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Days That Shaped America (2018) Season 1 Episode 2 - Waco Siege
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FunTranscript
00:00The interviews, images, and information provided by ATF is unrelated to any ongoing investigation.
00:15Outside Waco, Texas, a heavily armed compound, a religious cult, their leader claiming to
00:21be Jesus Christ.
00:30Never did I expect the firepower that erupted as soon as we arrived.
00:37It sounds like a war just broke out.
00:40Constant gunfire.
00:42I cannot imagine anything more horrifying.
00:49I eventually saw fire.
00:51I thought that someone would decide, this is enough.
00:55I don't believe he wanted to die.
00:58I think that the ATF used excessive force.
01:05I remember thinking, I've got to get out of this room.
01:08I'm not going to die on this dirty, stinking floor.
01:10There were several other agents that were charged out from where they had taken cover.
01:15Probably the most heroic thing I've ever seen in my life.
01:17I'm not going to die on this roof.
01:31Prior to my working at KWTX I had no knowledge of the Branch Davidians.
01:54Their compound was way out in the country, 20 miles from Waco.
02:00There were 100 people there, they all live under this one roof, and they thought David
02:07Koresh was the second coming of Christ, and some of them are gun enthusiasts.
02:15ATF began their investigation into the Branch Davidians at the request of the McLennan County
02:22Sheriff's Office.
02:24They had reports of explosions and automatic weapons fire out at the compound.
02:30Prior to my involvement in the case, I'd never heard of the Branch Davidians.
02:35I was working for ATF as the resident agent in charge at the field office, Little Rock,
02:41Arkansas.
02:43I was married.
02:44My wife had three children when we got married, I had two.
02:48I'd been in Vietnam, so with my military experience, I was the team leader to our special response
02:54team.
02:55During the course of the investigation, it became apparent that the Branch Davidians
03:00were converting inert hand grenades to live hand grenades.
03:04Robert Rodriguez, our undercover agent, was actually able to gain David Koresh's confidence.
03:09He was able to give us invaluable information about the interior of the building.
03:14We knew there was enough probable cause to execute the search warrant for the compound
03:19itself.
03:20Initially, our plan was to execute the warrant by surrounding the compound and trying to
03:26talk him out.
03:28But we quickly got rid of that idea after we interviewed a number of former Branch Davidians.
03:33And each and every one of them said that they would hold out as long as they could and then
03:37they would all commit suicide.
03:41One young lady relayed the information that she was taught to commit suicide by putting the
03:45gun in the roof of her mouth as opposed to the side of her head, because if you put it
03:49to the side of your head, you might miss.
03:51It was truly frightening and unbelievable that somebody could have such power over people.
03:57These were not stupid people that were in there.
03:59One was a Harvard graduate lawyer, another was a civil engineer, so these were educated
04:04people and how Koresh could convince them to do these things was just beyond belief.
04:10It really bothered me about the children on the inside of the compound.
04:15Koresh was in fact planning a battle with law enforcement where he was going to martyr
04:20himself and all of his people to fulfill his prophecy that in three days he would raise
04:25them up from the dead and they would then live in the Garden of Eden forever with him
04:30as Jesus Christ.
04:33I was the one that suggested we not do the surround and call out, but that we try to do more of
04:38a direct assault.
04:39I felt like if we maintained the element of surprise, we would be able to pull this off
04:43without any shots being fired.
04:48At Fort Hood, part of the preparations were to practice pulling up on a pre-marked property
04:54and make our way to the various points on the property.
05:00There were approximately 80 to 90 agents involved with this process.
05:07Trying to figure out how to approach the building in the middle of that flat area was difficult.
05:12One of the agents came up and suggested that we use cattle trailers pulled by pickup trucks.
05:18My role was to ride in the front seat of the very first pickup truck that was to pull slightly
05:25past the edge of the building.
05:26And I was to exit and go down into the underground shooting range and handcuff probably eight to
05:31twelve individuals who were armed.
