-Caveat Lector-
http://www.indirect.com/www/dhardy/waco.html
Waco Feb 28-April 19, 1993
Two Year Freedom of Information lawsuit yields new evidence--
Videotapes, audiotapes, planning documents
The 1993 incident outside Waco, Texas, was the bloodiest encounter in the
history of Federal law enforcement. By its end in the fire of April 19,
nearly a hundred civilians, and four law enforcement agents, were dead.
The incident originated in an attempt by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms to serve search and arrest warrants on a building, known to its
residents as Mount Carmel, located in a rural area a few miles outside of
Waco, Texas. The operation required mustering appoximately a hundred agents
(flown in from sites around the country), and who received military training
at Ft. Hood. They travelled in a convoy of sixty vehicles and were supported
by three National Guard helicopters and one fixed-wing aircraft, with armored
vehicles in reserve.
The official explanation is that the raid was intended to gather evidence in
support of suspicion that the residents of Mount Carmel (members of the
Branch Davidians, an offshoot of Seventh-Day Adventism), possessed
machineguns without the required licenses and tax. The official version is
undercut by BATF's concession that, when informed of the investigation,
Koresh invited agents to come over, look at the firearms, and take any that
they might feel were questionable. Even a well-heeled agency does not divert
a hundred agents with air support to investigate a single and rather small
case--particularly not if a simple audit could resolve the matter.
A different, and less acceptable, motivation appears most likely. At the
Federal level, law enforcement operations center upon the annual
appropriation process. Anyone who has worked with such an agency (as I did,
for nine years) knows that they try to schedule a "showcase" operation, one
which will garner national coverage, just before their House Appropriations
cycle begins. An agency director loves to begin the hearings with "Typical of
the dangerous work undertaken by our agents is ...." Such a showcase move is
usually given a suitably dramatic and military-sounding name.
The codename for the Waco raid was "Operation Trojan Horse." The code for its
initiation was "Showtime." The target date was less than two weeks before
BATF's House Appropriations hearings were scheduled. The team assigned
included a Public Information Officer, who made sure to alert newspapers to
stand by for a story that weekend. There would indeed be a story--four agents
and six civilians would die to make it.
Freedom of Information Act In late 1995, I submitted Freedom of Information
Act requests to BATF and FBI relating to critical information on the events
at Waco. Neither agency responded, and in December, 1995, I commenced a
Freedom of Information Act suit (Hardy v. FBI & ATF, No. 95-883-TUC-ACM, D.
Ariz.). After weathering two motions to dismiss, fourteen motions for stay or
extension of time, and four motions for summary judgment, we obtained
quantities of useful data, some of which the agencies admit was never
revealed to Congressional investigators.
Some of the most interesting data may, however, never see the light of day.
ATF's affidavits contend that all of its photographic and video evidence met
a sticky end. In particular:
The "official" videocam, set up to film the operation, mysteriously ejected
its tapes
rather than recording them. The agency attributes this to radio interference
from nearby
transmitters. (Strange, since video remote controls work on infrared, not
radio, signals.
Just as strange, the agency admits that when it attempted to duplicate the
occurence, it
was unable to make it happen.).
That wasn't the only "official" videocam filming the front of the building
during the raid.
There was another, mounted on a tripod beside the communications van. And
another
at a sniper position. And still another (although this may overlap with one
of the first
two) filming from an "elevated position." Mysteriously, none of these
videotapes can be
found. And the agency officials who saw them in the past say that every
single camera
malfunctioned in the seconds before the raid. (Quality control has gone
downhill,
apparently).
The "official" still camera's film....and indeed the official still
camera...vanished from a
table in raid headquarters, surrounded by Federal agents, during the raid.
(Crime may
be rising, but you would think a room full of Federal agents would be safe
from
thieves).
While "unofficial" cameras were there in abundance (three of the four agents
killed had
them), their film seems to have wandered off. Despite a court order, only two
rolls of
film could be found, neither of them depicting the raid itself.
Still other evidence was shuffled in ways designed to ensure that it could
never be
traced. The approaching National Guard helicopters had an infrared video rig
taping
and aimed at the building; since gunshots show up vividly on infrared, it
would enable us
to say for certain whether the gunshots heard on the visual videotape were
from the
ground. The National Guard attested that it'd given the infrared video to the
ATF, no
copies made. ATF attested it'd given it to the Texas Rangers, no copies made.
The
Rangers attested they'd given it to the U.S. Marshall, no copies made. The
Marshall's
Office states it was given to the US Attorney, no copies made. And the US
Attorney...
attested in a separate FOIA suit that it gave it to FBI headquarters, no
copies made.
It seems as if all this evidence fell prey to an evidentiary variant of King
Tut's Curse. It took two years of litigation to pry the remaining evidence
out, one piece at a time. First, the agency had no videos. Then it had one,
but only one, and that made from the helicopters approaching the rear. A
video analyst found that that tape had been edited. The agency found another,
and swore that wasall.
Strange, since that video showed two other agents making still more videos.
The agency finally admitted there were more, but those had been turned over
to the Texas Rangers, no copies made. But the Texas Rangers stated that, when
they received the videos, they were acting as deputized U.S. Marshalls, and
had given the videos back to federal
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