Waco: American Apocalypse (2023) s01e01 Episode Script

1
How much do you remember?
Pretty much everything.
It was a bunch of people
you could tell really loved each other.
It was a very caring environment.
If you're living in that world,
you're living in another time,
another place,
another dimension entirely.
Somebody here is reading the Bible
and teaching me about it.
David was our Christ,
giving us the truths from God.
I've never seen anyone
so dedicated to God,
24 hours a day,
7 days a week, like David.
- What about these people?
- They think I'm God's son.
It's hard for outsiders
to understand the isolated life
of members of the Branch Davidian cult.
The cult's compound
is located on 77 acres
east of Waco, Texas.
Its leader, David Koresh,
claims he is Christ.
He was a scum as a human being.
He was a con man.
He had complete control
over the members inside.
Husbands couldn't have sex
with their wives. Only Koresh could.
I love him as a brother.
David Koresh had sex with young kids.
I'm the boss. They call me the boss.
They were manufacturing
illegal machine guns.
He had 1.6 million rounds of ammunition.
They believed that the end
of the world was coming soon,
and that they were gonna be
in a battle with the federal government.
911. What's your emergency?
There are 75 men
around our building.
They're shooting at us at Mount Carmel.
Tell them there are children and women
in here, and to call it off!
These people killed four federal officials
in the line of duty.
Honed. Honed to a fine edge.
Honed to kill.
I can't worship God
the way I want to.
They're taking that from me,
which is our American right.
Do you even see any sort of end to this?
For the media, this is a big damn story.
Very ugly situation.
Almost a war-like zone going on there.
David made such statements as,
"We are ready for war."
Over seven weeks, it ended,
apparently, with many deaths.
You boys are wrong.
And I do not appreciate it,
and never will I ever appreciate
somebody coming here with helicopters
and pushing people around with guns.
I'll meet you at the doorstep any day.
I'm talking to you.
Somebody's gonna get hurt.
Revelations states
that Christ has the Key of David.
That only he can open and none can shut.
There's 150 Psalms here.
Some people find it amazing
that I know every one of them.
I remember when I was young
my mother used to tell me that
I needed to find God
by looking up at the clouds.
And I tried it,
but I didn't find God that way.
So, I kept searching.
But then I met David,
and we packed the kids up,
and I moved to Texas.
We were going to join this message.
And we were gonna start over
and live for God.
My mom and dad
were both raised in Mount Carmel.
I was born and raised on the property,
and David Koresh is my uncle.
The kids used to play in the front yard.
We had the go-karts there.
It was like having 100 moms.
We used to take walks
around the lake.
Enjoy butterflies and flowers.
This time, when Christ reveals himself,
it's gonna be according to the book!
The whole time we were listening to David,
we were living and doing God's will.
I always knew
that there was some kind of unseen force
that seemed to direct me through life.
Then I met David in '91.
I was at Guitar Center in Hollywood.
Now, these two guys,
they were looking at one of the drum sets,
and they said, "You a drummer?"
I had drumsticks in my hand,
so I said, "Yeah."
He said, "Oh, I'm Steve Schneider.
This is David Koresh."
And Dave just looked at me, and he said,
"You don't even realize how every day
there are forces carving out your path
and where you're gonna be."
When he said that, it kinda blew my mind,
because that's how my life was.
- So you go to Texas.
- And so I go to Texas.
By being there, you're part of God's plan.
And I could see that this was history
happening right in front of me.
Koresh convinced his followers
he was the Christ, he was the Messiah,
and that they were the chosen few.
They were going to follow him
into this fiery ending to the world.
We learned
that there was going to be a war.
That the feds were gonna shoot at us.
Koresh had told them
that the apocalypse was going to unfold
literally on their front door.
The government's gonna roll up in tanks,
and it's going to be this big shootout,
and a big fiery ending.
He and all of his followers
are going to go up in flames
and be translated instantly,
and then come back
with him leading God's avenging army.
In anticipation of that,
they were amassing
enough armaments out at Mount Carmel
to outfit a small army.
We were in Texas, the state that had
more guns per capita than any other state.
Me and my brothers
were both taught how to use the guns,
how to load them, and how to shoot them.
They were buying and selling guns
at gun shows.
That was how things were done in Texas.