05:35There were to be agents behind me to provide firearm coverage.
05:41It was believed by ATF and others that a large number of Branch Davidians potentially did not
05:47want to be a part of the cult anymore.
05:50That included the children.
05:52We knew they were being sexually molested.
05:54We knew that many of them probably had not ever been off of the compound.
06:00We wanted to be in a position to help these people to freedom.
06:07Saturday evening, I get a phone call from my photographer, Dan Maloney.
06:13And he says that his sources are telling him that there may be a raid the next day on the
06:21Branch Davidians out at Mount Carmel.
06:24Turns out Maloney was dating a EMT.
06:28He goes, look, all of the EMT have been put on high alert for tomorrow and that I need to
06:34be in the newsroom early Sunday morning.
06:43I came in that Sunday morning and there was another photographer, Jim Peeler.
06:56The idea was to head out to Mount Carmel.
07:01There were basically two directions to get to it.
07:06Dan and I took one route and Jim Peeler took the other.
07:12Jim Peeler never made it to the compound.
07:15He got lost, but he did come across a rural mail carrier.
07:22So he asked the postman, how did he get to Mount Carmel?
07:27The morning of February 28th, 77 agents met in Waco, at which point we would all get together,
07:34load up on the trailers and then go out to the compound, trying to arrive there a little
07:38after 10 o'clock in the morning.
07:40The men of the compound would go outside and work in a construction area at approximately
07:4410 o'clock each morning.
07:47And they would be there without their firearms.
07:50And so we felt like if we could get there and be unnoticed, we would be able to get inside
07:54the compound and secure it without any shots being fired.
07:58However, we lost the element of surprise.
08:02There was a television crew that had stopped a rural mail carrier and asked him for directions
08:07to the Davidian compound.
08:09The mail carrier happened to be the son of the number two guy inside the Davidian compound.
08:15And he said, why do you want to know?
08:16And they said something to the effect, well, ATF's getting ready to raid the compound and
08:20we want to cover it.
08:22And Robert Rodriguez, our undercover agent, was inside the compound and was talking to
08:26Koresh.
08:27And he said, Robert, they're coming for me.
08:29And at that point, Robert left the compound and reported across the way to the surveillance
08:35house and said, hey, they know we're coming, you've got to call off the raid.
08:38The ASAC from the Houston Division said, everybody get your gear on, we've got to go now because
08:43they know we're coming.
08:44And I went up to him and I said, what do you mean they know we're coming?
08:46We can't go forward if they know we're coming.
08:49And he said, no, the decision's been made to go ahead with the raid.
08:54My photographer Dan and I were about a mile away from the compound and we got out there
09:00around 8 a.m. and sat on this road that gave us a very good vantage point of the top
09:07of the compound.
09:14All of a sudden, we saw these National Guard helicopters flying over the compound.
09:20So we got out and we shot video of it.
09:25Dan and I decided to move a little closer in.
09:31We hear this rumbling coming down the road and it's a pickup truck with a trailer and there's
09:39another pickup truck behind it.
09:41I can see in the cattle trailer that it's filled with federal agents.
09:48We have to get this story.
09:49I said, all right, I'm going to follow them.
09:52I was in the second trailer that would enter the compound.
09:56Koresh apparently thought that there were some ranchers that had pulled into his driveway.
10:01And he came outside and one of the agents yelled at him, police officers, we have a search
10:06warrant.
10:07Koresh turned around and went back inside.
10:09As soon as he closed the door, the Davidians started shooting through the door.
10:20We had tried to set up a diversion plan utilizing helicopters so that the Davidians hopefully would
10:25be looking at the helicopters and not be paying any attention to anyone driving up the driveway.
10:29I was probably the very first person on the ground.
10:37Never in my wildest dreams did I expect the barrage of firepower that erupted from this compound
10:44as soon as we arrived and started exiting the trailers.
