30 years ago, the world watched as chaos unfolded in a small corner of Texas. What erupted with the biggest gunfight in America since the Civil War ended with an inferno-like fire with almost a hundred people dead, and it was all captured on global television.
The 51-day conflict later became know as the Waco Siege – or the Waco Massacre – and 86 people died, including 25 children and two pregnant women, as the Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh faced off against authorities.
Now, three decades on, a new Netflix documentary, Waco: American Apocalypse, reexamines the event. Directed by Tiller Russell, the three-part film features interviews with people at the heart of the siege, including survivors of the cult compound (including the last child released alive), one of Koresh’s spiritual wives and the FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit Chief.
As Russell says: “When history is at its most compelling, it’s not just a retrospective fact-finding mission but rather an enterprise that holds up a mirror to who we are today. As [American novelist] William Faulkner brilliantly put it, ‘The past is never dead. It’s not even past’.”
But what actually happened in the Waco Massacre?
Who was David Koresh?
Vernon Wayne Howell – who changed his name in 1990 to David Koresh – took control of the Branch Davidians in 1989, and swiftly released an audiotape called New Light in which he said God had called upon him to create a House Of David for special people, and to do this he would need to procreate with women in the group, while the other men should stay celibate.
As with previous leaders of the cult, the members were told to prepare for doomsday; Howell also claimed God had instructed him to create an "Army of God”
The group were based in the Mount Carmel Centre in Axtell, near Waco, Texas, and they came under scrutiny when a local paper, The Waco Tribune-Herald claimed that Koresh was abusing children and had committed statutory rape by taking multiple child brides. It was claimed that he had fathered at least 12 children while in the compound, and that some of his brides were just 12 years old.
But the authorities zoned in on the fact that the group had been stockpiling illegal weapons, when a UPS driver informed them that a package he had delivered had broken open and revealed at least six hand grenades.
In 1992 The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) opened an investigation, and in July of that year, officers attempted to visit Mount Carmel and speak with Koresh, after gunfire was reported.
Koresh reportedly offered to let the ATF agent David Aguilera inspect their weapons and paperwork, but he allegedly declined, and instead the group were put under surveillance.
David Koresh
What happened in the siege?
Aguilera filed an affidavit for a search warrant on 25 February, 1993, believing that the group had stockpiled illegal weapons, and the ATF also brought in the DEA as it was claimed that Koresh was possibly operating a meth lab.
The ATF planned their raid for 1 March 1993, but it was brought forward to 28 February. The Branch Davidians had already been tipped off, according to the Channel 4 documentary Inside Waco, when a news reporter asked a postman for directions, and that postman happened to be Koresh’s brother-in-law.
The SWAT team arrived at around 9.45 in the morning, and there is still a confusion as to who fired shots first. The ATF claim they heard gunfire coming from within the compound, while survivors claim it came from outside from the ATF. One theory is that there was an accidental discharge of a weapon.
There was an outbreak of shooting and according to the 1997 documentary, Waco: The Rules of Engagement, one Branch Davidian, Wayne Martin, called the emergency services and asked for a ceasefire.
The Branch Davidians began shooting at an overhead helicopter, and when agents tried to enter the building, more gunfire ensured. According to some accounts, the shooting lasted for two hours, before the ATF ran low on ammunition.
A ceasefire was called, but five Branch Davidians and four ATF agents had already been killed, with 16 people injured. They were still involved in a stand off.
The stand-off
After the first round of deaths, the FBI took command, and for the next 51 days a tense deadlock ensued.
While holed up in the compound, Koresh was at first giving interviews to media, but the FBI cut off their communication as their negotiators attempted to resolve the situation. There was hope that the FBI negiotiator had made a breakthrough when Koresh agreed that everyone would peacefully leave the compound if he could have a message broadcast on radio. The FBI agreed, but then Koresh reneged and, according to Inside Waco, said: “God had told him to remain in the building and wait.”
24 children were released by Koresh for food and supplies, but many more remained with him. The FBI became split on whether they should continue to negotiate, or if they should storm the compound by force. Sleep deprivation techniques had also been used on the Branch Davidians to get them to surrender, including playing recordings of jet planes, pop music, Buddhist chanting, and the screams of rabbits being slaughtered, according to Inside Waco. Then, all power and water to the building was cut off. Koresh doubled down, and proclaimed that he was the Second Coming of Christ and had been commanded by his father in heaven to remain in the compound.
The final day
U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno claimed the standoff was costing $1m a week, and amid the threat of mass suicide, made the case to President Bill Clinton that action had to be taken. Writing in his biography, My Life, Clinton later said he told her: “Finally, I told her that if she thought it was the right thing to do, she could go ahead.”
The attack began on 19 April, 1993. At 06.05, an armoured vehicle rammed the building and threw in tear gas, then more gas was fired in through the windows. A fire then started, and engulfed the building – the FBI claimed that the Branch Davidians started the fire, while others report that the combination of the gun shots and the flammable gas were the cause.
Then: the explosions. After several blasts ripped through the compound, by 1pm, the entire building is levelled. 82 Branch Davidians were killed, and four ATF agents. According to the FBI, as reported in Washington Post, Koresh was shot and killed by his top aide, Steve Schneider, while other members of the group, including women and children, were also shot, and others died in the fire and explosions.
The aftermath
Alongside several lengthy legal cases, as History.com notes: “The government’s handling of the Waco siege (which played out in the national and international media) was heavily criticized…Though the government long maintained that its actions played no role in starting the fires at the Waco compound, in 1999 it was revealed that some of the gas the FBI used was flammable under certain conditions.”
Director Russell adds: “At the heart of this story, are the lives of innocent children who were trapped in the middle of this deadly and deeply fraught set of circumstances. Also, thematically, much of what is roiling our culture today is embedded in the DNA of Waco. So, there’s a deep resonance with the world we’ve inherited and inhabit now.”
Waco: American Apocalypse is available on Netflix now.
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