 0:03:18.560 --> 0:03:21.800 on the news. But the Branch Davidians, they got that 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:25.400 name because in nineteen fifty five, a guy named Benjamin 0:03:25.480 --> 0:03:31.040 Roaden started a branch, a new sect of Seventh day Adventists, 0:03:32.720 --> 0:03:36.640 a Davidian sect, which had, you know, to do with 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:39.640 the monarchy of Israel under King David. It had nothing 0:03:39.680 --> 0:03:41.680 to do with David Koresh as David. 0:03:41.520 --> 0:03:44.280 Right, he retrofitted his name. He was actually born Vernon 0:03:44.320 --> 0:03:46.600 Wayne Howell, and he's like, yeah, you know, I could 0:03:46.640 --> 0:03:49.280 probably get a lot further trying to become the leader 0:03:49.320 --> 0:03:52.520 of this sect, if I changed my name to the 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:57.080 same name as the name of the sect, yeah, so yes, 0:03:57.160 --> 0:03:59.880 they actually split. They were a branch, but then they 0:04:00.040 --> 0:04:03.720 split fully from the Adventist Church because they started to 0:04:04.920 --> 0:04:09.360 predict the date of you know, end times, started to 0:04:09.400 --> 0:04:13.640 follow leaders as prophets, and the Seventh day Adventists are like, 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:15.520 we did that like a century ago. We don't do 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:20.839 that anymore. You guys, go away. And so the teachings 0:04:20.920 --> 0:04:24.320 though of the people before David Koresh. When he came in, 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:27.640 there was a woman named Lois Rodent. They attracted dozens 0:04:27.640 --> 0:04:30.159 of people at any given time. They were probably somewhere 0:04:30.200 --> 0:04:36.000 around one hundred people who were living and working in worshiping. 0:04:36.040 --> 0:04:38.840 I guess at the what was called Mount Carmel, their 0:04:38.880 --> 0:04:44.719 compound outside of Waco. The branch Davidians were pretty well 0:04:44.839 --> 0:04:48.880 suited for the Waco, Texas area. They were into guns, 0:04:49.240 --> 0:04:52.479 they were into religion. They interacted with the rest of 0:04:52.480 --> 0:04:54.880 the community. They were free to come and go. They 0:04:54.920 --> 0:04:59.200 didn't believe that David Koresh was God like. It wasn't 0:04:59.240 --> 0:05:01.520 like a cult in the way that it's often portrayed 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:04.599 or that we generally think of cults, but at the 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:07.800 same time, they were millennialists. They thought that end times 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:10.640 was coming, and that essentially what they were doing and 0:05:10.680 --> 0:05:13.840 what the ATF was doing to them was bringing about 0:05:13.920 --> 0:05:16.679 judgment day. That's what was going on with these guys, 0:05:16.680 --> 0:05:19.400 and they were such believers that they were willing to 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:23.000 dig in and sacrifice their own lives to help bring 0:05:23.120 --> 0:05:26.040 judgment day sooner, I guess. 0:05:26.200 --> 0:05:29.520 Yeah, but some of them fully believed he was the Messiah. 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:33.039 By the way, that's really huh. Yeah, did you watch 0:05:33.040 --> 0:05:33.680 the documentary? 0:05:33.760 --> 0:05:36.560 No, I didn't see the documentary. I saw just the 0:05:36.600 --> 0:05:41.000 stuff I read, basically, was that they believed he was 0:05:41.040 --> 0:05:43.400 the Lamb, which is the person who can interpret the 0:05:43.440 --> 0:05:47.680 seven seals that will bring about judgment Day. But beyond that, 0:05:47.760 --> 0:05:50.839 he wasn't like God or anything like that. He was 0:05:51.320 --> 0:05:54.560 a prophet of sorts, but not like a Messiah. That's 0:05:54.560 --> 0:05:55.080 what I saw. 0:05:55.640 --> 0:05:57.720 Yeah, Well, he said with his own mouth, I am 0:05:57.760 --> 0:06:01.719 the Messiah, and there are Davidians that are still alive 0:06:01.760 --> 0:06:03.360 that believe he was a Messiah. 