10:47Koresh had issued the weapons to the men and had put them in different places on the front
10:54of the building to intercept us as we arrived and then they started throwing hand grenades
10:58out the windows and a couple of the guys went down with hand grenade injuries.
11:02As I came around the corner, I was running at full speed when I heard a loud bang.
11:09Next thing I know, I'm on my face in like a deep sleep.
11:15It sounds like a war just broke out, constant gunfire, and screams, people bleeding, there
11:33was a Greyhound bus on the property, Dan and I have our back to the bus, and there's
11:40just bullets, just ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, ping, all over the bus.
11:45Part of the strategy of the plan was to be able to secure the arms room as quickly as possible.
11:52We ran around to the side carrying a ladder, and myself and four other team members started
11:58climbing the ladder to get onto the roof to make entry.
12:01They spotted us and started shooting.
12:07Conway Lebleu was supposed to go up to the roof and secure three windows with a shotgun.
12:16He was shot and killed almost immediately.
12:19Myself and Glenn Jordan broke the glass on the window and then I was able to put in a distraction
12:26device and there was an individual standing in the room with an AK-47.
12:31I went into the room and he started running towards me.
12:34I was able to shoot him several times.
12:36At about that same time, I heard Glenn Jordan holler that he was hit.
12:40He had severed the brachial artery in his left arm in two different places and was bleeding
12:45very profusely.
12:46I knelt down beside Glenn, and then about that same time, they started shooting through
12:51the walls.
12:52I can see the person on the roof.
12:56I'm thinking to myself, holy cow, what is going on here?
13:01All the ATF agents are pinned down.
13:04An agent yells at me, hey, TV man, run to your truck and call for help.
13:14I took off and ran.
13:16As I opened the door, something hit me in the face.
13:20And I thought, oh, you got shot in the face.
13:24Wait, there's no blood.
13:26Well, as it turns out, a bullet went through the door and some of the metal had come off
13:33and flew up and hit me in the face.
13:35I dive into the truck and I'm thinking, okay, okay, call for help.
13:40I called the newsroom.
13:42I said, get every ambulance in the county out here.
13:45It's a war zone.
13:47And he said, well, what do you mean?
13:49What do you mean?
13:50And I kind of held the phone up for a minute.
13:52And I said, did you hear that?
13:55And he goes, oh, yeah, all right, I'll call.
13:57And so then he called me right back and he said, every ambulance in the county is already there.
14:04And it was like, now what?
14:07My job during the raid was to man the communication command center at Waco PD and handle any phone calls that came in from the community to explain to them what was taking place.
14:27It's about 945, the phone rang.
14:31911, what's your emergency?
14:33There are men, 75 men around our building.
14:36Okay, just a moment.
14:38And it was Wayne Martin from the compound on the phone.
14:42Yeah, this is Lieutenant Lynch, may I help you?
14:44Yeah, there are 75 men around our building and they're shooting at us in Mount Carmel.
14:48Tell them there are children and women in here to call it off.
14:50All right.
14:51All right.
14:52Call it off.
14:53I hear a gunfire.
14:55Oh, .
14:56Are they rolling an ambulance?
14:57Is that there?
14:58Yeah.
14:59So I have the girls in dispatch.
15:01I said, call the radio van for ATF and let them know that I have this.
15:06And I could not get a response from anyone at that point in time.
15:19When I came out of that deep sleep, all sounds were muffled and everything was in slow motion, no peripheral vision.
15:27And then I hear this voice deep in my head say, Eric, you got to get up.
15:31They're shooting real bullets.
15:32They're going to put one in your head.
15:33And as I jumped up, I looked down and right where my head was, there was dust bouncing
15:38where people were trying to shoot me in the head while I was down.
15:41At the same time, I realized that there was the buried bus to my left.
15:45I dove down onto the top of that bus and into the excavated side of the pit.
15:51Well, we were trying to subdue some of that fire so that we could move and try to get Glenn out of there.
15:56I went to the backside of the room.
15:58Then they started shooting through the floor.
