They were also building up an impressive larder of food that could have seen them through a whole year if the need was to arise.
Even though it is believed by many people (apart from the FBI and government) that the weapons were only there as a means of making money, it does seem on the other hand that the Branch Davidians were beginning to obtain a militaristic mentality. According to some ex-members, Koresh wanted to know how far his followers would go in standing up for the faith that they believed in.
Koresh is reported to have said around this time that the Apocalypse would begin when the American army attacked their Mount Carmel compound. They even buried a school bus which was to be used as a bunker if the situation arose.
By 1991 there had been multiple reports made to the local authorities by ex-members of the Branch Davidians who were unhappy with the way life seemed to be going at the compound. Investigations started to take place due to allegations that Koresh was mentally and physically abusing the children in the congregation.
INVESTIGATIONS
In the spring of 1992 two parallel investigations of the Mount Carmel compound began. The first was the Waco Tribune Herald which, with the help of some former Davidian members, began in-depth research into the Davidians with the notion of publishing a seven part article at the beginning of 1993. At the same time The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) launched an investigation into Koresh and his followers.
On February, 1993, the Waco Tribune Herald published the first installment of its piece on Koresh and the Davidians. This was the beginning of the mess that was to come over the next 51 days. The newspaper article, built mostly on accusations from the disaffected members, portrayed Koresh as being a potentially aggressive, sexual deviant and his followers as brain-washed and deluded people who had forgotten how to be rational human beings.
It is also declared that three of the people who were interviewed by the paper were also working closely with the ATF, and the paper had also discussed the article with the bureau before going to press.
As the article went out and was read by locals the ATF planned a raid for the following day in order to arrest Koresh on charges of possessing unlicensed firearms and illegal explosives in order to protect the local community from impending danger.
Bizarrely enough, at the end of 1992 Koresh had invited the ATF agents to the Mount Carmel compound in order to examine his weaponry stash and its corresponding paperwork but the ATF had declined this offer.
The bureau were intent on going ahead with their February 28 raid but due to lack of planning and over eagerness, by the time they arrived all 131 Branch Davidians and a couple of local television news crews were already there to greet them. Without thinking through the situation, and without foreseeing what could happen, the ATF stormed straight in, carelessly and unnecessarily.
The major problem was that it was more than just a case of a siege against David Koresh. There were children within the compound, innocent people whose lives should have been made priority over the search warrant on Koresh – but they weren’t.
As the ATF stormed Mount Carmel there was a retaliation, gun shots were heard and soon it became apparent that six Branch Davidians and four ATF officers had been shot dead. Many others on both sides of the battle were injured.
The FBI came in at this point and they were clearly not aware and failed to understand why David Koresh and his followers were refusing to back down and walk out. It appears that as soon as the ATF arrived on the fateful February day, Koresh believed that this was the beginning of the end – as he had foreseen time and time again. Koresh believed that the attack was in some way related to the Fifth Seal of the Revelation – the last major event before the end of the world. The confusing thing to Koresh was that he had not expected the Fifth Seal to arrive until 1995.
The FBI and the ATF did not understand anything to do with the Branch Davidians or the Bible extracts that Koresh was reciting therefore they were totally lacking in the knowledge and understanding needed to diffuse the situation peacefully, without endangering the people within the compound.
Whether or not Koresh was a deluded, mentally unstable person will never be known for sure, but throughout the 51-day siege he believed that he was dealing with acts of God together with overthrowing the godless people of the world in the form of the US government and law enforcement agencies and this belief was to overshadow the initial reason for attacking the compound. There could have been many more than ten deaths on that day if the Davidians had been intent on attack rather than self-defence.
Between March 1 and April 18, around 14 adults and 21 children left the compound by their own choice, but that meant over 100 people stayed with David Koresh, in order to see the situation until the end.
PSYCHOLOGICAL METHODS
When the FBI took over the raid after the shoot out, they were toying with the idea of using what was dubbed as ‘psychological torture’, that they believed would eventually break the Davidians into giving themselves up.
Igor Smirnov from the Moscow Institute of Psycho-correction was the chief advisor in this campaign and he had spent ten years developing a device that could allegedly implant thoughts into a subject’s mind. In this instance the FBI wanted this tool to be used to implant the voice of God into David Koresh’s mind, telling him to surrender. And the voice they were going to use as God’s – none other than that of the actor Charlton Heston.
This method was eventually rejected, but the thought had been there nonetheless. Did the fact that the FBI even considered using such a new and unknown field show the disregard and thoughtlessness they had for the Davidians’, their beliefs and their culture, however brainwashed they may or may not have been?
THE SIEGE CONTINUES
Over the weeks, trained FBI negotiators were brought to the scene with the intention of peacefully ending the stand-off whilst at the same time federal commanders worked opposite tactics. On March 7 a memo went out to the FBI agents listing certain ‘tactical activities that might be used to increase the stress and anxiety inside the compound’ such as flooding the Mount Carmel building in lights throughout the night, cutting off all the Davidians’ communications with the media, and hindering the supply of milk to the children inside.
Surely such acts were never going to get a group of people who thought that the end was upon them any closer to coming round to a new way of thinking?
David Koresh asked to speak to somebody who would understand what he had to say, someone with a learned knowledge of the Bible – this request was denied on a number of occasions even though the FBI had many religious and theological contacts that they had been using for translation purposes whenever they entered biblical conversations with Koresh.
Doctor Michael Haynes, who had a PhD in theology and psychology, even suggested that he be allowed to negotiate directly with Koresh. Dr. Haynes thought he may be able to talk Koresh out of the compound by promising to help him spread the message of God. Again this request was denied.
Negotiations were discussed throughout March and people who had voluntarily left the compound were allowed to return in order to tell the remaining Davidians’s that they were being treated well and they should not fear coming out.
By March 19, Koresh was speaking to negotiators, promising that he was not going to commit suicide and neither were any of the other members within the building. He requested that the FBI did not destroy any more Davidian property and that in time they would come out. But accounts of the siege state that released children who were interviewed by a psychiatrist from the University of Baylor suspected that they had heard talk about suicide from the adults.
Each time negotiations broke down the FBI bull-dozed an area of wall or removed property from the grounds, but again this did not help matters as the Davidians were going ‘beyond this world’.
It then became apparent that another reasoning behind the stand-off was the fear of prosecution. Once the members realised that Kathy Schroeder was being charged with murder it made them all believe even more that there was no reason to leave their safe haven, maybe that the final judgement in this crazed situation would come from God?
The final Davidian to exit the compound came out on March 23, 1993. Three days later on March 26, a negotiator told Steven Schneider, a high ranking Davidian, that ten more people must be released by midday. Schneider reportedly got angry at this and said that the remaining Davidians did not care as they only feared God.