That wasn't anything
that I felt was a red flag.
- You have guns?
- Yeah, we have some.
It makes nobody's business
whether we have a gun
or not at this place.
Guns are the right of Americans to have.
But these guys were violating
all sorts of federal gun laws.
They were converting semi-automatic
assault rifles to automatics.
They were making live grenades.
They were getting constant deliveries.
A UPS driver saw a grenade hull
fall out of a broken package,
and ATF was asked to come in
by the local sheriff's department.
Eighty percent of the work ATF does
has to do with illegal firearms.
We had information they were
in possession of numerous machine guns.
We obtained a federal search warrant
to arrest the cult members
who had all these weapons.
We figured they probably had
40 to 50 machine guns
and maybe 100 hand grenades.
So we decided to go
to a dynamic-type entry,
which is pulling up in front, getting out,
and trying to make entry into the building
before any of them could arm themselves.
Because it was all based
on having the element of surprise.
So, on the morning of February the 28th,
we were set to serve the warrant.
The ultimate goal
was to arrest David Koresh
and to seize all of the illegal weapons
that were inside the compound.
February 28.
That morning, I'm at home with my wife,
and I get this call from Dan Mulloney.
And he asked me, "What are you doing?"
"I'm going to church."
He said, "No, you're not."
And he goes, "Well, we've got a big story,
and we need you in the newsroom."
"There may be a law enforcement raid
at Mount Carmel."
And then Dan and I drove out there.
I'm thinking,
they're gonna kick in the front door,
I'm gonna get a couple interviews,
and I'll be home for a late lunch.
That morning,
I went in with some other agents
to a house we had control of
across from the compound.
That day, you have a specific assignment.
Mine was to watch and report back
what I see to the rear command,
'cause I'm the guy with the eyes on it,
and I'm watching like a hawk.
The long riflemen next to me
are watching with their scopes.
So, we have good eyes on the front.
That morning, my kids get to sleep in
because I'm too busy making breakfast.
They ring a bell in the morning,
that's how you know it's breakfast.
I'd just woken up.
So I went up, I got breakfast.
The compound,
which was really
the first time I'd ever seen it,
was kind of an elongated structure,
but it looked like it was
just made up of plywood, two-by-fours.
So, we pulled over on the side of the road
and just kind of just decided,
you know, "Let's just sit here and wait."
And there were two photographers:
one, Jim Peeler,
and the other, Dan Mulloney.
We got a radio communication
from Jim Peeler,
and he said that he was lost.
He couldn't find the road to the compound.
And then Peeler says, "Well, hang on.
There's a mailman coming. I'll ask him."
My dad was a mailman.
He was out that day doing his route.
When a news reporter had gotten lost
and stopped and asked my dad
for directions to Mount Carmel,
my dad asked them, you know,
"Why? What's going on?"
They said, "Oh, they're fixing
to do a raid there today."
They didn't know my dad was one of us.
So my dad drove back to Mount Carmel
and told David they were on their way.
I know that I heard some talking
down the hall,
and so I wanted to go see
what was going on there,
and it was David and Robert Rodriguez.
We had an undercover agent on the inside,
Robert Rodriguez.
He was the only guy who had the cojones
to go and try to get into the compound.
That morning, Rodriguez
was sitting in a foyer with Koresh
getting a Bible to study,
when one of the followers of Koresh,
a guy named David Jones,
who was a rural postman,
came hustling into the building.
And it was very, very clear
that something drastic had changed.
Koresh was shaking.
He dropped his Bible.
He looked out the window,
and turned back around and said,
"The time has come."
Rodriguez thought he was
gonna get shot in the back
when he went out to get in his truck
and drive to the undercover house.
The morning of the raid,
Robert told us
that Koresh had been tipped off.
So, the assistant special agent
in charge said,
"Everybody load up now. We gotta go now,
'cause they know we're coming."
And I said, "Well, if we've lost
the element of surprise,
we can't go ahead with this."
And he said, "We're going ahead with it.
Get your stuff on." So I did.
We see these military helicopters
approaching the compound.
I've got three of them.
I started hearing
doors banging around,
people running up and down the hall.
And I could hear helicopters.
Men were getting armed up.
Guns started to be handed out.
Some people already had guns.
