With President Clinton wagging his finger at the Tea Party movement and claiming that the movement is inciting violence, it is worthwhile to remember the role the Clinton administration in perpetrating and covering up numerous violent and other crimes at Waco. The subject is treated at length in my book, co-authored with Paul Blackman, No More Wacos: What’s Wrong with Federal Law Enforcement and How to Fix It. This page provides a summary of the book, a free copy of the first chapter, two law review articles (on the warrant, and on police militarization), several shorter articles, and videos of speeches regarding Waco.
Just to be clear to the trolls who comment without reading: The book describes the Branch Davidian false prophet Vernon Wayne Howell (a/k/a David Koresh) as a predatory sociopath and a criminal. And of course nothing in the book attempts to justify that other sociopath Timothy McVeigh. Nor does the book claim that federal agents deliberately started the fatal fire, although it does point out that before the fire began, at least some of the victims had already been killed by the CS chemical warfare bombardment and tank attack.
Dilan Esper says:
Waco was indeed an outrageous abuse of governmental authority (as was ruby ridge before it). I suspect mcveigh actually did great harm to the cause of those who were concerned about these abuses, both by associating wlthat cause with a terrorist bombing and by paving the way for an expansion of law enforcement power.
That said, there have been no wacos since, but there are still right wing wackos training in the woods for the revolution.
April 20, 2010, 2:35 amOpenVolokh says:
Well, who is primarily to blame for Waco? The Branch Davidians, of course. If you try to use force against the government, you deserve what you get. The same goes for Ruby Ridge.
And yes, in war there is almost always collateral damage.
I am sure the government could have done things differently. It is not shocking that the humans in the government will make mistakes when presented with unprecedented challenges for which there is no established procedure and the felt need to resolve illegitimate armed violent resistance.
The overwhelming locus of blame for Waco belongs with the Branch Davidians.
April 20, 2010, 3:24 amMahan Atma says:
Phew – thank God y’all elected that GW Bush fellow.
April 20, 2010, 3:24 amFloridan says:
Even if everything you claim about Waco is valid, Clinton is still correct in his assessment.
April 20, 2010, 4:42 amMichelle Dulak Thomson says:
I do not believe that the person posting as OpenVolokh just above is the genuine OpenVolokh. Someone is mounting an unusually vile smear campaign.
April 20, 2010, 4:47 amPliny says:
I am a little confused.
April 20, 2010, 5:45 amIf those at Ruby Ridge got what they deserved than does that mean that the DOJ folks who agreed to the multimillion dollar settlements are guilty of malfeasance and the the prosecutor who failed to get convictions on anything except the original FTA was inconpetent? Have these DOJ inepts at least been fired? reprimanded? counseled in writing?
Sammy Finkelman says:
Did you notice the (legally irrelevant actually) sex abuse allegations added to the warrant by Friend of Bill and Little Rock BATF head Jay William Buford at the beginning of January 1993?
There were a number of versions of the warrant floating around in 1993 – here is something available now, which definitely has a few at least typographical errors: I corrected what look like obvious typographical errors.
http://www.jaedworks.com/shoebox/waco.html
Now you can read:
On January 1, and January 3,1993 , Mrs. Poia Vaega of Mangars, Auckland, New Zealand, was interviewed telephonically by Resident Agent in Charge Bill Buford, Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, Little Rock, Arkansas, who also is assisting me in this investigation. The results of Special Agent Buford’s interview on January 3,1993, was tape recorded with the permission of Poia Vaega and has since been transcripted and typewritten. Both the tape recording and the interviews with Poia Vaega revealed a false imprisonment for a term of three and one half (3 1/2) months which began in June of 1991 and physical and sexual abuse of one of Mrs. Vaega’s sisters, Doreen Saipaia. This was while she was a member of the “Branch Davidian” at the Mount Carmel Center, Waco, Texas. The physical and sexual abuse was done by Vernon Wayne Howell and Stanley Sylvia, a close follower of Howell, on several occasions.
It was learned from Mrs. Vaega that she and her husband, Leslie, were also members of Howell’s group in Waco for a short period of time in March 1990. Upon their arrival at Mount Carmel Center, she and her husband were separated and not allowed to sleep together or have any sexual contact.
According to Mrs. Vaega, all the girls and women at the compound were exclusively reserved for Howell. She stated that Howell would preach his philosophy, which did not always coincide with the Bible, for hours at a time. She and her husband left the compound after ten (10) days because her husband did not agree with Howell’s doctrine, but that her two sisters stayed behind.
Mrs. Vaega also related that she was present at one of the study periods held by Howell when Howell passed his personal AK-47 machinegun around for the group to handle and look over.
Now you notice here that Buford spoke to Vaega twice. It was only the second interview that was tape-recorded. This activity took place after Clinton was already elected President.
If you paid any attention to this you probably did not know that Buford was a friend of Bill nor did you know that he probably killed 3 of his own men during the February 28, 1993 raid.
If you study the dates in the warrant carefully you will see that it was started in 1992 and activity seems to have stopped in June 1992 when Perot was leading in the polls, and though some activity resumed after Perot withdrew it did not really start again until Bill Clinton was safely elected.