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:04.800 So well, there goes me. 0:06:07.160 --> 0:06:09.520 Another thing I didn't know is that that Mount Carmel 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:12.640 had been active since nineteen thirty five, so it had 0:06:12.680 --> 0:06:15.119 been around a long long time. It's about thirteen miles 0:06:15.160 --> 0:06:19.000 northeast of Waco, Texas, And so they had been around 0:06:19.000 --> 0:06:20.680 for a long long time, and in fifty five is 0:06:20.720 --> 0:06:24.599 when that official split came, and then fifty nine was when. 0:06:25.040 --> 0:06:26.719 And I think that's why they were like, hey, don't 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:29.960 predict these second comings, because when they don't happen, you 0:06:30.040 --> 0:06:32.719 end up looking kind of dumb, exactly, And that happened 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:35.880 in nineteen fifty five. The second coming did not happen, 0:06:35.960 --> 0:06:38.919 and so they ended up there with that last group, 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:41.600 Like you said, about one hundred people. Koresh had been 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:45.560 around since he was in his early twenties. He got 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:47.679 off to a kind of a rocky start there because 0:06:48.200 --> 0:06:50.359 he had had an affair with Lois Roden, who I 0:06:50.360 --> 0:06:54.320 guess was Benjamin Roden's wife, Yes, if the math checks out. 0:06:55.040 --> 0:06:57.280 She was in her sixties and he was in his twenties, 0:06:57.320 --> 0:07:00.600 and he got into a squabble with her son about 0:07:00.640 --> 0:07:03.640 who was going to become leader and ended up shooting him, 0:07:04.200 --> 0:07:07.200 and like he was arrested and everything, and it was 0:07:07.240 --> 0:07:09.400 a hung jury, so he never he never had to 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:11.320 serve time for that shooting. 0:07:11.600 --> 0:07:14.160 Right, So he took over like after that he was 0:07:14.200 --> 0:07:18.200 pretty much the undisputed leader. One of the first things 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:20.920 he did was he married a fourteen year old member 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:25.920 of the church, and her parents consented and said, yeah, sure, 0:07:26.480 --> 0:07:29.560 be married to our fourteen year old daughter who you're 0:07:29.600 --> 0:07:33.000 ten years older than, which made it legal in Texas 0:07:33.040 --> 0:07:36.880 at the time. That was you know, sign number one. 0:07:37.360 --> 0:07:40.040 But if you rewind a little bit before he showed 0:07:40.120 --> 0:07:43.560 up at the branch Davidian compound, he had actually been 0:07:44.280 --> 0:07:47.520 d fellow shipped is what it's called where the Adventists 0:07:47.600 --> 0:07:51.040 kick you out, because he had seduced, Yeah, which I 0:07:51.040 --> 0:07:54.760 think means that he sexually assaulted and actually successfully sexually 0:07:54.800 --> 0:07:57.000 assaulted a fifteen year old daughter of one of the 0:07:57.080 --> 0:07:58.600 church's elders. 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:02.800 Yeah. You know, he had a pretty rough upbringing before that. 0:08:04.240 --> 0:08:06.400 Like you said, he was born in Houston. He was 0:08:06.720 --> 0:08:10.720 reportedly had suffered sexual abuse of his own at the 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:14.240 hands of older boys. He had dyslexia and did not 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:16.400 do well in school. I think he failed first grade 0:08:16.440 --> 0:08:18.800 a couple of times and was a dropout by the 0:08:18.840 --> 0:08:22.560 time he was in middle school. And yeah, so you 0:08:22.560 --> 0:08:25.560 know that was his sort of rough childhood. 