Over 100 heavily armed BATF agents attacked a Church on a Sunday morning. It was occupied by men, women, teenagers, children and infants. They first shot the dogs and puppies at the front of the building. When the front door was opened by David Koresh, they began firing on the main building.
The occupants of the Church returned small arms fire in self defense.
The agents retreated, with four dead, and called in the FBI.
The FBI surrounded the site and utilized psychological warfare techiques against the occupants. After 51 days they initiated an attack by military vehicles on April 19, 1993. The vehicles injected chemical irritants into the building and fired on the building with small arms fire.
The Church building burned to the ground, killing 76 Church members. Some died by suicide. It is argued that members of the Church set the fire.
The federal government, to this day, considers itself totally innocent of any wrongdoing and argues it was justified in all of its actions at Mt. Carmel.
Question - Do you trust Federal law enforcement agencies and their personnel to do what is right?
As a side note, they now have even more powers with passage of post 9-11 laws.
"We jurors said from the beginning that we had the wrong people on trial. The ones who should have been on trial were the ones who planned the raid and insisted on going on with it even though they knew that the element of surprise had been lost." (quoted in press release issued by Mt. Carmel Independent Investigation Advocates, PO Box 9050, Waco, Texas 76714).
The inherent right to self defense, encoded in Texas law, protected the Branch Davidians right to self defense, even if it meant the death of their attackers.
Despite their acquittal for murder, a number of the Branch Davidians were convicted of lesser charges; some were sentenced to as much as 40 years in jail. On August 5, 1996, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the Draconian sentences.
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