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ATF agent tries to put Waco ghosts to rest
My SA ^

Posted on 10/13/2003 2:22:37 PM PDT by Stew Padasso

ATF agent tries to put Waco ghosts to rest

By Guillermo Contreras San Antonio Express-News

Web Posted : 10/12/2003 12:00 AM

Images of the shootout and siege, scenes that once gripped viewers around the globe but which long since have faded from the public consciousness, still streak through Aguilera's mind.

He was the ATF agent whose firearms investigation of the Branch Davidians led to a raid on their compound near Waco on Feb. 28, 1993.

The ill-fated raid claimed four U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents and six Davidians and sparked a 51-day standoff that ended in the deaths of 76 Davidians — including the religious sect's leader, David Koresh.

"These are scenes I relive every day, especially at that time of year," said Aguilera, 47. "Although I've been able to control it somewhat, it's something you never forget."

Memories of the tragedy have tormented Aguilera, causing emotional trauma, feelings of guilt and failed relationships, and in 1994 he left Texas for another job.

The move enabled him to further his career while escaping the past and the negative publicity surrounding Waco.

But now, in a new twist on an old story, Aguilera has returned. He's heading the ATF field office in San Antonio, the latest stop on a road that has taken him to agency jobs in Mexico and supervisory posts in New Jersey and Washington.

In coming home to Texas, the veteran federal agent who was shot at in Waco finds himself in another challenging confrontation: facing down his own past.

"It was something painful I had to go through in life," he said of Waco, "and I had to come back and face it, just accept it."

Remembering Waco

Aguilera hopes his homecoming will facilitate the healing process and help bring the Waco chapter of his life to a close.

"It's an experience you don't want to ever experience again," he said. "What could have been an easy resolution turned out be a tragedy."

What happened that day brought a firestorm of criticism.

"It was the biggest disaster in law enforcement history," said Dave Hardy of Tucson, Ariz., a lawyer involved in an unsuccessful wrongful death suit against the government over Waco.

"Foul-up is far too mild. In a situation where you have 10 possible decisions, they consistently picked the worst. It's just, 'My God, what were they thinking?'"

Critics took the ATF to task for the way it handled the initial raid and questioned Aguilera's investigation. They blasted the FBI for its handling of the ensuing siege.

Civil lawsuits, congressional probes and a federal prosecutor's report that dismissed many allegations stemming from the Waco raid did little to quietthe clamoring for justice.

Michael White, president of the American Civil Liberties Union of San Antonio, said a cloud remains over the agents involved.

"I don't know how much responsibility (Aguilera) had, but the way it was carried out was a fiasco," White said of Waco. "It didn't have to go that way."

Aguilera's memories of the raid are vivid. But citing the possibility of further litigation by relatives of some Branch Davidians, he said he "can only reflect on my feelings and what I observed and what's already been made public."

On the morning of the raid, Aguilera and other agents went to the Mount Carmel compound to arrest Koresh and serve a search warrant alleging that Koresh and his followers were stockpiling illegal automatic weapons and explosives.

Aguilera boarded one of three helicopters — what he said was part of an airborne diversion — while agents rode cattle trailers and headed for the compound's doors.

Versions from critics and the government differ on the encounter, disagreeing even on who fired first.

Aguilera said bullets from the Davidians struck the helicopter he was in, forcing it to make an emergency landing.

Critics charged that ATF agents shot from the choppers at the Davidians first, and that the FBI knocked down the walls with tanks in the subsequent siege to hide evidence proving that theory.

In his measured account of what happened, Aguilera said the investigation was warranted and that the numerous illegal firearms and rounds of ammunition found show the probe was on target.

"We didn't do anything wrong," Aguilera said. "The media just made it look like we were the bad guys, when in fact we were doing what warranted the execution of that warrant."

But Aguilera acknowledged he has struggled with his feelings over the results.

"Initially, I felt guilty because I had opened up this investigation. I thought, 'If I had not opened this, people would have not gotten killed or wounded or hurt by this,'" Aguilera said. "I have come to understand now that this had to be done because who knows what these people had in store for the local community down the road, or in the future."

ATF agent Roland Ballesteros, whose thumb was partly shot off after he approached the compound's doors and spoke briefly to Koresh, said Aguilera made the right calls in his part of the investigation.