Clinton probably intended to merge the BATF into the FBI and then advance Bill Buford to high rank in the FBI. This is speculation. the whole thing was designed to look like the greatest SWAT raid of all time. Buford probably killed three men under his command in order to make Koresh look really bad, because Koresh was probably originally supposed to die that day. Dead federal agents would cause fewer questions to be asked and would constitute proof of how dangerous he really had been. But Buford did not keep up with technology – there was a cell phone in the compound and Koresh could telephone outside and a ceasefire wound up being declared. Bill Clinton had to clean u his mess and the only way he could do it was to murder David Koresh and most of the Branch Davidians. Buford had stalled the investigation of the attempted murder of Alice McArthur in Little Rock in 1982. She was killed later on another way.
April 20, 2010, 6:01 amGary Britt says:
Yeah the Ruby Ridge guy’s wife who hadn’t done anything at all was murdered in cold blood by a government sniper at long range while she was holding her infant child. They shot their dog, and killed (?) the son.
Yeah, but it was all just normal government stuff to some on the left because it wasn’t a group of communists or islamists that were being killed.
The Koresh stuff in Waco certainly seemed to contain a lot of very questionable if not unlawful “payback” by various law enforcement groups, and lets not forget that they were subjected to some forms of attack that the left (not me but some on the left) like to try and characterize as torture when aimed at unlawful enemy combatants as opposed to US citizens in their home (such as the sleep deprivation loud music stuff for days).
Gary
April 20, 2010, 6:11 amPersonFromPorlock says:
Maybe it’s finally time for a real investigation into what happened at Waco: I think a lot of us have a sense of ‘unfinished business’ about it. Mr. Limbaugh, talk it up!
April 20, 2010, 6:24 amBrett Bellmore says:
Because who can forget the day the Davidians piled into cattle cars, and launched an unprovoked attack on the local office of the BATF?
Yeah, I suppose this probably isn’t “OpenVolokh”, he’s not THIS stupid.
April 20, 2010, 6:31 amcboldt says:
A couple of comments from two different reviewers, in the book review section at Amazon.com:
I alluded to this on Kenneth Anderson thread, noting that the government is heavily invested in maintaining a legal fiction, that the 1939 case (I erred and said “1937″ in the other thread)
United States v. Miller, 307 U.S. 174 stands for the proposition that US federal courts upheld the 1934 NFA. IOW, the roots of the Waco incident go very deep, and involve all three branches of the federal government.
A different reviewer writes:
While the actual side-taking is more complex and doesn’t hew exactly on the lines suggested (I’ve read many commentators, who come off in unrelated commentary as nominally conservative, defend the government’s actions against Koresh and Weaver), I think the observation is generally correct. Many people incorrectly attribute the Ruby Ridge, Randy Weaver incident to Clinton, as well, which to me says that the incidents have been politicized along party lines.
April 20, 2010, 6:45 amToo bad. Keeping the government and the people under control is serious business, in part because the ultimate facility in human affairs will always be the use of deadly force.
OpenVolokh says:
I am flattered Michelle. Waco was obviously a nightmare scenario.
But the siege had to end at some point. I of course welcome suggestions by people like David Kopel on how to avoid a recurrence of that nightmare. Maybe if the government had handled it more intelligently, the destruction could have been avoided or minimized. But when it comes to the issue of blame, I have to blame the Branch Davidians primarily. That they think they could resist the lawful execution of a search warrant with force is ludicrous and cannot be allowed to stand. Further, after initial resistance in which law enforcement was not only resisted but killed, it would not have been feasible to stand down.
The siege could not be allowed to go on forever either, since literally causing the people to starve to death isn’t an option. Especially since the Branch Davidian leadership would have had control of who received rations and who did not.
In terms of what should be done differently next time, I would tentatively suggest deferring to an expert like David Kopel. I have not read his book, but I have confidence that he does not condone lawlessness any more than I do. But there was no such book to refer to when this happened. And when you violently resist law enforcement with deadly force, you are asking to be killed. I feel bad for the innocent victims. But, I view them as victims of the Branch Davidian leadership and not of law enforcement.
In Iraq, when innocent people are killed by the U.S. Military in anti-terrorism operations, I generally blame the terrorists and not the U.S. Military. I do believe the military should do everything in it’s power to decrease such collateral damage, including taking actions that increase risk to our troops at acceptable levels. But there are limits to the risks that the U.S. Military should expose our troops to in order to avoid civilian casualties. And when civilian deaths do occur, there is no doubt where blame generally lies, even in the face of imperfect actions by members of the military dealing with situations caused by terrorists or insurgents.
April 20, 2010, 6:46 amBrett Bellmore says:
Actually, IIRC, under Texas law it’s well established that you CAN resist the unlawful execution of a search warrant with force. (The very concept outrages some people, I know.) And the way this search warrant was executed probably fit within the established parameters for that: Overwhelming, unprovoked use of deadly force for a non-violent offense, leading the people subject to the warrant to rationally conclude that they were going to be killed if they didn’t put up a fight.