0:08:26.040 --> 0:08:28.480 For sure, and over the years he kind of got 0:08:28.560 --> 0:08:32.920 into guns. He really got into the Bible like that 0:08:33.040 --> 0:08:35.480 was one of the things that I think people were 0:08:35.600 --> 0:08:39.200 drawn to about him at the Branch Davinians sect was 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:42.320 like he knew what he was talking about. He was 0:08:42.360 --> 0:08:48.080 also very charismatic, and he could essentially run Bible studies 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:51.840 that ran, you know, ten twelve hours at a length, 0:08:52.160 --> 0:08:54.760 and people weren't getting fatigued, like they were still just 0:08:54.880 --> 0:08:57.880 jazz the whole time. So he definitely knew what he 0:08:57.920 --> 0:09:00.240 was talking about. He wasn't just making stuff up the 0:09:00.240 --> 0:09:03.120 top of his head, like he very much understood the 0:09:03.120 --> 0:09:04.880 Book of Revelations in particular. 0:09:05.760 --> 0:09:09.240 Yeah, for sure. One of the first things he did 0:09:10.240 --> 0:09:13.280 once he was in charge was he said, God has 0:09:13.320 --> 0:09:17.760 told me that I need to bear a lot of children, 0:09:18.320 --> 0:09:20.280 and I need to have multiple wives in order to 0:09:20.360 --> 0:09:23.040 do that. I think he was supposed to God told 0:09:23.120 --> 0:09:24.760 him to have or at least he said, God told 0:09:24.840 --> 0:09:27.560 him to have twenty four children and they would be 0:09:27.720 --> 0:09:30.600 sort of the rulers in the future kingdom. And so 0:09:30.880 --> 0:09:34.320 at first he started with the single women of the group, 0:09:34.920 --> 0:09:36.719 and then that wasn't enough and he was having a 0:09:36.760 --> 0:09:39.079 lot of kids. I think he had seventeen in the end. 0:09:40.040 --> 0:09:42.360 Then he moved on to the married women and separated 0:09:42.400 --> 0:09:44.640 the couples out and said, all right, you can no 0:09:44.720 --> 0:09:47.640 longer be with your husband. I'm the only one here. 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:50.800 I'm the only male here who was allowed to have intercourse. 0:09:51.000 --> 0:09:53.720 All the other guys have to remain celibate. And they 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:56.079 all went along with it. And you know this included 0:09:56.600 --> 0:09:59.960 taking children up girls. That was this one woman, Cathy Schrow, 0:10:00.160 --> 0:10:04.200 who was very disturbing because she still believes all this stuff. 0:10:04.240 --> 0:10:06.800 But she was interviewed who said that they were all 0:10:06.840 --> 0:10:09.040 trying to stay awake, all the girls at the end 0:10:09.080 --> 0:10:11.600 of these marathon Bible studies, even though they were exhausted, 0:10:11.679 --> 0:10:14.920 so he would pick them to go back to his 0:10:15.559 --> 0:10:18.880 room and have sex with them. And she also it 0:10:18.920 --> 0:10:21.640 was really hard to watch, but she still to this 0:10:21.720 --> 0:10:25.719 day was like, they weren't children. We weren't children. They 0:10:25.840 --> 0:10:28.040 sure some of them were as young as ten, but 0:10:28.160 --> 0:10:31.439 they were adults in our culture. Yeah. 0:10:32.080 --> 0:10:35.120 Man, you know how the world found out about that too? 0:10:35.240 --> 0:10:37.480 Chuck about which part. 0:10:37.400 --> 0:10:42.319 Well about him sexually abusing minors children. It was a 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:46.120 current affairs show. Well, first the Way Tribune Harald did 0:10:46.559 --> 0:10:50.120 a series of articles on it, so that caught the 0:10:50.160 --> 0:10:54.000 local attention. But a current affairs show called a Current Affair, 0:10:54.360 --> 0:10:57.680 the Australian version, back in nineteen ninety two went and 0:10:57.960 --> 0:11:02.400 interviewed David Koresh. And this is before anybody knew who 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:05.400 David Koresh was, so they had a lot of foresight 0:11:05.440 --> 0:11:07.960 and they went and investigated it because this is a 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:10.120 I mean, obviously it's a really big deal that there's 0:11:10.200 --> 0:11:13.560 a yeah, essentially what everyone thought of at the time 0:11:13.600 --> 0:11:16.240 and still do in a lot of ways. A cult 0:11:16.280 --> 0:11:19.320 leader who is sexually abusing the children of his sect, 0:11:19.920 --> 0:11:24.520 that's definitely worth investigating. That's not what the ATF investigated 0:11:24.600 --> 0:11:25.640 him for them. 