"He wanted to step aside and take a look to see if it could have been handled differently," Ballesteros said. "To be honest with you, I don't think it could have. He did the job that he was supposed to do, and he did a good job."

A new future

Aguilera, who assumed his current post in July, is the first Hispanic to hold the ATF title of resident agent in charge in San Antonio, part of the agency's Houston division.

The son of immigrant parents, Aguilera said his father, who labored in steel mills in Indiana and later became a contractor in Joliet, Ill., called for his 10 children to better themselves. Aguilera was the middle sibling of seven boys and three sisters.

"He would take us to work. The intent was to stress the importance of an education," Aguilera said of his father. "He would say, 'It's either this or something better.' I was the first one out of there."

Aguilera joined the Marines to help pay for college, earning a bachelor's in history at the University of Illinois while working as a police officer in his native city. Stints followed later with the Border Patrol in South Texas and the ATF.

He said his training and experience helped him "keep my head above water" and move forward, even when bumps emerged.

Aguilera is unmarried, though he has two daughters — April, 22, and Miechaela, 12 — who live elsewhere but with whom he has frequent contact.

"It's just been really difficult to establish a relationship," Aguilera said of his reasons for being single.

He attributes that to his passion for the job, and frequent moves. He also acknowledges Waco had a hand in his lifestyle.

"I was seeing somebody at the time, but this was so much pressure, it was such a significant emotional event, that (the relationship) didn't materialize," he said.

Now the head of a 10-agent office, Aguilera enthusiastically talks about his plans to make the ATF more recognizable for its assault on crime rather than how it's seen in some circles — synonymous with Waco.

He said he plans to increasingly push federal initiatives like the Safe Streets program, which attempts to keep guns out of the hands of felons, and the Youth Crime Gun Interdiction Initiative, a collaboration with state and local law officers that aims to disrupt the flow of firearms to juveniles.

He said he plans to be more involved with local and state agencies in the 20-plus counties surrounding San Antonio that his office covers. Furthermore, he wants to reach out to the community, partly by pitching the agency to college students as a career choice.

"I'm hoping to help reduce crime and take some guns off the streets," Aguilera said. "I'm coming here to make a positive impact on the community."

Ballesteros, who has known Aguilera since their days at the ATF training academy in 1987, sees Aguilera's perseverance and determination as a breath of fresh air for others who might want to abandon their professions during difficult times.

"I was afraid that all of the fallout from (Waco) would have changed his attitudes about his career," Ballesteros said. "He'll tackle that role, as a resident agent, as he did as a street agent, basically just immerse himself into it and do the best job anybody can possibly do and run a course until justice is done. That's the kind of guy he is, and I respect him for it."

Aguilera thinks putting Waco behind him will take time. Talking to Ballesteros and other agents who were part of the investigation — looking to them for support — is part of the healing process.

"It's been 10 years and really, I've just begun to heal," Aguilera said.

"Life has to go on. I have to put this behind me and I have to go forward."


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: banglist; waco; wacoplusten
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To: Ditter
Didn't they know Koresh went to town almost everyday or jogged on the road alone? He could have been picked up easily & questioned.

The local sheriff said that all he had to do was call Koresh on the phone and he would have drove to the sheriff's office. He had done it several times before.

101 posted on 10/14/2003 6:27:28 AM PDT by Skooz (All Hail the Mighty Kansas City Chiefs)
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To: Skooz
Apparently clinton & janet reno didn't bother to ask. This should weigh heavily on their consciences but I'll bet it doesn't because they couldn't possibly have a conscience.
102 posted on 10/14/2003 6:34:54 AM PDT by Ditter
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To: Stew Padasso
Koresch could have been arrested by the local sheriff - he had done so before - but NOOOOO ATF and the FBI had a swat team that had never seen any action.

Most of us common folks call the Waco fiasco and Ruby Ridge MURDER by your Government.

103 posted on 10/14/2003 6:35:19 AM PDT by sandydipper (Never quit - never surrender!)
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To: _Jim
You were there and know all about it. Blah, blah, blah!
104 posted on 10/14/2003 6:46:27 AM PDT by wita
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To: Stew Padasso
What the hell does a guy have to do to get FIRED from the ATF?
105 posted on 10/14/2003 6:50:26 AM PDT by ValerieUSA
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To: elbucko
They wanted to impress their new President and AG. So with three Army helicopters, they went to serve a warrant on civilians

And where did all that Army equipment come from? Answer: Fort Hood where General Wesley Clark was the commander at that time.

