NCJ Number
162942
Date Published
1995
Length
320 pages
Annotation
The scene outside Waco, Texas, on February 28, 1993, when dozens of Federal law enforcement agents in full combat gear stormed the Branch Davidian compound, could have been cast in England before the Quakers and Pilgrims came to America or in the 19th century when descendants of the Quakers and Pilgrims turned their suspicions on the early Mormons.
Abstract
Elements these American crusades had in common were a group of people with beliefs incomprehensible to most Americans and police agencies whose operatives could not distinguish custom from law and idiosyncrasy from threat. Residents of Mt. Carmel were convicted of sin and lawbreaking simply by gossip. The author looks at the Waco disaster from both sides, that of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and that of David Koresh and his followers. He contends that the Federal Government had little reason to investigate David Koresh and even less to raid the compound at Mt. Carmel. In addition, the author believes that the Federal Government lied to the public about most of what happened, that the Federal Bureau of Investigation was duplicitous and negligent in gassing Mt. Carmel, and that the press only made things worse. The book is based on interviews with survivors of David Koresh's movement, published accounts, trial transcripts, esoteric religious tracts and audiotapes, and secret government documents not yet released to the public. Notes and figures