16:00And I remember thinking, damn, they just shot me in the butt.
16:03And about that time, Glenn said he'd been shot a second time.
16:06I got hit twice more.
16:07I took two AK-47 rounds.
16:09One in the hip and one in the thigh.
16:11I remember trying to get up off the ground.
16:13And I remember thinking, I've got to get out of this room.
16:16I'm not going to die on this dirty, stinking floor.
16:18When I got out of the window, I was out on the roof.
16:21I guess God was just looking out for me.
16:23I was laying on the roof outside.
16:25I couldn't stand up.
16:26So I started sliding down the side of the roof.
16:28And I did what they call a monkey drop.
16:30A couple of the guys tried to catch me down there.
16:32But I fell on the ground and broke a couple of ribs.
16:35I couldn't move.
16:36I was getting really scared at that point.
16:38I just had to lay there.
16:44I was laying on the ground and I couldn't move.
16:47A couple of the guys dragged me around to what we thought was out of the line of fire.
16:51They started shooting again.
16:53I could see the rounds hitting in the dirt all around my head.
16:57And I thought, damn, I can't move.
16:59They're going to kill me here.
17:01And then all of a sudden, one round hit me in the nose.
17:04It felt like somebody hit me in the nose with a hammer.
17:07Rob Williams, who was a kid out of the Little Rock office, returned fire and they quit shooting.
17:13When he raised up to shoot again, he was shot and killed about eight feet from me.
17:18This was a kid that I had known since the day he came on the job.
17:22It just broke my heart.
17:24I remember thinking, you know, this is my deal.
17:28I helped plan this.
17:29Oh my God, what have I done?
17:37I finally made contact with ATF.
17:41They told me at that time there were wounded agents.
17:43So I needed to get a negotiated cease fire.
17:47Then another phone call comes in.
17:49Yeah, this is Lynch.
17:50Hey, Lynch.
17:51Yeah.
17:52That's kind of a funny name there.
17:53Oh, listen.
17:54No, look.
17:55Who am I speaking with?
17:56This is David Koresh.
17:57Okay, David.
17:58The notorious.
17:59And it's David Koresh.
18:01I start trying to get him involved in the process.
18:06Do you want to try to work something out?
18:08Yeah.
18:09Well, let me tell you something.
18:10Okay.
18:11There are seven fields.
18:12All right.
18:13Now, when it says in Revelation 22, before I come quickly, my reward is with me.
18:17And Koresh wanted to talk theology.
18:20Can I interrupt you for a minute?
18:22Sure.
18:23All right.
18:24We can talk theology, but right now.
18:26No, this is life.
18:27This is life and death.
18:28That's what I'm talking about.
18:30He was not going to listen to what I had to say.
18:35And I needed to get back on the phone with someone that could help me to get the ceasefire
18:42started.
18:43I didn't have any faith in Koresh.
18:46Not at all.
18:47After about 45 minutes to an hour is when I began to realize that my injuries were more
19:02substantial than I first thought.
19:04I had a vest on and my blouse, my blue blouse was really puffed out on this shoulder.
19:13And when I would move, it was like taking a coffee cup full of blood and just throwing
19:17it on the ground.
19:19And that's when I realized I was losing a lot of blood.
19:22I can't feel anything from my shoulder to my fingers.
19:26And I was beginning to notice that I was becoming more lightheaded from blood loss.
19:32I was thinking about cutting a deal with God.
19:37God, I'll go back to church if you get me through this.
19:41I was thinking about my wife.
19:43She and I had only been married two years at this point.
19:48I was terrified of going to sleep because I thought, you know, if I go to sleep, then
19:53I'm essentially giving up and I don't want to die because I chose to go to sleep.
20:01As I was laying out there, I was in shock and just really shaking.
20:05I got to thinking about my wife and my family and my kids.
20:08And I thought, oh, God, I don't want to die out here.
20:15The medic started an IV on me while we were still getting shot at.
