From: BOBWORN@aol.com
Subject: SNET: Ambush at Waco - Pointed Questions
Date: 18 Jan 2000 15:45:11 -0500
To: BOBWORN@aol.com


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Subject: The 'ambush' at Waco
 
 October 23, 1996
 
 The 'ambush' at Waco
   
  Last time, S.H., who reports his father participated in the
 deadly Feb. 28, 1993 federal assault on the Branch Davidian
 church in Waco, Texas, wrote: 
 "The long and the short of it was that the ATF was there
 to serve an arrest warrant and to seize the illegal weapons. If
 the Davidians had not opened fire, if they had not sought to
 ambush federal agents, the ATF would have arrested two
 men, taken away some weapons that were illegal and the rest
 of the Davidians would still be there, worshiping just as they
 pleased. It's hard to serve a warrant when you can't even get
 to the front door." 
 
 I responded: 
 So the ATF went to Waco to serve an arrest warrant.
 Since you also report your father was there on the
 government side, Mr. H., perhaps your direct sources in the
 ATF can finally tell us: Which officer had the arrest warrant
 in his possession? No ATF agent has ever been able to
 provide that name at trial or to any congressional committee.
 
 The nation desperately needs the specific name of the
 person who had that printed warrant on his person, and
 meant to serve it. Will he or she now confirm this for
 reporters? At what phone number can we reach the agent
 who physically had the written search or arrest warrant with
 him or her at Mount Carmel at the beginning of the assault
 on Feb. 28, and who will so swear under oath? 
 
 Obviously, he must have been in the lead, with the
 document out in plain sight of David Koresh when the latter
 opened the door. His account would be crucial to anyone
 hoping to believe this version of events. Please identify him
 and arrange for us speak to him. 
 
 Then let's all ask him if, in their initial attempts to make a
 peaceful entry, the ATF agents shot the five tame family
 dogs where they stood in their pen (as planned and
 practiced), before or after he tried to "hand the warrant" to
 David Koresh. Let's also ask him how the noisy and
 ntimidating "helicopter diversion" you're so fond of, was
 supposed to facilitate the peaceful service of this warrant. 
                                     
 But then, if there was any plan to peacefully serve a
 warrant, why attempt to spring a surprise attack by 76
 ninja-clad agents, pouring out of cattle trailers, at all? Was a
 surprise attack necessary because David Koresh or his
 followers had ever drawn guns or resisted visits by the local
 police, by Texas Child Welfare inspectors, or anyone else?
 When? Why weren't any such incidents cited on the affidavit
 seeking the search warrant? 
 
 Nothing in informant Aguilera's affidavit indicated any
 reason to expect the Rev. Koresh or his followers to use
 force to resist. That's why the magistrate did not issue a
 so-called "no-knock" warrant. Title 18, USC 3109 states that
 an officer must give notice of his legal authority and purpose
 before attempting to enter the premises. Only more than a
 year after the fact did any ATF agent change his story to
 claim he yelled "Search warrant" a few seconds after the
 firing began. Specifically asked at trial whether they ever
 rehearsed a peaceful, unresisted entry, Agent Ballesteros
 said "No, we did not." 
 
 If a peaceful service was intended, why -- when David
 Koresh opened the door, held up his empty hand and said
 "Wait, let's talk, there are women and children in here" --
 why did agents immediately open fire, critically wounding
 his father-in-law who stood behind him? 
 
 Why did the ladder team place their ladders against the
 side of the building and begin their illegal entry even as this
 was happening? How would this have facilitated giving
 anyone inside the opportunity to peacefully comply? 
 
 At the trial, Agent Bill Buford, who was on the team that
 climbed to and entered the second story window, testified
 that those agents had been authorized to shoot anyone inside
 who they saw with a weapon -- even though those agents
 had not announced they were police or that they were
 serving a search warrant. 
 
 In fact, Agent Buford testified that he did so shoot a
 Davidian, who approached him carrying a gun ... inside that
 gun owner's private dwelling. (trial transcript, pg. 2732-33.) 
 
 If you, Mr. H., were a Branch Davidian planning an
 "ambush," wouldn't you put some men in trenches or behind
 other cover in outlying positions, to achieve a crossfire? 
                                     
 How was an "ambush" of the BATF possible, when
 BATF commanders all knew they were expected? The Rev.
 Koresh, having been informed of the upcoming raid by the
 local mailman (a Branch Davidian), told undercover agent
 Robert Rodriguez "Robert, they're coming. Whether BATF
 or FBI or whatever, they're coming." The undercover agent
 shook Koresh's hand, left, and informed the agents in the
 undercover house that the raid was expected, in plenty of
 time for ATF commanders to have called it off if they'd
 wished. 
 