Click Here

106 posted on 10/14/2003 6:52:43 AM PDT by A. Patriot
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To: MAWG
Platinum star of truth award!
107 posted on 10/14/2003 6:54:48 AM PDT by wita
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To: elbucko
They wanted to impress their new President and AG. So with three Army helicopters, they went to serve a warrant on civilians

And where did all that Army equipment come from? Answer: Fort Hood where General Wesley Clark was the commander at that time.

Click Here

108 posted on 10/14/2003 6:55:01 AM PDT by A. Patriot
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To: davisfh
Danforth is first a crooked lawyer who corruptly protects his connections in the city where he opened his first practice: Waco.

The most powerful institution of influence in Waco is Baylor University --- I wonder......
109 posted on 10/14/2003 7:11:41 AM PDT by ValerieUSA
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To: Skooz
While he was home alone, the (former) local sheriff dropped dead just days before Danforth's reinactment was staged at Fort Hood.
110 posted on 10/14/2003 7:17:24 AM PDT by ValerieUSA
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To: ValerieUSA
Man, it just gets weirderer and weirderer.
111 posted on 10/14/2003 7:23:26 AM PDT by Skooz (All Hail the Mighty Kansas City Chiefs)
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To: wita
Thanks for the kind words. I am a 5th. generation Texan and the terrorist acts in Waco will forever stick in my craw. I cant really say what I'd like to on this thread because if I did " Miss Jim " would censor me but, it has to do with certain people lying on the ground, bleeding profusely and gasping for that final bit of air.
112 posted on 10/14/2003 7:48:54 AM PDT by MAWG
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To: Skooz
bump
113 posted on 10/14/2003 7:49:18 AM PDT by ValerieUSA
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To: MAWG
Mawg:

Most patriots, I suspect, feel similarly. It seems that there is little understanding throughout the agencies involved, that their actions have caused an incalculable amount of hatred and disgust. Sufficiently so, so that their reputations are permanently - not for ten years, not for twenty, but permanently - blackened.

Best regards,

Robert Teesdale
Chairman
American Party
chairman@theamericanparty.us
114 posted on 10/14/2003 8:27:31 AM PDT by Robert Teesdale
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To: MAWG
Mawg:

Most patriots, I suspect, feel similarly. It seems that there is little understanding throughout the agencies involved, that their actions have caused an incalculable amount of hatred and disgust. Sufficiently so, so that their reputations are permanently - not for ten years, not for twenty, but permanently - blackened.

Best regards,

Robert Teesdale
Chairman
American Party
chairman@theamericanparty.us
115 posted on 10/14/2003 8:27:45 AM PDT by Robert Teesdale
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To: MAWG
Mawg:

Most patriots, I suspect, feel similarly. It seems that there is little understanding throughout the agencies involved, that their actions have caused an incalculable amount of hatred and disgust. Sufficiently so, so that their reputations are permanently - not for ten years, not for twenty, but permanently - blackened.

Best regards,

Robert Teesdale
Chairman
American Party
chairman@theamericanparty.us
116 posted on 10/14/2003 8:28:07 AM PDT by Robert Teesdale
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To: _Jim
What Danforth's report indicates is that the powers that be are troubled by the fact that a majority, or at least a large minority, of Americans do not buy the officially-sanctioned line on a number of current events. According to the 1999 poll Danforth cited, 61% of Americans believe that the Feds burned down the Branch Davidian facility. Probably a larger percentage doubt that Lee Harvey Oswald acted alone in killing President Kennedy. At least in the black community, the prevalent belief is that the assasination of Dr. King invloved more than just James Earl Ray. A recent opinion poll indicates 45% of Americans believe that the news media are too liberal. (Another 17% believe it is too conservative.)

Had not the airplanes very visibly slammed into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon in broad daylight on a warm and sunny day, there would likely be by now a large number of people who believed the 9/11 attacks were done by the Feds or the Israelis. (As there is, there are people both in the militia and racial separatist movements and among Marxist and anarchist groups that believe that the attacks were arranged by the U.S. military or the Mossad and that the twin towers imploded through preset explosive charges.)