20:19And that's when I heard that they were trying to negotiate a ceasefire.
20:25In my attempt to negotiate, I was moving between the front communication lines,
20:30one with Wayne Martin, one with David Koresh, and one with ATF.
20:35But I was trying to get the situation calmed down to the point
20:40that they could start addressing the needs of those wounded people.
20:46Get out of here!
20:47All right, calm down. Let me tell you what they're doing.
20:49Ceasefire, they're ceasefire.
20:51They want to move their injured troops out of there.
20:54After a little over two hours, I was finally able to get the ceasefire.
21:00The ATF was able to move out.
21:10The agreement was that there were four agents that were going to come in
21:14to retrieve the ones that had fallen down into their courtyard.
21:18And, you know, I can't imagine what thoughts were going through their mind at that time.
21:24There was a voice that yelled out,
21:31you've got four minutes to gather up, you're injured and you're dead, and get out of here.
21:36And I heard somebody call my name.
21:39It's David Opperman and Charlie Hussmeyer coming to get me.
21:43I saw David approaching me. He said, come on, get up here to the ditch.
21:46And as I was working my way up, three branch Davidians charged out from where they had taken cover.
21:52He had an AR-15 up to his face.
21:55He was feet away, and David Opperman never stopped.
21:57He said, they hollered ceasefire, I'm just getting my guy.
22:00This guy I thought was going to kill David right in front of me.
22:04I thought he was going to kill Charlie right in front of me, and then it was my turn.
22:08David and Charlie, they never stopped coming for me.
22:13Probably the most heroic thing I've ever seen in my life.
22:22We started to walk towards the front of the property with Charlie on one side and David Opperman on the other side.
22:29I think if another 15 to 30 minutes had gone by, I would have been the fifth agent, dead.
22:38There were two ambulances down at the roadblock about a half a mile away.
22:43Some of the agents commandeered one of the ambulances.
22:46We were loading all of the wounded agents into it.
22:49By the time I got there, the ambulance was full. There wasn't room for anybody else.
22:54I went and I found who I thought was the lead officer.
22:59And I said, sir, you can use our news unit to transport other wounded people.
23:08They picked me up and loaded me onto the hood of the Bronco, and a couple of guys held me on the hood.
23:15I thought, you know, this is over. We've got that many casualties. There's no way we can go forward with this. We're done. They beat us.
23:23We looked in the back of an ambulance. There were people in there. I saw Steve Willis. At the time, I didn't realize he was dead.
23:30But his body was back there.
23:32Then we worked our way over to one of the media vehicles, a white Bronco.
23:38Bill Buford was on the hood of that. I got in the front seat, and one of the media people was driving the vehicle.
23:47All I could think about is get them to triage. Help them.
23:57In Waco, Texas, at least four federal agents are dead and 14 are injured in a shootout with members of a religious cult.
24:04At this hour, FBI agents are negotiating with the cult leader. He reportedly believes he is Jesus Christ.
24:11We arrived there in the afternoon, and everything was serenely quiet.
24:17Our number one mission was to create a secure perimeter of the site.
24:22When I first saw the compound, it appeared to be a rather formidable structure.
24:27We had to establish sniper-observer positions 360 degrees around the compound.
24:33We wanted to make sure that we could see any threats.
24:36We also wanted to make sure we could see whether or not there was someone trying to escape.
24:40And honestly, this was a scary situation, because everywhere we went on the perimeter, everything we did, we knew that guns were trained on us.
24:50There was no playbook that had been written for this particular incident.
24:57Mr. Korish, I don't think we had an opportunity to hear your description of the gunfire this morning.
25:03So what happened was, I knew that they were coming. You know, I knew they were coming before they knew they were coming.
25:10What will it take to bring it to a peaceful conclusion?
25:14If they'll show me and show the world what the seven seals are and where they're at in the prophecies, then I'll be satisfied.
25:21And then we'll all come out to you.
25:28I went into surgery, and I remember waking up.