 Instead, co-commander Chuck Sarabyn decided to
 proceed, rushing out to the staging area and shouting: "Get
 ready to go, they know we're coming!" and "Koresh knows
 the ATF and the National Guard are coming!" This incident
 is reported on page 91 of the Treasury Department report.
 More than 60 agents have reported they heard Sarabyn give
 this warning. 
 
 "Ambush"? 
 
 The jury in San Antonio specifically rejected charges that the
 Davidians "ambushed" anyone. Juror Teresa Talerico later
 commented: "They had 45 minutes to get their people
 positioned, to get the guns all passed out. It seems to be quite
 apparent that there was no such plan, because of the
 hustle-bustle to get guns, even after the ATF drove up." 
 
 Waco Herald-Tribune photographs, which reporter Marc
 Masferrer testified were all taken within the first 20 to 30
 seconds of the raid, show windows intact with screens in
 place, and no one visible at the windows, even as agents are
 firing at and into the church. 
 
 During the trial, Agent Roland Ballesteros was asked
 whether it wouldn't have made more sense for anyone
 planning an "ambush" to remove the screens and place
 gunmen at the windows. Agent Ballesteros acknowledged
 the photos show the screens in place, and no one returning
 fire from the building, even though they clearly show his
 own men firing into the building. 
 
 The photographs from the early moments of the assault
 show agents kneeling in plain sight in front of the building,
 with no cover, firing into the building. No ATF agent has
 ever been able to explain why anyone would take up such
 firing positions if there was or had been any return fire at
 that point, let alone why these men were not instantly killed
 if there was any kind of Davidian "ambush." 
 
 Justice Department outside expert Alan Stone, M.D.,
 wrote in his Nov. 8, 1993 report to the Justice Department
 on Waco: "The BATF investigation reports that the so-called
 'dynamic entry' turned into what is described as being
 'ambushed.' As I tried to get a sense of the state of mind and
 behavior of the people in the compound the idea that the
 Davidians' actions were considered an 'ambush' troubled me.
 If they were militants determined to ambush and kill as many
 ATF agents as possible, it seemed to me that given their
 firepower, the devastation would have been much worse. ...
 The ATF agents brought to the compound in cattle cars
 could have been cattle going to slaughter if the Davidians
 had taken full advantage of their tactical superiority." 
 
 Again, this is from an official government report. 
 
 Within one minute after the raid began, Davidian Wayne
 Martin, a Harvard-educated attorney, had reached the
 McLennan County Sheriff's office by dialing 9-1-1. He
 immediately shouted, "There are about 75 men around our
 building shooting at us in Mount Carmel. Tell them there are
 children and women in here and to call it off! Call it off!" 
 
 Why would suicidal militants, anxious to kill as many
 government agents as possible, make such a call? 
 
 Section 9.31 of the Texas Penal Code states: "The use of
 force to resist an arrest or search is justified: (1) If, before
 the actor offers any resistance, the peace officer (or persons
 acting at his direction) uses or attempts to use greater force
 than necessary to make the arrest or search; and (2) When
 and to the degree the actor reasonably believes the force is
 immediately necessary to protect himself against the peace
 officer's (or other person's) use or attempted use of greater
 force than necessary." 
 
 The San Antonio jury, even after being stacked by
 prosecutors to eliminate any "gun nuts," militia members, or
 folks predisposed to be suspicious of the ATF, found there
 was no "ambush." The only convictions were on the minor,
 constitutionally dubious "gun law" violations. 
 
 Yet the pro-government extremists continue to parrot this
 long-discredited nonsense about an "ambush" of the
 government storm troopers, when in fact it was the ATF that
 was trying to pull off an ambush ... and merely bungled it. 
 
 It must be appalling to realize that you were nourished,
 clothed, and raised up with money looted from unwilling
 taxpayers at gunpoint (government guns, of course, which
 remain unrestricted), and paid to your father for a life's work
 depriving honest, law-abiding Americans of their Second
 Amendment right to bear arms ... the overwhelming mission
 of the current ATF, a supposed "tax-collecting agency"
 which in 1993 handled 10,818 cases in which they sought
 the arrest and imprisonment of gun-owners (not people who
 use guns in the commission of violent crimes -- that's a
 different agency entirely), while their criminal referrals on
 alcohol and tobacco matters totaled only 38 (source, ATF
 internal case summary reports, counts are number of
 defendants.) 
 
