01x05 - Waco Part 1

[bunniefuu]

[helicopter whirring]

[g*nf*re]

- All we knew was that
a shootout had occurred.

- Four law enforcement agents
are dead and at least


with heavily-armed

religious cult members outside
Waco, Texas, tonight.

- They were an
apocalyptic group.

- Well, you know what
they think of me?

They think I'm the Son of God.

- Do they?
- Yeah.

- It was very, very confused.
[sirens wailing]

What happened,
how it happened...

- The 75-member group
stockpiles

military-type as*ault weapons
in preparation

for the end of the world.

- We wanted to get
the kids out of there.

- You know, we train
for these situations.

- You can't point g*ns
in the direction

of my wives and my kids.

[bleep], I'll meet you
at the door any time.

- All of that went
downhill fast.

[dramatic music]

- This is every law
enforcement's worst nightmare.

[g*nf*re]

narrator: In the FBI,
we make a lot of headlines.

♪

Drug busts, mob stings,

t*rror1st takedowns...

- Get down! Get down!

narrator:
We understand why

people want
to tell stories about us.

- Mark it.
- Freeze!

- FBI.
- FBI!

- Action!

narrator: But they don't know
the half of it.

[officers shouting]

What really goes down?

We save that for each other,

when we're talking
agent to agent.

This is "FBI True."

[tense music]

♪

narrator: Kristy Kottis is
a 24-year veteran of the FBI.

She worked gangs,
crimes against children,

as well as human
and drug trafficking.

Kottis was the supervisor
of the FBI's

threat response squad

overseeing the bureau's
response to terrorism threats

in New York City.

- The Waco siege
started February 28.

Where were you?
How did it start?

- I was reading
the Sunday morning paper,

an article about
the Branch Davidians

that I'd never heard of.

narrator: Rick Shirley
is a veteran

of the Austin
Police Department,

where he served as a crisis
negotiator for 28 years.

- It was a history
of the Branch Davidians,

and mostly about Vernon Howell,
AKA David Koresh.

The newspaper was referring
to them as a cult at the time...

religious cult.

- Howell claims his group
is an offshoot

of the Seventh Day Adventists.

The Adventists say they cut
off all contact with the group

more than ten years ago.

- They were an
apocalyptic group,

and their beliefs were based
on Revelations of the Bible.

And the main function or main
focus that David Koresh had

was on the seven seals that's
mentioned in Revelations.

♪

According to him,
he was the Lamb of God

because he could reveal the
meaning of the seven seals.

- I don't care
if you're an alcoholic.

I don't care if you can't
keep your marriage together.

All I care about,
without judgment, is one thing.

Do you want to know
the seven seals?

Do you wanna know
where they are?

- He calls himself
the Lamb of God,

and also the one who will be
in charge of the Book of Life

and the seals mentioned
in Revelation.

- Is he as dangerous
as he appears to be?

- He's extremely dangerous.

- And the state
had already looked into him,

because there was a
lot of things going on there.

narrator: As an FBI
special agent, Charlie Rasner

worked domestic terrorism
and civil rights cases

before joining the FBI's

Hostage Rescue Team
as a sn*per.

He was awarded
the FBI Shield of Bravery

for his courage
in the line of duty.

- A lot of the people that
came there were lost people.

They were just mixed-up people.

They came seeking
a greater truth.

And he took advantage of them,
and he convinced them

to give him all their worldly
possessions and their wives

and their underage children.

He had had sex
and had children with

many, many underage girls.

- This is my family.

It may not be like your family.

- We knew early on
from the intelligence

that we were given,

A*F had been doing
an investigation on him

for a while.

- It makes nobody's
business whether we have

a g*n or not at this place.

- UPS, a driver,
was delivering all kinds

of suspicious packages
to them,

and he was always troubled,

he said in statements
to the A*F,

about what was going in there.

And finally, one of the
packages broke open,

and these grenades spill out.

- The hand grenades, those were
inert hand grenade casings.

But they also had
been buying gunpowder

and other types of materials

to turn those
into functional grenades.