25:31The doctor, he estimated that I'd lost 40 to 60 percent of my blood supply.
25:38And he showed me a bullet. They took a .223 round, which was fired from an AR-15.
25:43That particular bullet had entered my shoulder, hit the edge of my vest, and then followed the top of my sternum.
25:50It was bent. I remember him showing it to me and saying,
25:53You're lucky this was a ricochet round, and your body didn't take the full brunt of the force.
25:59Otherwise, you probably wouldn't have survived.
26:01While I was in the emergency room, they started taking x-rays and determined that I still had three bullets in me.
26:10They decided to leave two of them in, and they felt like they'd do more damage trying to take them out than they would by leaving them in.
26:16I remember after I got out of the emergency room, I felt responsible for the four guys that were killed and the rest of them that were injured.
26:26On this one, I had a big deal in planning it, and it went so wrong.
26:31And being responsible for those guys was very difficult.
26:38My wife got there that evening, and when she came into the room, it was really good to see her.
26:44She's always been a comfort in my life, and she really helped me out there.
26:48I was feeling so terrible.
26:50I held out.
26:53I held out pretty good until she got there, but once she got there, I started bawling like a baby.
27:00I just couldn't stop hardly.
27:02And one of my boys came up and he said, Dad, you've got to be all right.
27:09He said, You're all I got.
27:13And I'm sorry.
27:18It made me realize I needed to get over this and get through it pretty quick.
27:32Negotiations have continued by phone for hours.
27:34In the meantime, federal, state and local authorities have set up a perimeter around the compound, and they're bringing in additional personnel.
27:41But for now, they say there is no deadline for bringing this situation to an end.
27:47During the first week of the Waco siege, the FBI leadership was working on plans to end this siege as safely as possible.
27:56It was clear that the siege was going to last a whole lot longer than any of us had actually anticipated.
28:07The drama at the cult headquarters outside Waco, Texas, continues this morning.
28:11Jim Cummins is nearby the cult compound.
28:13He joins us now live.
28:14Good morning, Jim.
28:15It's calm but tense here this morning.
28:17Tense because it's too calm.
28:19Everybody stopped talking overnight.
28:21The police, cult leader David Korsh, everybody.
28:23The authorities have taken control of communications in and around the compound, and the self-proclaimed Messiah hasn't been heard from since.
28:33There was no one in the country that needed a lawyer worse than David Korsh did.
28:40I received a call from Bonnie Haldeman, David Korsh's mother, and she was distraught.
28:46She wanted help for her son and didn't know what to do.
28:51So I told her to meet me in Waco, Texas, and I drove up there and met with her personally.
28:57Bonnie and I drove in my car to the command center.
29:03It was guarded heavily, and I drove up to the guard, and I said, I'm here to represent David Korsh, and I wanted access to my client.
29:12And the guy said, we can't let you in here.
29:15They considered him a fugitive since they hadn't physically put him in a jail cell.
29:20But I persisted, going to court, trying to get hurt in court, as the standoff continued.
29:28Outside Waco, Texas, David Koresh says he's waiting for a message from God about what he should do.
29:34He's been waiting now for 21 days, and the authorities outside the cult compound, well, they're waiting too.
29:41Throughout the first couple weeks of the Waco siege, individuals from inside the compound were allowed to leave.
29:48One of the Branch Davidians that was released from the compound gave us information that David Koresh had a violent plan to end this situation.
29:58He stated that he needed medical care because he had been injured during the first confrontation.
30:03David Koresh was going to be carried out on a stretcher, rigged with explosives, would blow himself up once he was inside of Bradley,
30:11and the rest of the Branch Davidians would attack every position that the government had.
30:17This would have been a small-scale war.
30:19I felt as though this situation was reaching a critical mass, and that something catastrophic had to happen for this to end.
30:32The FBI called saying that they would put me in touch with David Koresh.
30:37They decided that we had common interests, a client alive and in court.
30:44So I drove to Waco the next day, March 28th.
