re: Visited the Davidian compound site.

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I remember watching the mini series on this and I forgot the details of how the FBI messed it up, but it was a rank situation right? Someone pulled rank.. Or were there too many chiefs butting heads? No matter what, I blame Karesh because he is the reason the FBI went to Waco. He pressed their buttons and he created the situation that resulted in the FBI messing up

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FBI only went there after the ATF did stupid crap. Koresh and 2 other men were licensed firearms dealers. That’s how the cult made money, they went to gun shows buying and selling guns. They also sold stupid shite like decommissioned grenades. That’s what brought the ATF to their door. Some UPS guy accidentally spilled a box of decommissioned grenades on a delivery and reported it. They also accused them of illegally turning semi auto guns into full auto.


The local law enforcement had a good relationship with Koresh and he actually worked with them to dismantle a drug lab the previous leader had on the property. The ATF also used that information to tell the governor of Texas that there was drugs there to get national guard Helis even though they knew it was a lie. You can look that up in the warrant they got for the raid. The ATF could have easily went to local law enforcement and asked them to go with them to the ranch and inspect all the weapons. The ATF did not want to do that, they were in the middle of fighting for their existence because there was consideration for merging them with other departments. So they came up with this juicy raid on a cult with a known pedophile.

As for the FBI and the rank issue you mentioned, during the siege the tactical arm of the FBI had more control over the situation than the negotiating team. Every time they got somewhere in negotiations, the tactical team would take an armed vehicle and run over their cars or start screwing with them with music. Basically one part of the FBI kept acting like man children every time the responsible part would get somewhere to help end the seige.

The Gary Nosener book is very good to go through the FBI mishandling. Waco brought about big changes for the FBI and how much control the tactical team has in comparison to the negotiators.