There was definitely a heightened sense
of "don't be in the way."
We heard a rumble,
and we see two trucks coming right at us.
They were disguised
with canvas over the top,
so you couldn't see who was in it,
and they were full of ATF agents,
so we could get up
close to the front door.
They all had on flak jackets,
helmets, and weapons.
Everybody was quiet.
Nobody said a word. It was just,
"Oh shit. This is gonna be bad."
Going up to a place
that has a lot of windows, it's two-story,
it's got a tower in the middle,
and it's on an elevation,
it's not a position you like to be in.
You don't want somebody
to be on the high ground.
And then I saw David, and he was like,
"They're coming. They're on their way."
"Now, don't anybody do anything stupid."
"I'm gonna run down.
We'll try to talk to them."
Just before we got out of the trailers,
one of the guys at the front reached back
and squeezed the guy behind him's hand.
That went all through the trailer,
squeezing each other's hands
as we went in.
My kids were still getting dressed
when I looked out the window
and saw 50 armed men
with black ninja suits
jumping out of these vehicles
and rushing our building.
Bring the aircraft now!
Bring the aircraft now!
As the agents approach
those two white doors,
one of the white doors opens
and somebody sticks their head out.
Koresh stepped outside
and told them to get off this property.
And they said, "Search warrant. Police."
Then the door shuts.
It's just an instant, really.
David got to the front door, and I heard,
"Hold on. Hey, wait. There's women and"
And then just, like, all hell broke loose.
All hell breaks loose.
Gunfire like you wouldn't believe.
They came on the property
with two cattle trailers and got out,
they started shooting.
Well, it definitely was not us
that shot first,
'cause I remember the first rounds I heard
were the M60 and the .50-caliber.
We didn't have any of those weapons,
so I knew we were in big trouble.
Fucking machine guns!
It was a massive,
massive amount of gunfire.
I remember one of the agents saying,
"Well, we know the warrant's good,"
because the warrant was for machine guns.
Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop.
Advise.
Heavy fire! Heavy fire!
What I'm saying
is we're taking heavy fire.
So, I'm on both a radio and a telephone
reporting back to the rear command.
And then they started throwing
hand grenades out the windows.
I turned to Dan. "What do we do?"
He goes, "Park behind that bus."
We got our backs pinned to it.
I'm looking at the compound,
and I see these agents,
and they're running toward the compound,
and they have a ladder.
The right-hand ladder,
I'm the first one on that ladder.
And once we got on the roof,
they started shooting at us on the roof.
And I could hear the rounds going by.
That meant that bullet was within
probably six to ten inches of your ear.
Advise this command post
at headquarters of the situation.
C Team, we're on the ground.
We took two hits. Uh, what's going on?
It was so loud.
I was nine.
I remember one of David Koresh's wives
come running in the room.
She had a gun.
When she got to the window,
she went to open the curtain
with the rifle,
and then all of a sudden, she flew back.
Right beside me.
So, I watched her get shot.
I just remember her scream.
I can't forget.
This was right outside my room.
The next event
was a bullet coming in my window.
We're being shot at,
and I'm just protecting my kids.
I did not want my children killed.
I'm totally in preservation mode.
I am down in the tornado shelter
because I don't want to get shot, period.
Don't turn the camera off.
Go back to the car
and get me another tape then.
One of the guys on my team
broke the window.
I've got the red stripe around my helmet.
I looked inside,
and I can see a guy
in there with an AK-47.
I saw him running down a hallway.
So, I stepped through the window
and went inside.
I ran over to the doorway
where the guy had gone out,
and I was looking through
the crack in the door.
And this guy comes running down the hall,
pretty good-sized guy, it looked like.
And he had that AK-47 up.
So, I just stuck my 9mm up,
and got a slight picture, and fired.
And he went down immediately.
The worst part of it
was just hearing
when people were getting shot.
You can hear
the tone and the change in their voice.
And all this time,
they're shooting through the walls at us.
And I got hit in the hip
and in the upper thigh,
and I was trying to get up
off of the floor.
I remember thinking to myself,
I don't want to die
on this damn dirty floor in this building.
If I'm gonna die,
I wanna do it outside with my friends.
It's still just raining bullets.
God, I'll never forget that sound.