30:48The FBI drove me up to within 100 yards of a building in the back of a tank.
30:54I walked the next 100 yards up to the front of the building.
30:59My feet crunched on, not on the gravel, but on the expended shells.
31:05There were literally hundreds, maybe thousands, in the parking lot that the ATF had fired during that first day.
31:15I was feeling that the ATF used excessive force.
31:20Dick DeGarren, a high-powered criminal defense lawyer, went into the compound for a face-to-face meeting with David Koresh.
31:26We have very substantive, important matters that we're discussing, and we're making real progress.
31:35David understood that this couldn't go on forever.
31:39But David wanted to time his coming out of the place on whether he received either a signal or the word from God.
31:53The last date that I went in, he gave me a letter.
32:00And it said that he was at work on his interpretation of the seven seals of the Book of Revelations.
32:07And that once he was through with that, he would come out.
32:11The FBI dismissed what he was saying and called it Bible babble.
32:16They were frustrated, and I said, I'm frustrated. I wish it could happen today.
32:21And they said, we have all the time it takes.
32:26I don't believe he wanted to die.
32:28I don't believe he wanted anybody else in there to die.
32:31And I don't believe anybody there wanted to die.
32:34April 19th proved to be a critical day in the siege.
32:44At approximately 6 a.m., the voice comes over the loudspeaker.
32:48The voice tells the Branch Davidians that this is not an assault, but that we will be putting gas into the building.
32:55They are told that they are to come out and come to safety.
32:59The combat engineering vehicles began to spray CS gas in the building.
33:04Immediately, the Branch Davidians responded with gunfire.
33:09The gunfire was very heavy for the first 30 minutes.
33:12At no time did the FBI ever fire a shot at the Branch Davidians.
33:18I called the FBI, and I said, I'll come down there.
33:22I'll go back in. I'll tell them this is it.
33:24There's no more waiting.
33:26And he simply said, we don't need you anymore.
33:29I eventually saw fire from the first floor moving from left to right.
33:36And I saw fire on the second floor moving from right to left.
33:41The fires actually met and crossed each other.
33:45The FBI listing devices in the compound made it very clear that the fires were started on the orders of David Koresh by the Branch Davidians.
33:54Out of the 80-some people that were in there, I thought that someone would decide this is enough.
34:03It's time to come out.
34:08I was alive as the place just flat burnt to the ground.
34:15I can remember myself saying, well, surely they're going to come out now.
34:20Two, three people jumped off the roof or something, but knowing that there was 60 or 70, including kids and old people, and none of them came out.
34:34The question going through my mind was, why?
34:40Why? Why is no one coming out?
34:43Why are those people in there not putting their children out?
34:48Why? That was the big question. Why?
34:51And it burns. And it burns. And it burns. And it's gone. And so are all the people. It's hard to understand.
35:12It was like a wake. Well, I guess it was a wake.
35:24By the time I got to Waco, the place was completely burned up.
35:29And so I went to the jail and started interviewing the survivors. Their stories all were very similar.
35:41What happened? Was that a plan? Was it a mass suicide?
35:44No, it wasn't.
35:45Why the fire?
35:47No one said that they had a plan to commit suicide.
35:53No one said that they had a plan to burn the place.
36:02I know it's happened before in history, where people have followed leaders that lead them to death.
36:07But witnessing it is difficult. Understanding it is difficult.
36:13The next day, I wanted to go out to the compound.
36:17And as I got close, I just looked at the devastation.
36:23Everything was gone.
36:25The lives were gone. And the buildings were gone.
36:28And it was just a sad, devastating scene.
36:34The thing that bothers me the most is all the children that lost their lives inside that fire.
36:39The blame rests with David Koresh for the death of all those people in there.
36:49For 51 days, the FBI gave the Branch Davidians multiple opportunities to come out.
36:59And they did not do that.
37:01It is my belief they were held in there by David Koresh so that he could have a self-fulfilling prophecy.