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:29.160 No, they're the ATF. They don' dabble in that kind 0:11:29.200 --> 0:11:32.520 of stuff. What they do dabble in is guns and firearms, 0:11:33.120 --> 0:11:35.160 and that is what got them. You know, I mentioned 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:40.319 early on they were illegally collecting and buying and selling 0:11:40.400 --> 0:11:45.320 and retrofitting basically making machine guns and then selling those 0:11:45.400 --> 0:11:49.840 illegally at gun shows, and so that's what caught their attention. 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:54.560 And you know, they were collecting these guns and supposedly 0:11:54.640 --> 0:11:57.640 like more than like close to two million rounds of ammunition, 0:11:58.920 --> 0:12:03.079 training everyone in there to use, like including the kids. 0:12:03.120 --> 0:12:07.120 To use these weapons. They were preparing for the end days. 0:12:07.240 --> 0:12:10.400 Yeah exactly, and they were going to go out with 0:12:10.520 --> 0:12:11.280 guns blazing. 0:12:12.000 --> 0:12:14.720 Yeah, well, well, which is what they did allegedly. 0:12:14.960 --> 0:12:19.640 The thing that initially caught the ATF's attention. They were 0:12:19.679 --> 0:12:21.760 already aware that there was such a thing as the 0:12:21.800 --> 0:12:24.640 Branch Davidians and that they had a business selling guns 0:12:24.640 --> 0:12:27.200 at gun shows. But the thing that really caught their 0:12:27.200 --> 0:12:31.920 attention was apparently a UPS driver was delivering a box 0:12:32.000 --> 0:12:34.520 and I guess the box fell open and a bunch 0:12:34.559 --> 0:12:39.439 of grenade shells fell out, and the UPS driver thought 0:12:39.520 --> 0:12:42.560 that's odd, like who gets fifty grenade shells delivered to 0:12:42.640 --> 0:12:46.920 their compound? And I guess alerted the federal authorities, and 0:12:46.960 --> 0:12:51.440 that's when they really started investigating the Branch Davidians. I say, 0:12:51.440 --> 0:12:53.200 we take a break and talk about how well that 0:12:53.320 --> 0:12:55.280 investigation was conducted. How about that? 0:12:56.240 --> 0:13:16.720 Yeah, we'll be right back, all right. I think I 0:13:16.760 --> 0:13:20.600 snickered when we left because you Riley said, we'll talk 0:13:20.640 --> 0:13:23.440 about how that went, because it did not go well 0:13:23.600 --> 0:13:26.079 for a while. In fact, none of this went well 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:29.160 before the raid ultimately happened. There were a lot of 0:13:29.640 --> 0:13:34.280 just kind of stupid moves from the ATF one time, 0:13:34.440 --> 0:13:36.880 they were like, hey, we need to keep an eye 0:13:36.880 --> 0:13:40.400 on this. So there's a house sort of nearby. I 0:13:40.440 --> 0:13:42.760 think it was like seventy acres the whole compound, but 0:13:43.200 --> 0:13:44.680 there was a house about a half a mile away, 0:13:44.679 --> 0:13:47.160 and they said, let's pose this college students. They're like 0:13:47.200 --> 0:13:51.040 renting this house, but they come in there. I feel 0:13:51.080 --> 0:13:54.320 like anytime like these people try to go undercover like that, 0:13:54.840 --> 0:13:57.840 like let's pose as kids out having a good time, 0:13:57.920 --> 0:14:00.560 and it just never goes well. And it didn't. They 0:14:00.600 --> 0:14:04.920 had suitcases, they had rental cars, like new rental cars. 0:14:06.040 --> 0:14:08.200 They eventually were like, I think they're onto us, so 0:14:08.280 --> 0:14:10.959 let's have a party. And one of the branch Davidians 0:14:11.000 --> 0:14:13.520 came to the party and I'm sure they were like, hey, 0:14:13.520 --> 0:14:16.600 would you like a Bruski and the branch Davidian went 0:14:16.600 --> 0:14:19.240 back on like, by the way, those are definitely not college. 