It was like going to the theater
and watching a a war movie.
But it was real life.
God, it sounds like a war.
It is.
Next thing I know,
I was on the roof.
So I rolled down to the edge,
and my leg slid over, and I fell.
I landed on the go-karts
that they had set out down below there
and broke some ribs.
The gun battle's going on.
The barrel of a rifle
comes out of the top central tower,
and it was the Barrett rifle,
which is a .50-caliber rifle
that penetrates armor,
and it started firing
at the agents on the ground.
And so the two long riflemen next to me,
they started firing at that tower.
Trying to take Excuse me.
Trying to take the gunfire
off the agents in the front.
Then the tower picked up
the muzzle flashes from our position
and started firing on our position.
You could hear them
whiz right by your ear.
And I remember
thinking
when that happened,
that I should've got more life insurance,
because I had two kids.
They start shooting
out of one of the windows,
and the rounds are hitting around my head,
and then one hit me right across the nose.
And, uh, Rob Williams,
he raised up from where he was,
and whoever was shooting at me
through that window,
he shot back at him.
They quit shooting.
But in doing so,
he revealed where his position was.
When he raised up again to shoot,
they shot him in the head and killed him.
He was more like a son to me
than he was an agent.
He was just such a good kid.
It was the day before his 26th birthday.
Cameraman!
- Camera
- Hey!
- Ambulance!
- Ambulance. Got it!
Some agents started yelling at us.
"TV man! Go call for help!"
"Okay, help. Okay. Um"
And so I just took off,
and I ran from behind the bus
back to the news unit.
Felt like
it must have been 100 yards or so.
It was, like, 20.
Everything was in slow motion.
And I get to the car,
picked up the cell phone,
and called the newsroom.
And the news director picks it up.
"Get every ambulance
in the county out here."
He goes, "What's going on?"
I just kinda held the phone up
for a second.
He goes, "Okay. Hang on."
And then he comes back.
He said, "Every ambulance in the county
is already out there."
The only thing I could think of is
"Get this story."
I've got two dead on the roof.
Who's on the roof?
I need to get back to the bus.
Test, one, two. One, two.
But I would start to open the door
and all the bullets
And I said, "You know,
maybe the car
is not that bad of a place after all."
"Maybe I'll hang out here a while."
Three, two, one.
The standoff's been going on
about 45 minutes now.
We're pinned down behind a, uh, a bus.
Our truck has been struck
by numerous bullets. One right here.
Apparently the Alcohol and Tobacco people
have made telephone contact
with somebody inside.
911, what's your emergency?
There are 75 men
around our building shooting at us.
Okay, just a moment.
Who is this?
- It's Wayne!
- Wayne?
Tell them to call it off!
We've got women and children in danger!
- I hear gunfire.
- Oh shit.
- Hello?
- God Almighty!
Wayne! Talk to me, Wayne!
Tell me how you are!
Kenny King,
who was a friend of mine,
was calling,
telling us he was bleeding to death.
And one of the towers
got him. That was tough.
I'm bleeding bad.
I got a pool of blood.
It's bad Please hurry, please. Goddamn.
He was a Marine veteran.
And when he's telling you that,
you know it's bad.
Oh, Jesus.
I knew nobody was coming. Who's coming?
Not the Army, not Spider-Man.
No one was gonna ride to your aid.
We're gonna have to solve this
and have to save his life.
We're negotiating a ceasefire,
it was the only way out.
Let's see how good
my negotiation skills are here, hopefully.
Larry Lynch, who was lieutenant
from the sheriff's office,
he was doing a real good job calling in,
talking to Koresh.
- Hello?
- Yes.
Roll!
Tell them to cease fire.
Yell "Cease fire." Then we'll cease fire.
I can't hold on much longer.
Hold on, Kenny, we're coming.
They're negotiating it right now.
You have come
and stepped on my perimeter.
- Okay.
- See, we will serve God first.
The thing
The sticking point now is getting, uh,
the injured officer out of there,
then we'll start,
you know, trying to talk to y'all.
Why didn't you try to talk at first?
You know, you guys are really foolish.
- That's why
- You don't know what we have.
- You don't know what we'll try.
- All I'm doing is
You end up like this ATF, BATF
You guys, you got your big butt whupped.
Okay.
