David Koresh, 1993, by Gene Walker
From MemoryArchive
Who: Gene Walker What: Mt. Carmel Raid, david koresh When:1993 Where: Waco, tx
"On February 13, 1993, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) raided Mount Carmel. The raid resulted in the deaths of 4 agents and 5 Davidians. Shortly after the initial raid, the FBI took command of the federal operation and contact was established with Koresh inside the compound. Communication over the next 51 days included telephone exchanges with various FBI negotiators.
As the standoff continued, Koresh, seriously injured by a gunshot to his side, and his closest male leaders negotiated delays, possibly so he could write religious documents he said he needed to complete before he surrendered. His conversations with the negotiators were dense with biblical imagery. The federal negotiators, for their part, treated the situation as a hostage crisis, despite a two hour video tape sent out by the Davidians with some of the children, in which the adults and older children/teens appeared to explain clearly and confidently why they chose of their own free will to remain with David.
The 51-day siege of Mount Carmel ended when U.S Attorney General Janet Reno approved recommendations of veteran FBI officials to proceed with a final assault in which the Branch Davidians were to be removed from their compound by force. In the course of the assault, the compound caught fire. The cause of the fire was later determined by The Danforth Report, which was commissioned by The Special Counsel, to be the deliberate actions of some of the Davidians inside the compound. However this theory is disputed both by independent media and others.
Barricaded into their building, 85 Branch Davidians, including Koresh, were either unable or unwilling to escape the blaze and died. Seventeen of these victims were children under the age of 12. Koresh died from a gunshot wound to the head, believed to have been fired by his right hand man, Steve Schneider. It is not known if Schneider shot Koresh under orders or out of animosity." -wikipedia.org
When I was in 4th grade I lived in Waco when this was happening. My neighbor was David Koresh's lawyer. I don't remember much about it except that when the raid actually went down and the building went up in flames I watched it on the news at school. It was an enormous fire. Lots of people died, but i didn't realize how bad it actually was until much later.