0:14:18.960 --> 0:14:23.440 Students, right right. Don't you hate mortgages too, fellows, Yes, 0:14:23.520 --> 0:14:27.360 young person. I saw they also carried briefcases as well, 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:30.480 rather than backpacked and stuff. So yeah, it wasn't the 0:14:30.480 --> 0:14:35.760 best undercover operation. They sent another undercover agent to pose 0:14:35.800 --> 0:14:38.720 as a UPS employee, and he did all sorts of 0:14:38.720 --> 0:14:41.480 stuff that ups employees don't do, Like he insisted that 0:14:41.880 --> 0:14:45.040 they Branch Davidians let him use the phone in a bathroom, 0:14:45.640 --> 0:14:48.280 and then he went to another part of the compound 0:14:48.320 --> 0:14:50.640 and tried the same thing, and they met him at 0:14:50.640 --> 0:14:54.040 the door with a roll of toilet paper, and then 0:14:54.120 --> 0:14:59.040 another guy, Robert Rodriguez. He actually managed to successfully embed 0:14:59.240 --> 0:15:02.120 himself in the Branch Davidians. He showed up as a 0:15:02.160 --> 0:15:07.560 student and a follower and started attending Bible studies and 0:15:07.600 --> 0:15:10.600 it was successful in that, like he was never kicked out, 0:15:11.040 --> 0:15:13.360 but it was unsuccessful in that they knew that he 0:15:13.400 --> 0:15:17.640 was a federal agent almost from the outset, and later on, 0:15:17.800 --> 0:15:21.800 I think during these negotiation talks, the FBI was like, well, 0:15:21.840 --> 0:15:23.560 if you knew he was undercover, why didn't you kick 0:15:23.640 --> 0:15:26.520 him out? And I don't remember who said it. One 0:15:26.520 --> 0:15:29.400 of them said, we liked him, like we saw it 0:15:29.440 --> 0:15:31.400 as core. He was a good guy and we liked 0:15:31.440 --> 0:15:33.840 being around and we came to like him, so why 0:15:33.840 --> 0:15:37.280 would we kick him out? So it was really weird, 0:15:37.320 --> 0:15:39.880 like they were almost toying with the Feds because they 0:15:39.920 --> 0:15:41.880 knew the Feds were investigating them, And it was so 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:47.200 clumsy that they didn't feel particularly threatened at this point, 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:49.920 but the whole thing started in May nineteen ninety two, 0:15:49.960 --> 0:15:52.840 and by February nineteen ninety three, I guess the ATF 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:55.840 was like, we have enough information that we're going to 0:15:56.080 --> 0:15:58.400 we're going to carry out a raid. We're not just 0:15:58.400 --> 0:15:59.680 going to show up and ask him to come out. 0:15:59.680 --> 0:16:02.560 We're going to carry a hard hitting raid. And why 0:16:02.560 --> 0:16:03.200 did they do that? 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:06.840 Chuck Well, I mean, they got a warrant, so they 0:16:06.880 --> 0:16:08.960 had enough information to at least get a like a 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:14.120 legal warrant to search everything. Their goal initially was to 0:16:14.200 --> 0:16:18.240 just get those illegal weapons. Arrest David Koresh, who, by 0:16:18.280 --> 0:16:20.040 the way, and I think you found this was that 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:23.440 like he had a relationship with the local sheriff, and 0:16:23.880 --> 0:16:26.680 at any point the local sheriff could and I think 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:28.520 did say like hey man, once you come in and 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:31.480 like talk to us about what's going on, and that happened, 0:16:31.480 --> 0:16:35.440 so like none of this seemed to have been completely necessary. 0:16:35.800 --> 0:16:37.520 I think they also were the und of the impression 0:16:37.520 --> 0:16:40.520 that like they were bunkered in and like he never 0:16:40.600 --> 0:16:45.040 left the compound, But upon further investigation, they found that 0:16:45.120 --> 0:16:47.760 he kind of regularly would leave the compound and they 0:16:47.760 --> 0:16:50.960 probably could have lured him out, but they you know, 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:53.000 they were kind of bungling this from the beginning, so 0:16:53.040 --> 0:16:58.800 they planned a surprise kind of raid warrant serving where 0:16:58.840 --> 0:17:01.640 they would force entry, and they were like, we're going 0:17:01.720 --> 0:17:03.280 to catch them off guard, they won't have time to 0:17:03.400 --> 0:17:06.720 arm themselves, and it's going to go great. 