 I can understand, to some extent, how hard it must be for
 you to contemplate that your father engaged in a completely
 unjustified, unnecessary and illegal paramilitary action which
 resulted in the death of five to 10 innocent Branch Davidians
 from wounds inflicted that day, as well as the deaths of four
 ATF agents, most probably from friendly fire. (The
 government claims never to have checked the bullets from
 their wounds to match them against either Davidian or ATF
 weapons ... an odd omission.) 
 
 It must be even harder to realize that the actions of your
 father and his agency on Feb. 28, 1993 eventually led to the
 government toxic gassing and incineration of more than 60
 more innocent persons -- half of them women and young
 children -- as other government agencies attempted to cover
 up the evidence of the initial ATF bungling in a raid which
 Col. Charles Beckwith (U.S. Army, ret.) founder of the Delta
 Force, told the Houston Post on March 4, 1993 was "very
 amateur" in both planning and execution. 
 
 And, of course, the tragedies spreading like ripples on a
 pond from these government crimes at Waco in 1993 are still
 expanding. 
 
 Unless some faction of the government itself blew up the
 Murrah building in Oklahoma City to destroy all the Waco
 raid planning documents which were stored in the ATF
 office there, we're left to assume all those deaths were in
 reprisal (however misguided the perpetrator in his selection
 of tactics) for the ATF-FBI murders at Waco. 
 
 Eventually, unless the uniformed liars confess, accept
 their punishment, and do their penance, I suspect the brand
 of their guilt will burn its way to the surface of the
 Washington government's flesh, like the scarlet letter "A" on
 the preacher's chest in the famous novel, in a level of
 violence and insurrection that will make what we've seen to
 date look like Sunnybrook Farm. 
 
 If you're really interested in getting to the bottom of what
 happened, you might want to read any of the
 well-researched books on the subject, the most recent of
 which is Carol Moore's "The Davidian Massacre,"
 co-published by Legacy Communications, of Franklin,
 enn., and the Gun Owners Foundation, of Springfield, Va. 
 
 Autographed copies of Ms. Moore's book are available at
 $9 book rate ($11 first class or Canada), which includes
 postage and handling, from: Carol Moore, Box 65518,
 Washington, D.C. 20035, tel. 202-635-3739. 
 
 You ask if it's my "contention that the ATF went to Mt.
 Carmel with the purpose of shooting people; with the intent
 to kill those people?" 
 
 Well, in all of their 15 to 20 practice raids to prepare for
 the Waco assault, agents had only been shown how to scale
 ladders, kick in doors, throw concussion grenades, and open
 fire. 
 
 If you've undergone any military training, you know the
 standard dictum that the way it's done in training is the way
 men will do it when the adrenaline is pumping. 
 
 An armed, high-speed, "dynamic" assault without any
 knocking and waiting for doors to be opened voluntarily is
 the only way they ever practiced for this raid. 
 
 They knew perfectly well they could have arrested an
 unarmed David Koresh any time he went jogging -- they had
 undercover operatives in place who reported how often he
 went jogging, or into town for supplies ... alone or with only
 one companion, and unarmed. 
 
 The ATF knew perfectly well they could have called
 David Koresh on a cellular phone and said they'd like to
 drop by in 10 minutes to inspect his weapons for any
 violations (leaving no time for anyone to go out back and
 bury anything), just as the local sheriff had gone calling in
 the recent past. They were actually invited by David Koresh,
 months before this unnecessary raid. 
 
 Yet they decided against these options. Instead, the
 publicity-hungry BATF piled 76 pumped-up (though
 inexperienced) fully-armed agents in cattle trailers, raced to
 the scene, and sent them charging the building in a
 well-planned assault. 
 
 Even if the deaths were not specifically "planned," legal
 doctrine usually dictates that deaths which occur during the
 commission of some other premeditated felony -- such as
 depriving citizens of their civil rights under color of law --
 are chargeable as murder. 
 
 I believe these killings should be indicted and brought to
 trial as murders. 
 
 So far, I still have a right to say so. 
 
 
 Vin Suprynowicz is the assistant editorial page editor 
 of the Las Vegas Review-Journal.  Readers may contact him via 
 e-mail at vin@lvrj.com. Now reaching more than a million  
 readers, the column is syndicated in the United States and 
 Canada via Mountain Media  Syndications, P.O. Box 4422, 
 Las Vegas Nev. 89127. Ask the editor why your daily 
 newspaper doesn't carry "The Libertarian." 
 
 To receive Vin's columns via email send a request 
 to vinsends-request@ezlink.com with "subscribe" in the subject line. 

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