What Was the Waco Siege? Revisiting the 51-Day Standoff and Fire That Killed Nearly 80 Cult Members
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Thirty-two years ago, nearly 80 people died as a result of the Waco Siege.
But where the responsibility of those deaths lies remains a point of contention between federal law enforcement and the last members of the religious cult they raided over three decades ago.
In February 1993, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) descended on the Branch Davidians’ compound outside of Waco, Texas, ready to raid their property for weapons and arrest their self-proclaimed prophet, David Koresh. But the group was tipped off and ambushed agents after they arrived.
A 51-day standoff followed, with both agents and cult members becoming increasingly agitated at the lack of progress in their negotiations. Everything came to a head on April 19, 1993, when, after ATF agents deployed tear gas onto the compound, it suddenly went up in flames.
When the fire died down, the bodies of 76 Branch Davidians were found, including over 20 children and Koresh. Though some of the survivors were convicted of voluntary manslaughter from the first shootout, no one has been held responsible for the mass casualties from the final day of the siege.
Here’s everything to know about the Waco Siege — and why the remaining Branch Davidians still claim that the government was at fault.
The Branch Davidians are a religious sect formed in the 1950s whose members say they are preparing for the second coming of Jesus Christ, per the Texas State Historical Association.
Often regarded by the public as doomsday preppers, in the past, they believed in a “purified church” and avoided outsiders by building a self-sustaining community outside of Waco.
When George Roden, the son of the group’s original leader, took over in 1985, a Bible teacher named Vernon Howell (who later went by David Koresh) challenged his claim at gunpoint. The men and their followers exchanged gunfire in 1987 when Koresh attempted to take over the Branch Davidians’ property called Mount Carmel.
Roden was jailed, and Koresh secured control of the property by paying back taxes.
Vernon Howell may have been his real name, but he was more commonly known as David Koresh.
Originally from Houston, Koresh joined a Seventh-day Adventist Church in Tyler, Texas, when he was 20, per The New York Times. There, he dated the pastor’s 15-year-old daughter for two years before moving to Waco, where he took over the Branch Davidians.
Clive Doyle, a Branch Davidian who survived the 1993 Waco Siege, later told PEOPLE that Koresh had a lifelong Bible fascination and “made the scriptures harmonize” and “come alive.”
“I believe the spirit of God spoke through him,” Doyle said, adding that Koresh “spoke like no other prophet or no other preacher that we’d experienced in our whole lifetime.”
To his followers, Koresh claimed he could talk to God and prophesied about Jesus Christ’s second coming. He also predicted that one day the U.S. government would attack him and his followers, and he began stockpiling weapons and ammunition.
“He had preached that forces of evil were coming to get them and they would all be killed in a fiery ending and come back as the chosen, and our actions sort of validated his prophecy among his followers,” former FBI negotiator Byron Sage told PEOPLE.
Content retrieved from: https://people.com/what-was-the-waco-siege-11717111.
