Posted on 02/19/2023 6:00:41 AM PST by fruser1
US government agents had been tipped off about the cult by a postal driver alarmed by the number of guns he had been delivering to the group's headquarters.
Special agent Davy Aguilera had concluded that the Branch Davidians had been illegally converting AR-15 rifles from semi-automatic to automatic weapons, without applying for the required licences or paying the taxes due.
Spooked by rumours that cult members were planning a mass suicide at Passover, amid reports of child abuse against under-age girls, ATF agents began in July 1992 to lay the groundwork for the biggest operation in the agency's history.
The ATF agents even tipped off TV reporters, leading to near-disaster when a cameraman who asked a Davidian for directions to the compound let slip that he was in town to film an imminent raid on the cult.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
The people most responsible for this massacre are Bill Clinton and Janet Reno. Neither got so much as a slap on the wrist.
Amoral people can and will do anything. We are very close to another Waco or worse in the name of some bullcrap.
Yeah, I remember Clinton passing the buck onto Janet Reno.
Why does the ATF exist?
Its an agency that started with failed Prohibition, and of course - it wasn’t eliminated. Only given a new life, that has continued well past its prime
I note its also under America’s KGB
And so they lay seige with tanks, cut their water, power, and communciations, and amplify the sound of rabbits being slaughtered. What's the point? Inevitable massacre.
Why did the gubmit bulldoze the site as soon as the fire was out? This is ALL the gubmit propaganda. They used to follow Koresch into town daily, he’d run to town adn run home. He had a set pattern for every day of the week. All they had to do was wait for his routine run into town and snatch him up. BUT NOOOOO the gubmit wanted to make a statement about extremist religous fanatics.
I haven’t figured out Merrick Garland’s connection to the Waco debacle and massacre yet (other than through the OKC Bombing case), but when something nefarious happens, he and his mentor Jamie Gorelick are never far away.
I was being sarcastic. I believe that there were two main reasons: 1. To intimidate people who believe that the Bill of Rights actually means something particularly the second amendment and 2. To allow the FBI and ATF agents to see that they can commit mass murder with impunity- that for all future American versions of the Stasi, Gestapo, NKVD, KGB, milice, etc you have nothing to fear from committing atrocities.
It doesn’t matter who the Vice President is. The Attorney General has become the most powerful post in American Government.
“leading to near-disaster when a cameraman who asked a Davidian for directions”...
I think anyone could say it was a COMPLETE disaster.
“Special agent Davy Aguilera had concluded that the Branch Davidians had been illegally converting AR-15 rifles from semi-automatic to automatic weapons, without applying for the required licences or paying the taxes due”
Special Age T Aguilera is a damned liar.
L
A few concise comments here but what is missing is that BATFE pulled this “Raid” in an effort to “Prove” to congress how “Indispensable” they are after several scandals.
ATF senior staff were involved in the “Good old boys roundup”, a KKK style event featuring such niceties as signs advertising “Ni**ER HUNTING LICENSES” at the gate. A black ATF agent was terrified.
ATF officers were also under investigation for various offices senior officials pressuring women to become paramours, “Minority” agents just never being able to advance, a couple of agents blew the whistle on the Chicago? office politicized and criminal activities.
There was more but it has been a long time and my memory is not perfect.
The net effect was that BATFE was as close as it has ever been to being disbanded and folded into the FBI.
That was back when the FBI was still thought to have integrity.
As stated in my first line, WACO was a public relations scheme that went bad.
But it did accomplish its purpose as BATFE is STILL an independent agency.
Please remember, surviving members were found not guilty by the jury, the judge “Set aside” that verdict to send the survivors to prison.
BATFE was (And still is!) a corrupt fiefdom of political animals disdainful of our RKBA and determined to destroy it. There is more agency growth and career advancement opportunity with each infringement of our 2A rights.
He was a runner.
He ran by within 20 feet of a government lookout post every day alone, and
unarmed.
He and the sheriff would meet for coffee.
I do believe Koresh was tweaked, but that’s not an actionable offense.
That original BATF raid was one of the most ill conceived and poorly executed
government actions ever.
As for the Randy Weaver situation, it was also a massive cluster F.
Government employees should have gone to prison in each situation.
“Special agent Davy Aguilera had concluded that the Branch Davidians had been illegally converting AR-15 rifles from semi-automatic to automatic weapons, without applying for the required licences or paying the taxes due.”
The pretext..just like Randy Weaver’s shotgun was a few mm too short.
👍
Yet to my knowledge not one converted AR-15 has ever been put on display or submitted for independent technical examination.
Even with the heat of the fire there should have been remaining M16 steel components.
There are certainly recordings, I watched what was available on TV in real time.
If the Davidians had full-auto ,why did they only use Semi-Auto for their defense?
I keep seeing demands for term limits at varied levels of elected Gov., what about the unelected bureaucrats who carve out fiefdoms that transcend administrations?
Time to just disband all of these “Agencies” that become additional branches of Gov. Org. that our Constitution never contemplated.
Remember the government gleefully murdered everyone there. We the people are not on the same side of “the thin blue line” as our government enforcers. They will kill us when they feel like it or are ordered to by our government overlords.
They didn’t have any fully automatic weapons.
When I worked for UPS, a driver told us that a dud grenade fell out of a box being delivered.
That’s what initiated the entire thing...a dud grenade being sold as a paper-weight.
Exactly. If they were hostage, somebody should have come up with a rescue plan.
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