0:17:06.880 --> 0:17:08.959 They had a lot of bad intelligence too, that this 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:11.880 raid was based on. One. I don't know where they 0:17:11.920 --> 0:17:14.120 got this, but they were under the impression that all 0:17:14.119 --> 0:17:16.800 of the weapons were kept under lock and key and 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:21.400 that you only access those with Koresh's direct permission. That's 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:23.439 not true at all. The weapons were all over the 0:17:23.480 --> 0:17:26.600 compound and basically everybody walking around the compound knew how 0:17:26.680 --> 0:17:30.080 to use them and was prepared to right. That's a 0:17:30.119 --> 0:17:34.000 really big intelligence failure when you're planning a raid. Another 0:17:34.080 --> 0:17:37.000 is there was a pit that they assumed that most, 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:39.080 if not all, of the men would be working in, 0:17:39.640 --> 0:17:43.400 and apparently during the surveillance the most bend that had 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:45.560 ever been seen there at one time was thirteen. So 0:17:45.600 --> 0:17:48.359 that was a bad assumption. And then, like you said, 0:17:48.359 --> 0:17:51.359 they were like, he never leaves the compound, so we 0:17:51.520 --> 0:17:55.680 have to raid them there's one other thing about the raid. 0:17:55.760 --> 0:17:58.639 So the ATF was conducting the raid at the time. 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:03.440 The ATF reported to the Treasury Department, and they planned 0:18:03.440 --> 0:18:07.240 this raid based on the element of surprise, right, The 0:18:07.320 --> 0:18:10.680 whole thing was supposed to have the element of surprise, 0:18:11.160 --> 0:18:13.600 And later on there would be a lot of disagreement 0:18:13.600 --> 0:18:16.000 about whether this was said or not. But supposedly the 0:18:16.080 --> 0:18:18.359 higher ups of Treasury were like, if there's no element 0:18:18.400 --> 0:18:21.399 of surprise anymore, if you lose it, yeah, don't do 0:18:21.520 --> 0:18:23.720 the raid. And that's not what happened. 0:18:25.119 --> 0:18:27.040 No, And you know, part of this makes me wonder 0:18:27.040 --> 0:18:31.639 if they were feeding that informant bad information too. Oh yeah, 0:18:31.680 --> 0:18:34.000 I didn't ever see anything about that, but like I've 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:36.439 seen enough movies to know if they kept inviting this 0:18:36.480 --> 0:18:39.560 guy back to Bible study, then they may have been saying, like, 0:18:39.600 --> 0:18:41.000 you know, all the guns here are under lock and 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:44.760 key or whatever. But who knows. That is chuck speculations. 0:18:45.240 --> 0:18:46.239 Don't quote me on it. 0:18:46.119 --> 0:18:47.119 It seems like it could be. 0:18:48.280 --> 0:18:55.400 But yeah, so the raid is blown because of another 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:59.600 just this wasn't so much a blunder by the ATF. 0:18:59.640 --> 0:19:02.720 It was just a blunder by the media. Yeah, because 0:19:02.760 --> 0:19:05.639 it was a cameraman named Jim Peeler and a reporter. 0:19:05.800 --> 0:19:10.080 He was he's all over this documentary. He stopped on 0:19:10.160 --> 0:19:12.560 the way out there because he was tipped off. They 0:19:12.560 --> 0:19:14.600 don't know who. Maybe a shriff, steput or somebody tipped 0:19:14.640 --> 0:19:15.960 him off that this is going to be going down. 0:19:16.160 --> 0:19:19.040 So he wanted to scoop so he couldn't find the compound, 0:19:19.600 --> 0:19:22.800 and he stops a mail truck, a friendly mail carrier. 0:19:22.960 --> 0:19:26.040 It's like, hey, where's this Branch Davidian compound. I think 0:19:26.080 --> 0:19:28.520 there's a raid going on and I want to cover it. 