And in fact, they did.

The neighbors would
also hear expl*sives

going off from time to time.

And the Sheriff's Department,
they contacted A*F.

- That,
and the automatic weapon fire.

It's pretty noticeable to hear,
you know,

when an automatic weapon
is being fired.

It's going to be,
boom, boom, boom.

narrator: Jim McGee began
his career as a firefighter

for the National
Forest Service.

As a member of the FBI's
Hostage Rescue Team,

he received the Medal of Valor
for exceptional heroism.

- His Mighty Men were
out there training

in a range they had built.

- Now, who are the Mighty Men?

- The Mighty Men was a group
of his male followers

that he kind of designated
as the beginning of his...

called it "army of God."

They would be there
when that confrontation came

between the Davidians
and the government.

- Yeah.

♪

- And they were expecting
some form of government

to come knocking
at the door anyway,

because they weren't stupid.

They knew that their behavior

and the things that they were
doing that were criminal

were going to get somebody's
attention eventually.

So they actually trained
for dealing with the government

before all of this took place.

The straw that broke the
camel's back that morning,

February 28th,
was the lost reporter

that pulled over the mailman.

- The reporters, they knew the
raid was going to take place.

One of the reporters got lost,

and he pulled over,
flagged over a mailman.

And he asked him
the directions

to the Branch Davidian
compound.

And I think there's some words
exchanged to the fact

that there was going to be
a big event there today.

And so the mailman
was a cult member.

- And the mailman immediately
told him that A*F was coming.

- Sadly, now,
federal agents have learned

what the locals
long suspected,

that the group calling
itself God's Marines

would not give up
without a fight.

- All of this started
with a search warrant

and a cache of allegedly
ill*gal weapons.

[siren wailing, horns blaring]

♪

[indistinct radio chatter]

- I was in
Old Town, Alexandria...

there was still snow
on the ground.

And all of a sudden,
I look on the news...

- In Waco, Texas,
four law enforcement agents

are dead
and at least 12 injured

in a shootout
with a religious cult.

The first dramatic pictures
have just come in

from our Waco affiliate, KWTX,

and we caution you,
they are graphic.

- All of a sudden,
I get the 333 on our pager,

which meant "report to Quantico
immediately."

When I got to the HRT
facility at Quantico,

people were saying,
dude, aren't you from Waco?

I said, well, yeah.

And they said, well, A*F just
got in a big sh**ting there,

and there's four of them dead.

[g*nf*re]

Another 16 were wounded.

And they need us,
because it's out of control.

[somber music]

- A Texas prairie
ten miles east of Waco

is ground zero
in a smoldering holy w*r.

- Authorities were
trying to serve

a search warrant on the group's
leader when g*nf*re broke out.

One of the cult members
was k*lled as well.

- The A*F negotiators,
are they engaged with Koresh

on the phone yet,
or anybody from the compound?

- Yes, they had been engaged
with him for some time,

as well as Steve Schneider.

And then, a little later
in the afternoon,

the first FBI negotiator
that arrived on the scene...

and they had been on the phone
with Koresh as well

as with Wayne Martin, who was
one of the Branch Davidians

that was actually an attorney.

- Through the
beginning negotiations,

you could hear rounds going on.

[g*nshots]

- They're basically
yelling at the negotiators

that y'all need to back off.

We have children...
women and children in here.

[g*nf*re]

- Tell them that they
need to stop firing,

and the whole time,
you could hear

they were firing from inside.

[g*nshots]

- Koresh was wounded.

- Not as bad as he tried
to indicate that he was,

but he was wounded.

- And so things were kind of
going back and forth.

[tense music]

- They negotiated a ceasefire

at that point in time
that afternoon.

- I thought to myself, well,

I'm going to be getting
the 333.

- And next thing you know,
I'm on a plane.

- So I got paged that
I had to go to Waco.

♪

[tense music]

♪

- Our team sergeant
at the time,

he said it looks like
we're going to have

a negotiate situation.

[helicopter whirring]

[car horn beeps]

Initially, they sent us in
to the wrong place.

