#siege

Waco: The Branch Davidian Siege and the Fire That Followed

In the spring of 1993, the eyes of the United States were fixed on a sprawling compound in the Texas countryside near Waco, where a religious community called the Branch Davidians, led by a man named David Koresh, was locked in a standoff with the federal government. It had begun on 28 February, when agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms attempted a dynamic raid to serve warrants over illegal weapons — a raid that went catastrophically wrong. A gun battle erupted, each side later blaming the other for firing first, and when it ended four federal agents and six Branch Davidians were dead. The failed raid became a 51-day siege, as the FBI surrounded the compound and negotiators tried, with growing frustration, to talk Koresh and his followers out. Inside were roughly a hundred people, including many children. On 19 April 1993, the government launched a final assault, using armored vehicles to punch holes in the building and inject tear gas to force the occupants out. Around midday, fires broke out inside the compound and swept through it within minutes. Some 76 Branch Davidians died, among them David Koresh and about 25 children. The tragedy became one of the most contested events in modern American history — argued over ever since by those who blame Koresh for leading his followers to death, those who blame the government for reckless and aggressive tactics, and those who see failures on every side. It reshaped how the government handles such standoffs, and it became a rallying cry for the anti-government movement, cited by the man who, exactly two years later, bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City. This is the story of Waco, told with care for the facts and for the dead.