Sure. The ATF had the initial warrant for his arrest. Some Post Office employee noticed a box that came open and it had a grenade in it (convenient). The local sheriff told them they could pick him up on Sundays at the coffee shop.
The ATF started moving in and prepping, but they didn’t hide it very well. A postal carrier who happened to also be a Branch Davidian told Koresh that they were staging up the road from him. The kicker is that another ATF agent moved in as a neighbor to Koresh and was there when Koresh got the word. The agent unassed the AO and told his superiors that Koresh was waiting for them, but they’d already spent over $2 million so they decided to go in anyway.
Why the FBI followed up in some of the ways that they did, I don’t know. But Koresh was molesting underage girls. Koresh was leading the FBI on while claiming to write his “Seven Seals” manifesto and it became clear that he wasn’t honoring his commitment to release ALL the children and end it. Koresh lied.
Anyway, Koresh clearly ordered the fires lit by his own guys. That’s what killed those children.
Yeah the FBI claimed Koresh started the fires.
I would not trust them any further than I would the KGB.
At one time I thought they were a great agency but they violated the law at will at Ruby Ridge.
I also doubt that Koresh molested the girls. The dems got one to testify that she was molested but never any evidence.
Agreed with all you said, save for the part about it being clear that he and/or his guys lit those fires.
Nothing I saw on the videos (repeatedly) made that clear to me.
He was a kook, perv and dictator but I’m not sure he was suicidal, nor am I sure he murdered his followers.
1. The inert grenades in the parcel were 100% legal to own and they were not justification for a warrant.
2. The ATF wasn’t serving a search warrant for law enforcement purposes, they were orchestrating a media event to help them justify their budget which Congress was looking to cut.
3. If true, the fact of Koresh molesting underage girls would have been a matter for Texas authorities. The ATF has no mandate to enforce statutory rape laws.
4. The actual recordings from which the FBI supposedly enhanced the dialogue of people inside the house ordering fires to be set is utterly incomprehensible and subsequent forensic attempts to replicate the FBI’s crystal clear recordings led the Congressional committee investigating Waco to conclude that the FBI recordings were ‘not conclusive’ (fake).
Feel free to read the House Report 106-1037 here:
https://www.congress.gov/congressional-report/106th-congress/house-report/1037/1
Good summary. People also forget that the cultists killed Federal agents first.
As I recall hearing from interviews of a few survivors, Koresh demanded that he be allowed to have sex with the wives in his cult and many of the children there were his. He also had his people pour gasoline all over the place when it was obvious the Feds were coming.
Beyond tiresome hearing some people blame the Feds.