They sent us into
the perimeter area,

where the tactical team
was set up.

- There are people moving,
and it's pitch-black

and pretty eerie.

And so then,
they finally figured out

who we were and got us rerouted

to the airport manager's
office.

And that's where
the A*F negotiator was,

along with the
Texas DPS negotiators.

And so we went in and saw they
were pretty well stressed out.

- Oh, yeah, I can't imagine.

- My name is Jeff Jamar.

I'm the special agent in
charge of FBI operations

here in Waco.

We're here because David Koresh
and his followers

k*lled four A*F agents.

The area is a crime scene.

The goal is to
resolve the situation,

ultimately, in federal court,
with no further bloodshed.

- We knew that A*F was there.

Legally, they had
a search warrant signed

by a federal judge,
looking for firearms,

ill*gal firearms.

We knew we had
four federal agents dead,

and FBI investigates,
as you know,

assaults on federal officers.

This is what we do.
We were there.

This was our mission.

We're unpacking our gear,
and there's the sheriff.

And he said, oh, God, I'm so
sorry about what happened.

He felt genuinely distressed.

He was sad.

He said
all those boys got shot.

He was talking about
the A*F folks.

We didn't know
how many Davidians

had been shot at that time.

And he said, I feel so bad.
I was talking to David,

and I thought we were going
to be able to work things out.

[somber music]

- This is every law
enforcement's worst nightmare.

What's going through your mind?

It must have been
very confusing,

not just because of the
logistics, but emotionally.

What are you thinking?

- Personally...and I think
this was probably consistent

with the team we've got,

you know, federal
law enforcement officers,

you know,
our brothers and sisters.

- Absolutely.

- And you know, I'm thinking,
they have spouses.

They have children.
They have siblings.

They have parents.

You know, this is devastating
for these families.

♪

- So we came in
and set up our equipment

and got everybody
on the headphones and stuff,

and get ready to roll.

[tense music]

I'd been a negotiator
for only about five years

at the time that this happened.

Although I had
a lot of experience

with dealing with
suicidal people

and at least
one hostage situation,

nothing compared
to this scale.

- Federal agents
continue trying

to negotiate with the group
by phone,

in hopes of arranging
a peaceful conclusion.

- It's dark by the time
we got to the perimeter

of the compound.

Probably a mile out
from the compound.

[sirens wailing]

- The situation remains
at a standoff.

- Myself and another operator,
we were sent out into that,

you know, that pasture and told
to set up a location there.

And we basically
just hunkered down

and tried to set up
a 360 perimeter for ourselves

so that we could monitor

and make sure
none of the Davidians

were trying to escape
from the compound

or attack our positions.

- So Connie, we are
just waiting to see

what daylight brings here.

- In reality, we really
couldn't see anything

until it started
to become daylight.

But it didn't take long,
daybreak,

to realize
this is a massive compound.

If we're going to try
to do any type

of deliberate as*ault
on this place,

it's going to stretch
our resources to the max.

- Did some b*ll*ts
come in your room?

- Yeah.
- How many?

- A lot.

- What was your...

what did your mom
tell you to do?

What were you doing?
- We were getting...

we got on the floor.

- Were you scared?
- Yeah.

- The children were always
paramount in our concerns.

We wanted to get the kids
out of there.

- That was a big question
among the operators.

Are there hostages
involved here?

From our perspective,
the children are the hostages.

'Cause they don't
have a choice.

- A lot of beliefs people have
may seem abnormal

and sort of strange
to other people.

But that doesn't mean
that it's not right, though.

♪

[indistinct radio chatter]

- A cult compound
near the city of Waco

is surrounded by hundreds
of law enforcement officers

almost a day after
four federal agents

were k*lled in a shootout.

- There was rumors that
there may have been tunnels

coming out of the compound.

We didn't know where
those tunnels led to

and where they came out.

They had an arsenal of weapons.

.223-caliber AR-15
that have been converted

to fully automatic
shoulder weapons.

And then, the one that
really concerned us was...