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:31.320 And that mail carrier was a Branch Davidian. So he 0:19:31.480 --> 0:19:33.840 high tailed it back there and was like, we're about 0:19:33.840 --> 0:19:34.760 to get raided, you guys. 0:19:34.960 --> 0:19:37.760 Yeah, And so when he tells David Koresh this, we're 0:19:37.760 --> 0:19:42.160 about to get raided. Robert Rodriguez, the undercover student who 0:19:42.600 --> 0:19:45.080 had embedded himself as a follower who they knew was 0:19:45.119 --> 0:19:48.080 a fed, he's standing right there talking to David Koresh 0:19:48.080 --> 0:19:50.640 when the mail carrier, David Jones, runs up and tells 0:19:50.680 --> 0:19:53.760 him they're about to get raided. So, knowing that the 0:19:53.960 --> 0:19:57.120 element of surprise has been blown, Robert Rodriguez runs back 0:19:57.160 --> 0:19:59.879 to the safe house to call his superiors, gets int 0:20:00.000 --> 0:20:03.800 such of them and apparently is like, the surprise is blown, 0:20:04.119 --> 0:20:06.600 we need to call off the raid, and the I 0:20:06.600 --> 0:20:09.280 guess the speers were like, oh, bad, bad connection, I 0:20:09.320 --> 0:20:11.480 can't hear you, see you. We're gonna go rate them now, 0:20:11.720 --> 0:20:15.200 And that's essentially what happened. They carried on with the raid, 0:20:15.680 --> 0:20:18.840 knowing full well that koresh knew they were coming, and 0:20:18.880 --> 0:20:22.919 that apparently gave them a sense of urgency that hadn't 0:20:22.960 --> 0:20:25.680 even been there before. And then on top of that, 0:20:25.760 --> 0:20:28.240 one of the reasons why they planned the raid in 0:20:28.280 --> 0:20:32.359 the first place, this big, whizbang fourth century raid with 0:20:32.480 --> 0:20:36.160 like like a tactical team going in, was that they 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:39.840 were up for a budget review, congressional budget review, and 0:20:39.920 --> 0:20:44.200 they wanted something splashy to get the attention of Congress 0:20:44.200 --> 0:20:46.280 and be like, see, this is what you give us 0:20:46.320 --> 0:20:49.560 money for. So they had every incentive to go in 0:20:50.080 --> 0:20:52.040 unnecessarily roughly. 0:20:52.560 --> 0:20:56.639 Yeah, for sure. So on February twenty eighth, there were 0:20:56.680 --> 0:21:00.200 seventy six armed agents that came up from Fort Hood. 0:21:00.760 --> 0:21:04.480 They were obfuscated and cattle trucks. They had canvas thrown 0:21:04.520 --> 0:21:08.359 over the back of these trucks hiding. Of course h 0:21:08.480 --> 0:21:10.520 and them knew they were coming anyway, so it's not 0:21:10.560 --> 0:21:13.359 like that mattered. And at the very beginning of this thing, 0:21:13.480 --> 0:21:16.440 David Koresh comes to the front door, and it's on video, 0:21:16.520 --> 0:21:19.880 like all the stuff you can watch happen, and eventually 0:21:19.960 --> 0:21:22.040 you were watching it in real time as it played out. 0:21:22.040 --> 0:21:24.680 But it's it's all over this documentary. Like Koresh comes 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:27.360 to the front door and opens it and says, hey, man, 0:21:27.880 --> 0:21:30.879 there's a bunch of women and kids in here. You 0:21:30.880 --> 0:21:33.000 don't want to you don't want to do this kind 0:21:33.000 --> 0:21:35.440 of quickly shuts the door and goes back in and 0:21:36.280 --> 0:21:39.720 all hell breaks loose. And from the descriptions I saw 0:21:39.920 --> 0:21:43.080 and and just sort of watching it like rewatching it, 0:21:43.119 --> 0:21:46.480 I guess it was. It was a war, like thousands 0:21:46.560 --> 0:21:48.879 and thousands of rounds being exchanged. 0:21:49.800 --> 0:21:54.000 Yes, And there is a lot of disagreement still today. 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:55.960 Who was the first one to shoot? Right? 0:21:56.480 --> 0:21:59.280 Yeah, I mean that's the thing is. And again later 0:21:59.359 --> 0:22:03.080 with the fire, you still get two completely conflicting stories 0:22:03.119 --> 0:22:03.760 from each side. 0:22:03.920 --> 0:22:07.120 Right, So the Branch Davidians say that the Feds fired first, 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:10.520