You need to call
the President of the United States
and explain to him what you've done.
Yes, sir.
You've ruined his country.
You've ruined the nation.
And this is a democracy.
Supposedly a republic, you know?
Tell him we've got one guy dying.
We need to get him out of here right now.
Cut the bullshit, okay?
Can they come now, David,
with your guarantee,
and pick up their injured officer?
Give me some time,
we can get the message around.
Okay.
Someone was running around
saying, "Ceasefire!"
I just kept thinking, "It's about time."
We've got four more to go
before we can carry it out.
Nobody else move.
I have to tell all the agents,
"I got a ceasefire.
Now you need to go get Kenny King."
And other people are bleeding.
We have wounded all across the field.
And Davidians,
their guns are out the windows.
Everybody's nervous.
Nobody move
unless it's to get the wounded agents.
Nobody else move! That is command orders.
Imagine the feeling up there.
"Are they gonna kill us?
We're just gonna be walking in there."
And these agents have been pinned down
for a couple of hours here.
It takes courage just to get up.
Advise him that To, uh
If they cease fire, then we'll cease fire.
Let us get their man out,
and then we'll pull back.
The shooting completely stops.
That point
How how, like,
panicked are you at this point?
Like, what's your kind of emotion?
I'm in complete shock.
I've got two dead on the roof.
We're trying to get them out now.
I didn't know what was going on,
really, most of the time.
I just knew that
everybody was scared,
and people were getting hurt.
- The screaming I heard
- was my grandfather
crawling down the hallway.
Perry had gotten shot in the stomach
and went down screaming
from a stomach wound.
And he kept yelling
to be, uh, put out of his misery.
And this went on for a a long time.
A long time, it went on.
He was begging
for somebody to kill him.
And they did.
It wasn't that Perry died
from his gunshot wound.
It was that Perry
was removed from the Earth, for
So that he would not have
to suffer anymore.
We finished Perry off.
Eventually, I go out to take stock,
and I come to find out
that David has been shot,
and it's really, really, really bad.
I don't know what we're gonna do.
So finally, after a ceasefire,
we bring a couple of ambulances,
and we're gonna get the rest of these guys
that are wounded out of here.
Come get me, guys.
Come get me.
We'll be there
in a few minutes. Hold on.
ATF!
- Right here?
- Behind the shed!
There's one over there!
Kenny was tore up real bad,
but we saved him.
He had 13 holes in him.
The ATF guys that were hiding.
They all started to walk away.
There were so many of them.
I couldn't believe
how many agents there were.
I remember locking eyes with one agent
as he was walking by,
and he just had this look
of complete disbelief on his face.
Confusion.
To me, my perception
was they couldn't believe that they lost.
I felt bad for them.
But I also felt kind of elated
that they didn't get in,
that they didn't come and kill us.
They said
that it was gonna be easy
because we were all just going to be
crouched in a corner holding our Bibles.
Get my battery, John.
Get my battery behind the bus.
We put a guy in the back,
and then put a person
in the front seat next to me.
And then, the most extraordinary thing,
the thing I will never forget, happened.
This agent, shot in the chest,
and he was in bad shape
bleeding, I could hear him
moaning and groaning,
and he kind of looks at me.
He goes, "Hey, will you put my
wedding ring back on my finger?"
And his wedding ring
had slipped up over the knuckle.
So I pushed it back down.
All I could think about is my wife.
I don't know this guy,
but that one act of his
makes me think
he's probably a really good guy.
And then they had an agent
rolled up in a blanket,
and they put him across the hood.
When I got up there,
the ambulance was full.
There wasn't any room for me.
And so, there was the TV crew,
their vehicle was sitting there,
a couple of the guys grabbed me
and threw me on the hood of their car,
and they said,
"Drive this guy out of here."
And I had two guys holding on to me.
The blanket on the hood
blocked my view.
So there was an agent
standing on the door,
right next to where I'm driving.
And I'm just following his directions.
It definitely pisses me off,
'cause we shouldn't have gone
that morning.
Some of those guys
whose hands you squeezed,
it was the last time they'd have the hands
squeezed, 'cause they were killed.