There are several reasons for the build-up of doubt. First, government investigations dismiss and fail to discuss alternative theories with an intent to rebuke them. There is a tendency to use invective, accusing their opponents of being conspiracy nuts, extremists, mentally unbalanced, etc. This technique can backfire, as The Los Angeles Times has recently learned in connection with the recent gubernatorial election in California.

Second, there is the question of "who watches the watchmen"? In the case of the Warren Commission, the involvement of J. Edgar Hoover and the FBI, and Allen Dulles and the CIA, in a case of a failure by domestic and foreign intelligence to prevent the Kennedy assasination was a bad idea, as was its very establishment by Lyndon Johnson, the most obvious beneficiary of his predecessor's death.

Third, Federal officials have lied frequently. A few phrases will illustrate this. "I did not have sex with that woman...Miss Lewinsky." "I am not a crook." "There is light at the end of the tunnel." Even on the final day of the Branch Davidian siege, when military-type tanks knocked down walls in the building and sprayed tear gas, their loudspeakers were saying, "This is not an attack."

Fourth, the mainstream media has lied frequently, especially in recent years. Remember the staged auto crashes by NBC News, the bogus opinion polls that routinely show liberal candidates with 5-10 percentage point totals higher than the general election, the Washington Post Pulitzer Prise stories of a crack-addicted welfare mother that turned out to be entirely fictional. There is the famed liberal bias that conservatives have railed against since at least the Barry Goldwater Presidential campaign. A plurality (45%) of Americans believe the manstream press is too liberal. Because NPR, the black media, and the alternative press are more openly socialist and anti-Western civilization than the Old Three networks and the "prestige" newspapers, a substantial minority (17%) of Americans see the press as too conservative.

Fifth, the mainstream media usually follows the adage, "If it bleeds it leads." Even in the days before national talk radio and the Internet, alternative newspapers like Rolling Stone on the Left and groups like the John Birch Society on the Right would linger on issues like the Kennedy assassination or the conduct of the Vietnam War. A year or two after the Robert Kennedy assassination, if, say, Alan Stang (John Birch Society affiliated jounralist) or Mae Brussel (foremost leftist conspiracy theorist) came up with a story pinpointing a second assassin, their remarks would have gone basically unchallenged. Those ideas may spread slowly, through tracts or alternative newspapers and then via word of mouth, but they do spread, not unlike tree roots. With the Internet and talk radio in our time, what may have taken a decade to undermine, like the Warren Commission Report, now can be undone in weeks.

There is but one solution: to use as your standard the old legal language "to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God." Governments must also be held to the same standard of conduct that those same governments insist upon for the private sector. Why should Congress exempt itself from Social Security or labor standards it insists upon for all employers? Why should high level Federal and state officials be not subject to conflict of interest considerations their own civil service and private employers must follow? Why do cities and counties focus their police officers on revenue-enhancing missions like traffic tickets while elected officials pompously insist that it is selfless concern for the public welfare?

Finally, governments, Federal, state, and local, should cease to be an intrusive and expensive intrusion into daily lives of people. Only when the general public sees the civil servant as their ally and not their adversary will underlying attitudes that contribute to public mistrust of governments change for the better

117 posted on 10/14/2003 9:46:15 AM PDT by Wallace T.
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To: _Jim
Vernon Wayne Howell ordered the fire started, he and he alone is rsponsible for the firey death of those people ...

Sir, I respectfully disagree with you. KKKlintoon wanted them dead and he got what he wanted.

118 posted on 10/14/2003 10:25:05 AM PDT by LibKill (I don't have to outrun the bear, I only have to outrun the democrat.)
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To: JohnGalt; MeeknMing; Ragtime Cowgirl; PhilDragoo; Alamo-Girl; DoughtyOne; nopardons; ntnychik; ...








119 posted on 10/14/2003 10:50:25 AM PDT by autoresponder (the lefties loved to be photographed but these are all faked photos, videos, and audiotapes they say)
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To: Skooz; _Jim
Every one of the fed agents who particpated in the murders at Waco is a traitor. If real justice was enforced they would be burned alive along with their spawn.

And the world would be a better, cleaner place.

120 posted on 10/14/2003 11:01:12 AM PDT by LibKill (Where does law end and our rights begin?)
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