Well in this case it was like the Alamo as the massive police fire power did prevail over a lone rather screwed up individual. The disproportionate force correlation and the siege of a private residence was Alamo like. The Prince William PD didn't do much crowing but tried to cause this fellows family some grief for financially supporting him and ‘allowing him to have guns’. The bottom line was this man committed no crimes. It is not a crime to surveil police or while foolish it is not criminal to write down plate numbers of police vehicles parked in a restaurant parking lot. (The Alexandria Virginia Police liked to gather at the Sizzler that was then on King Street where the new Alexandria Library is now located. This fellow would collect their plate numbers. One Alexandria cop caught his plate number and ran it and from that his address was found out and a complaint sent to the Prince William cops that this fellow was some sort of menace. Prince William County decided to send the jack booted thugs forth to crush this guy. Unfortunately it didn't quite go down that way.) This was the first example of real disproportionate overreaction and use of paramilitary tactics for no reason against a citizen I had encountered. I thought it was very disturbing and the ‘he had it coming’ attitude of most coworkers to be even more disturbing. Admittedly these people were federal employees who have a definite bias in favor of what ever the state does.
I was wrong. Although that loner
did inflict some damage, the overall balance of forces and eventual outcome is much more like the Alamo. Good analogy!!
Ever since the ATF/FBI Waco assault/siege, I have been half-way expecting some vengeful nut/group to stuff the walls of some old house with explosives and shrapnel -- then phone in a tip that the house was full of auto-sears and "machine guns"...
I suppose the tragically mis-directed response by McVeigh/Nichols was the closest approximation "the wacko fringe" has made so far...