Country, I was a soldier for you ♪
I did what you asked me to ♪
It was wrong, and you knew ♪
Country ♪
Now I'm just a stranger to you ♪
A number, a name it's true ♪
Throw me away when you're through ♪
Home of the brave and the free ♪
The red, white, and blue ♪
Well, I wish it was true ♪
Dan, the photographer,
takes off on foot.
Get that camera out
of here! Get out of here!
Get that shit out of here!
He had to go through a gauntlet.
I told him, "We need to hide the tape."
So I took the tape out of his camera,
and I put it in his shirt.
Know what we're saying?
- Yes, sir.
- Got people shot. Get off.
I'll get off.
That's what I'm doing, sir.
- Have a little respect.
- I am, sir.
All right? Keep moving!
He really got roughed up on the way out,
but he had that tape.
They didn't mind, you know,
the cameras being there
before it started, apparently.
But once they, you know,
fell behind, and it got extra innings,
they didn't really want the cameras there.
- You all right?
- Yes. I'm fine.
How are my boys?
Any of them hurt bad?
Uh, you probably got
three or four that maybe passed.
Hope they'll be all right.
- What are you looking for?
- Just looking.
- For weapons?
- Yeah.
- Go ahead.
- Yeah. You're all right. Go ahead.
- You right, Dan?
- Fine.
Is John okay?
Yeah. He's at our car,
and three bodies in it.
You got a tape in your pocket,
or is it still in your camera?
We wanna roll on it right now.
- First tape, you got?
- First tape is
The assault?
- You up for a live interview?
- Huh? I
Whatever.
John's back there somewhere
if you want John.
Advise me soon as
McLemore's at the live truck.
Unit 2, I need to know
if can take that tape you have live.
You're live.
And care flight helicopters.
- Two of which landed, have taken off
- Okay. Standing by, Unit 2.
We'll take Mac live,
and you can roll the tape from the truck.
We had a news unit waiting.
Took the tape,
and shot the
all the B-roll back to the station,
where they recorded it.
And so then it was,
"All right, here's all the evidence."
In Waco, Texas,
four law enforcement agents
are dead and at least 12 injured
in a shootout
CNN Headline News, I'm Judy Fortin.
Hospitals in Waco, Texas report at least
four federal agents are dead.
Well, one of them is in ICU.
Dr. Ken Etheridge
he said that he had never seen
anything with this magnitude or severity.
He said it was like a war zone.
What do you know
about the leader of this cult?
It's been reported that he believes
he is the second coming of Jesus Christ.
If that's the truth,
the Messiah's well-armed this time.
The very first time I even heard
anything about David Koresh was that day.
February 28th, I'm looking at the, uh, TV,
and all of a sudden they start showing
excerpts from that morning.
And it was shortly thereafter
that I get a call from FBI headquarters.
They say, "We had four dead ATF agents."
The FBI has principal responsibility
for investigating the murder
of federal agents.
He said, "So, go pack your bag,
make it on down to Waco."
At the time, the ATF were asking
for assistance from the FBI
for negotiators, and requested the HRT,
our Hostage Rescue Team, be employed.
February 28th, 1993.
I was 34 years old.
I was a sniper
on the FBI Hostage Rescue Team.
The Hostage Rescue
is the United States government's
sole last backstop
in the event of some exotic crime
or terrorist action.
There's nobody else.
We were four seasons,
anywhere in the world.
So we always got the worst things
that would come up.
And I remember saying,
"Okay, we got a gig."
"We're gonna fly to Waco."
Then we're taken
to the local FBI command post.
We walked in and said,
"Guys, what's going on?"
They said, "Watch this."
In my mind, it was very likely
that further violence was going to ensue.
I thought we were probably going in
as a rapid assault team.
Maybe that night.
There's a command post set up
at the airport, which is eight miles away.
It was a pretty hectic scene.
FBI arriving.
There was a phone on the desk.
I just picked the phone up
and took my arm,
took everything else on the desk,
and I just swept it off on the floor.
I was focused on the main thing
of calling Koresh.
They're not as bad as I am,
that's for sure.
The main thing for me,
we got children in there,
they got to get out of this conflict.
Let's work on getting these kids out.
So, I said, "What do you want, David?
What do you really want?"
He wanted to get his word out.
He wanted the world to listen to him.
He wanted the world to believe he was God.
Koresh showed himself pretty quickly.