- .50-caliber sn*per r*fles,

which could sh**t about
a mile, accurately.

They were actually used in
the Iraq w*r for sn*per kills.

And they had used them
against the A*F,

and they're very
deadly weapons.

And you're not going
to get wounded by that.

You're going to die
if it hits you.

- You know, the way
we were positioned

around the compound,

there initially were two,

we would call
"sn*per-observer positions."

And one was what we
called the Sierra One,

and the other was what
we called the Sierra Two.

Then, in support of
those sn*per teams,

we had our as*ault teams, and
there were two as*ault teams

at each of those Sierra One
and Sierra Two positions

to provide protection
to the sn*pers

in case they were rushed
or something happened.

[helicopters whirring]

♪

- So the negotiators, what
do they want to talk about?

- We were going for hours

where he's doing
most of the talking,

where he's talking about
the Revelations

and the seven seals.

- If we try to discuss
the things that initially

drew the government's
attention to them,

that would tend to firing
Koresh up a little bit,

because he did not want to
be accused of any wrongdoing.

- And as far as
he was concerned,

that was their house,

and that we were infringing
upon their privacy.

- You can argue with me.

You come and argue with me.

You come pointing g*ns
in the direction

of my wives and my kids?

[bleep], I'll meet you
at the door any time.

- So it is still
a waiting game,

the messianic cult leader
holed up in his fortress

with dozens of followers,

surrounded by
hundreds of lawmen

who say they are waiting...
willing to wait

as long as it takes

to end this confrontation
without bloodshed,

if possible.

♪

- What were some
of the negotiations

that were conducted that
made people believe,

or made the negotiators believe
this might be a success?

- There was a lot of events
that took place early on that...

that we thought
that this situation

was going to be resolved
relatively quickly.

We first started getting some
of the children out of there.

- The bright note
during the night

was that eight of the children

were brought out
of the compound.

- For a couple of days,
he had agreed

to surrender
and have everybody come out.

We worked out
an agreement with him

that he would do a recording
to address the...

his knowledge
of the seven seals,

and we would have that publicly
transmitted over the air.

- It was broadcast, and then
they were able to listen

to those broadcasts inside.

- The plan was
that everyone would

come out and load up on buses

that they were going
to bring in there.

And then they would transport
them down to the facilities

where the other people
had been taken to,

down at
the Sheriff's Department.

- Charlie and Jim, when you
see those buses pull up,

did you get a sense like,
oh, good,

this is going to finally
come to an end?

- We were hopeful.
We thought, this is it.

We've...the negotiations
have worked.

Let's get out of here.
We're done.

The rest of the children
are going to be safe,

which was the goal all along.

- As it turned out,

he declared
that he had heard from God

that now is not the time
to surrender.

- And then,
when they never came out,

that all of that
went downhill fast.

- The best thing
that has happened here

in the last 24 hours

is that more children
have been released.

But there has been
a big disappointment as well.

Cult leader David Koresh
promised to surrender,

but then he didn't.

- He says that he did not
fulfill his promise

to leave immediately
with his followers

because God told him to wait.

- When they left
with nobody on them,

we said, OK, we're dealing
with a complete psycho

who's not going
to give up easy,

and it's going to be

a different ending,
unfortunately.

- The dangerous standoff
drags on.

Cult members remain sealed
inside the compound.

Federal agents remain
on alert.

The families continue
their agonizing wait,

and no one knows when or how
this will all end.

[thunder booms]

- We have a slew of people
coming out and saying,

he's had sex with


- Have I committed adultery
is what you're fixing to ask?

- Have you committed adultery?

- [laughs]

- They knew they were
running the show.

- It was pressure,
like a balloon.

And every day
this thing goes on,

and more pressure
gets in that balloon,

and it gets more and more
dangerous every day.

[helicopter whirring]

- Then, I see, on the red-white
corner, a wisp of smoke.

- We can see flames
from two miles away.

Now, the flames...
oh, my goodness.

- And I'm like,
they're starting fires.

[expl*si*n]
- Oh!

[sirens wailing]