Saturday April 22 5:44 PM ET
Report on Waco Flashes Said to Back Federal Govt.
ST. LOUIS (Reuters) - Tests conducted by a British firm during a simulation
of the 1993 FBI raid at Waco generally support the U.S. government contention
that its agents did not shoot at the Branch Davidians, the St. Louis
Post-Dispatch reported.
The newspaper story, on the Post-Dispatch Web site on Saturday, said Vector
Data Systems had presented its report to U.S. District Judge Walter Smith on
the March 19 simulation conducted at Fort Hood, Texas.
About 80 Branch Davidians died when their central Texas compound erupted into
flames on April 19, 1993, during an FBI assault to end a 51-day siege that
began with the attempted arrest of sect leader David Koresh on federal
weapons charges.
The sect has filed a wrongful death lawsuit charging that the FBI prevented
the Davidians from fleeing the burning compound by firing at sect members
while tanks punched holes in the building and pumped in tear gas.
The FBI has denied any shooting that day and says the Davidians torched the
compound as part of a suicide plan.
The simulation last month was conducted to verify an FBI aerial videotape
taken through an infrared camera during the final assault.
It showed flashes of light that the Davidians say were gunshots from FBI
agents. The FBI said the flashes were probably reflections of sunlight from
debris and pools of water on the site.
The Post-Dispatch quoted unnamed sources as saying Vector had found that
flashes produced by light reflecting off debris were considerably longer in
duration than flashes produced by guns. It said the finding supported the
government because the flashes on the 1993 infrared tape of the Waco raid
were also long in duration.
The paper quoted the Vector report as saying infrared cameras in aircraft
monitoring the simulation picked up flashes from six of the nine weapons
fired.
``But wherever flashes were visible from weapons, the shooters were also
visible... By contrast, the flashes on the 1993 Waco tape do not show
shooters,'' the Post-Dispatch said.
The paper said Vector experts were due to give the judge a verbal briefing on
Monday.
During the three-hour-long simulation, eight shooters wearing combat gear
similar to that used by the FBI agents fired weapons into a target range
while armored vehicles crunched over a broken glass and metal to replicate
conditions at the Davidian compound during the siege.
A British Royal Navy helicopter equipped with an infrared camera like the one
the FBI used in 1993 and an FBI plane with an updated version of the camera
videotaped the test while circling overhead.
At the time of the simulation, Davidians' attorney Michael Caddell said ``it
clearly demonstrates there was government gunfire... on April 19, 1993''.
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