The Bundy cases bears remarkable, and unsettling, similarities to the Waco standoff
ANALYSIS/OPINION:
Twenty-five years ago this year, federal agents stormed the compound of a religious group in Waco, Texas, with armored vehicles, machine guns and tear gas. Claiming the Branch Davidians were a dangerous religious cult, they killed David Koresh, the group’s leader, along with and some 70 men, women and children who were with him when the assault took place.
The ostensible reason for reducing the compound to rubble was to serve a search warrant on Mr. Koresh for illegal weapons officials believed he possessed. The issuing judge was told Mr. Koresh was a crazed paranoid who never left the compound where he and his violence-prone followers were illegally hoarding automatic weapons and represented a clear and present danger to the Waco community.
Long after the smoke cleared the facts proved that the raid was staged not because Mr. Koresh and his Branch Davidians were a threat to anyone, but as a public relations stunt by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) to be used to justify a budget increase. Everything was filmed to be shown at future budget hearings, but when things went bad, the PR stunt turned into a murderous massacre.
Surviving Davidians insisted federal agents opened fire on them first, but when investigators sought the audio and video recordings made by the BATF and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, they were informed that all the cameras had malfunctioned and the audio tapes had disappeared along with other physical evidence. The Clinton administration then prosecuted the surviving Davidians relying on testimony later demonstrated to be perjured and sent them off to prison, hoping the whole incident would be forgotten.