They immediately wanted media.
That first day,
the evening after the firefight,
he was demanding
that the local media
would play a message from him.
And each time they would play it,
he promised,
to the negotiator at the time,
that he would release two more kids.
On the kids, he said, "Two by two."
And I said, "Two by two."
"Okay, well, it's Noah's Ark."
See, everything with him was a symbol.
Throughout the night,
cult leader Koresh said
if Dallas radio station KRLD
read his religious message,
he would release the children
in the compound two at a time.
And he did.
Two children come out,
that's a good feeling.
They're released from his grip.
And now we can
Let's get two more. Let's get two more.
We were insatiable of
More, more, more. We wanted them all.
Hey, David.
Go ahead and get your next two.
And, uh, I think you said
it was, uh, uh Scott and Chrissy.
Okay,
so that's Scott and Chrissy now.
Can you get Scott and Chrissy?
And you gotta realize that the cult,
they considered law enforcement
to be the devil.
And so to send your children to the devil,
he was getting pushback from the parents.
David felt that his main goal
was getting his message out.
So, when we talked about
letting the children leave,
it was hard for me
because here I am
sending them out to Babylon.
So, I said,
"They're gonna come right here to me,
and I'm gonna put them
on the phone to you, and to their parents,
so you know and the parents know
where those kids went."
- Hello.
- David, how you doing?
I'm all right.
Listen, I got Some
of the children, I think, just came in.
A little blond head. What's your name?
- Scott.
- Scott and
- Chrissy.
- Get, uh, Kathy.
- Hello?
- Hello?
- Yes?
- This is Jim. Who's this?
Hi. This is Kathy.
- Okay. Kathy.
- Mm-hmm.
- All right. Here's Scott. Hold on.
- Okay.
- Hi.
- How you doing?
- Fine.
- Okay.
- They got a lot of people out there, huh?
- Yeah.
All right. Remember what I said.
- God sits on the throne.
- Yeah.
- I love you.
- I love you too.
Okay, you don't forget that.
And David loves you.
The conversations
didn't have anything to do with
I'm saving the life of my children.
That is not
what was going through our heads
as we were
letting our children exit the building.
Society thinks of people
leaving Mount Carmel as
people getting their life saved.
I don't care about living.
I care about living for God.
That was probably
the hardest thing I had ever done.
When I arrived at Waco,
Jim Cavanaugh was the prominent negotiator
for the ATF,
and he was doing an excellent job.
After the Attorney General, uh,
turned over the, uh, lead responsibility
for the handling of the standoff,
we brought in our hostage negotiation team
from Washington DC,
and so we had to make a transition
from Cavanaugh to our own team.
Well, I showed up
13 hours after the shooting
and was directed to where
there was an ongoing negotiation.
Jim was almost ready
to fall out of his shoes.
He was just exhausted.
And he says,
"I got a good rapport going with Koresh,
but I've gotta get some sleep.
Would you take over?"
When somebody gets on an airplane,
flies halfway across the country
to come help you,
you like him.
I mean, ATF and the FBI,
we're like brothers.
We sometimes fight
but we always have each other's back.
At this point in my career,
I would not typically be
the one on the phone anymore,
because I'm running the whole team.
But I didn't have
any other FBI negotiators there yet.
So I said, "Fine, I'll do that."
- Gary?
- Hi, David.
- Yeah.
- David, how are you feeling?
No "buts." That's what he said.
I know he didn't do it intentionally,
but Jim had made a fatal mistake.
Koresh took him literally.
Didn't mean I didn't want him
to talk to Gary,
I wanted him to talk to any negotiator,
but in the beginning we had a,
"You and me work it out,
you and me gotta trust each other,"
and he was still holding onto that.
The very first thing
any first responder wants to do
is control the environment
and protect the environment.
No one had put a perimeter
around Mount Carmel once ATF left.
And nobody knew
if they were still in the building,
if they had set up
fighting positions outside,
waiting for us to come back.
We didn't know anything.
So, we went to an abandoned farmhouse
that was about a half a mile away
from Mount Carmel.
We called it Sierra One.
Literally drove a truck
up to the building,
climbed onto the roof, set up my rifle,
set up a spotting scope, and put eyes on.