37:10FBI agent Jeff Jamar said to the end, most of the Branch Davidians only did what David Koresh told them to do.
37:22But there are still many questions.
37:24Jamar said it was a mass suicide in a fire that was set by cult members.
37:28But some of those who survived the inferno dispute that.
37:31No, there was no plans for suicide at all.
37:34Over the course of eight to nine days, we recovered 81 bodies.
37:38Those that had died during the initial raid, and there were six of those, as well as 75 that perished in the fire on the 19th of April.
37:48We had multiple deaths due to fire itself.
37:51There were people that died because of being buried in rubble, especially in the bunker.
37:57But then there were other deaths that were not related to fire.
38:01One of them was a child that was stabbed to death.
38:03And there were 18 people who died of firearm injuries, including gunshot wounds that caused the death of David Koresh.
38:12Only had a single gunshot wound in the middle of the forehead.
38:15The body of David Koresh was found inside the communication room next to two other Davidians, including Steve Schneider.
38:20And Schneider had a gunshot wound of the mouth. The bullet had struck his upper palate.
38:26So we suspect that Schneider killed himself.
38:30The issue is that, was that a suicide pact?
38:33Did he and Koresh decide that he would kill Koresh and then shoot himself?
38:37In the end, twelve Branch Davidians were charged with various crimes. Eleven went to trial. One turned state's evidence.
38:54All were acquitted of murder or conspiracy to murder.
39:00But a number of them were convicted of the gun offenses.
39:05But I think that the plan to attack that building with tanks and insert tear gas was grossly negligent.
39:14I don't think it was until a day or two or three later that really hit me about all the people that died, particularly the kids.
39:27You know, I met most of those kids.
39:33They didn't deserve to die. They didn't have to die.
39:44There's not a single day in my life since February 28, 1993, that I don't think about Waco.
39:51I quit having Vietnam flashbacks because I started having Waco flashbacks.
39:57The dreams still go on today sometimes.
40:01I don't have any feeling below the knee in my left leg as a result of one of the bullets hitting the nerves there.
40:09But all in all, I'm doing fine compared to some of the guys.
40:12I've got 19 grandkids.
40:16My lovely wife, who still takes care of me every day.
40:19I think just how lucky I am that I was spared there at the Branch Davidian Compound so that I could enjoy those kids.
40:25It was probably a good three months altogether of recovering, but psychological aspect of this never really leaves you.
40:39You lose four agents.
40:42Over the course of my career, I've known three policemen killed in the line of duty.
40:45I've worked 19 firefighter fatalities.
40:52Man, that takes a toll on you.
40:54I'm here at the Houston Field Division.
41:01I come down here occasionally to assist them with the Citizens Academy, where I teach an hour or so on the events that have happened.
41:19near Waco, Texas.
41:22Most of the people that I worked with here have already retired, but there's still a few around that I get to see that I haven't seen for years.
41:34Eric Evers is still here, and he was an integral part of what we did that day.
41:39Good to see you.
41:41I see Bill probably two or three times a year.
41:43We talk, reminisce.
41:45Let's look at this model.
41:46So in Houston, on both floors of our office building, we do have photographs of the four agents that were killed, as well as a model in the division office of the compound.
41:57Just the attention to detail was incredible.
42:00I heard about this, but I hadn't seen it. It is really detailed. Wow.
42:08Well, I think it's nice the way they've got the portraits up here of the guys.
42:11It's very important for me that we never forget what happened that day because of the sacrifices that were made.
42:19Every time I look at these pictures, I'm always struck at how young these guys are and how much we've all aged since this has happened.
42:27I mean, these are young men just starting their lives, just married young children at home.
42:31There's a lot of unselfishness in this country for the better good of our society, and dying in the line of duty for this country is an example of that.
42:43It just gives you a whole new perspective as to when you send a young man or young woman off to war, what can happen?
42:52Because basically, that was a war that day. That was war.
42:56That was war.
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