My first reaction is,
"Holy shit. What the hell is this thing
doing out in the middle of this field?"
"It's imposing."
It was a very large structure
in the middle of a very large nothing.
So, we set up a position,
we had secure radio communications,
and we started providing information
back to the command element,
giving them an idea what was going on.
From the negotiator standpoint,
it was always a back and forth,
building trust, focusing, listening,
trying to work with him.
And it worked.
Sunday and Monday, we got 12 kids.
Tuesday, we got six kids.
Then we got two adults.
We got 20 people
in the first few days, now.
David Koresh eventually
said he would come out,
he and all his followers,
if we gave him a national broadcast.
- Okay, here's the deal.
- Okay.
I'm gonna make this tape,
to give it to you as early as possible.
Koresh taped a 58-minute sermon
about himself and his message.
He wanted it broadcast
on the Christian Broadcasting Network.
Okay, here we go.
We're going to the tape of David Koresh.
I, David Koresh,
agree upon the broadcasting of this tape
to come out peacefully
with all the people, immediately.
We developed a very elaborate plan
that we worked out with both Koresh
and his assistant, Steve Schneider,
who we spoke to quite a bit.
Koresh was coming out first,
then the children
were gonna come out two by two,
and then the women, and then the men.
Steve Schneider was gonna be last one out.
Mid-morning and something
seemed to be in the air.
Police closed roads.
Tighter restrictions
were placed on the press.
The ambulances flying in.
You have about 25 cars
carrying fully-armed, uh, special agents
coming in with helmets
and, uh, flak jackets on.
You expect something to happen.
I was convinced if we went out,
they were gonna shoot us.
Coming out meant
give up everything you believe.
It was a powder keg.
I mean, at any moment
it could have turned to the mass suicide
or could have turned to another shootout,
at any moment.
I came back and Gary had done a great job
holding them all night.
And I was talking
to my partner at the time,
and he looks at me, and he said,
"He's not coming out."
I've just got off the phone with ATF.
They advised me that we are still
in a standoff position at Mount Carmel.
We don't wanna have, uh,
darkness settle on us.
- We would prefer to do this in the light.
- Okay.
It's quarter to 4:00.
So what I'd like you to do
is tell the men that,
and let's get rolling.
Okey-doke.
Now the sun is dipping down.
We probably have
less than 20 minutes of, uh, daylight.
So, uh, if they're going to do
anything at daytime,
it would have to be relatively soon.
I remember everyone lined up
to say, you know, bye to David.
He assembled them all in the hallway.
We had the ambulances idling out front.
I was walking to him,
and, at that moment,
saying goodbye to David
was the most important thing.
You know how it is
when the king goes, you know.
They're in the hallway.
We've talked him into it.
He's laying there. He's wounded.
We think this is gonna happen.
It looks like something
is beginning to unfold.
Uh, within the last 15 minutes,
maybe 20 cars
have passed down this road behind me.
So, something definitely unfolding here.
Everyone was enthused, giving high-fives.
This is all gonna be over.
We're all gonna go back home.
People would say,
"You were one of those guys at Waco
that got everybody
out of there peacefully."
We were all gonna be heroes.
Jim. Steve here.
- Oh, Steve.
- Yeah.
I just talked with him.
Everything's ready to go right now,
but all of a sudden,
I mean, he started praying.
Okay.
Steve, now I want you to really listen.
David and I made an agreement.
I've got to have some movement.
- Now. Will you?
- Here I go.
Okay.
- Jim?
- Yeah, Steve?
He said his God
says that he has to wait.
And then he said, "Nope."
"David has received a sign from God.
He's been told that he must wait."
And then we knew we we'd been had.
I immediately had had the concerns that
this could potentially end in a disaster.
Okay, y'all been preparing
eight months for this.
How long do you think
we've been preparing?
David said, "God said to wait."
You could've dropped a bomb on us,
and we would not have come out.
That's commitment to your God.
You come in and you fucking shoot at us.
We did not go out and attack them.
They came in and attacked us.
Now, we defended our position.
No one's going to expect me,
when they come busting in on my door
with guns drawn and pointed in the air,
and someone fire at me,
that I'm gonna just lay down
and die for anybody.
That just ain't gonna happen
in this country.
Do you put your trust
in the Lord?
I am the Lord.