Not everybody accepts the slavish doctrine that you have to let the government kill you, if they feel like it, and leave it to others to complain about it after the fact.
April 20, 2010, 7:02 amcboldt says:
– Maybe if the government had handled it more intelligently, the destruction could have been avoided or minimized. But when it comes to the issue of blame, I have to blame the Branch Davidians primarily. –
April 20, 2010, 7:08 amYou’ve managed a logical disconnect in the space of two sentences. The government could have avoided the destruction, but the Branch Davidians are primarily to blame.
Arresting felons is not “unprecedented,” nor is engaging subjects who have barricaded themselves. The government planned to execute a massive raid, because it could – not because that was the most likely to succeed, or because it was the only approach available, but because it would make a public impression about the massive force the government can being to bear on anybody it chooses. The media was invited to the raid.
And you primarily blame the Branch Davidians. Mind you, I have no intention to disabuse you of your belief – by now most of us are invested in our conclusions, having had ample time to review the evidence and reason our way to the end.
dearieme says:
It was a massacre. I know that historically people could get off with massacring blacks and Indians but I was surprised that in the twentieth century they could get off with massacring a large bunch of people many of whom were white. I suppose it proves the decline of racism.
April 20, 2010, 7:08 ampireader says:
Mr Kopel –
I don’t get it. Mr. Clinton talked about the 1995 terrorist bombing in Oklahoma City and the incendiary rhetoric that preceded it.
Do you doubt that there was crazy high-octane rhetoric swirling around? Do you doubt that Timothy McVeigh, the nutcase bomber, was marinated in it? Do you doubt that crazy rhetoric can encourage nutcases to violence? Or what?
I can’t tell because you’ve made some kind of transition inside your head ["it's worthwhile to remember"] from Oklahoma City to Waco.
Timothy McVeigh hung his delusional fantasies [race war, microchips embedded in his body, etc.] on Waco. And David Berkowitz, the serial killer, hung his fantasies on orders from “the demon who possessed his neighbor’s dog.”
So when presented with a serious discussion of crazed rhetoric (possibly)encouraging serial killers, “it’s worthwhile to remember” the centuries-long tradition of demonic possession in animals?
But this is a blog … maybe whatever weird connections strike you become fair game for a post.
April 20, 2010, 7:14 amOpenVolokh says:
The belief that the government was going to kill everyone unless there was armed resistance is ludicrous. Especially after the protracted seige negotiations. Common sense tells you that the reason that there is a seige is precisely because the government doesn’t want to kill everyone. Otherwise, the government could just drop a few bombs on thecompound and kill everyone and be done with it.
I am not familiar with Texas law. But I simply do not believe it authorizes resistance to a search warrant that has some technical flaw with deadly force against law enforcement. Even if it did, such a statute would not permit deadly resistance to Federal law enforcement.
As for the point about the government being out to kill the Branch Davidians, that is completely ludicrous. The Davidians brought this upon themselves. Had they peacefully surrendered, there would been no necessity for bloodshed.
April 20, 2010, 7:20 amcboldt says:
– Clinton is still correct in his assessment. [the Tea Party movement is inciting violence] –
April 20, 2010, 7:20 amGiven the flexibility in definition of words these days, I presume Clinton would be correct if he asserted the sky is purple.
cboldt says:
– I simply do not believe it authorizes resistance to a search warrant that has some technical flaw with deadly force against law enforcement. Even if it did, such a statute would not permit deadly resistance to Federal law enforcement. –
The justification for resistance with deadly force can’t and AFAIK, doesn’t look back to the contents of the paperwork.
April 20, 2010, 7:25 amWithout researching the effect of TX self-defense law faced with federal force, I’m inclined to agree that TX law has no value in a federal criminal prosecution. IOW, an affirmative defense of “self defense” based on state law has no play in a federal court.
ElCid says:
I don’t get the logical connection here. Clinton screwed up Waco, therefore he’s wrong that far right-wing rhetoric wound up McVeigh? And therefore he’s wrong that far right-wing rhetoric today could cause a problem?
Or is this post just gratuitous Clinton bashing?
April 20, 2010, 7:29 amSill says:
More investigation? The Republican Congressional investigation. The independent counsel investigation. The trial and conviction for manslaughter of the Branch Davidians. The tort suit loss by the Branch Davidians. These are investigation enough and show that the Davidians deserved what they got.
April 20, 2010, 7:30 amOpenVolokh says:
Meaning that law enforcement should learn from this encounter. Saying they should have done x, y and z with the benefit of hindsight is fine. We need to try to learn how to best handle such situation for the future. But obviously, law enforcement didn’t have the benefit of hindsight at the time.
Also, if you resist law enforcement with deadly force, you have no right to expect that the response will be perfect. Humans are never perfect, especially in such a stressful situation. If you choose to resist with deadly force and law enforcement makes a mistake, it is still your fault. I do not expect law enforcement when faced with life and death decisions to be perfect. You are the one that caused the situation in the first place.
I would not insist on a raid to end the siege. The only thing I would insist on is that the law be enforced. If the only way to enforce the law is through a raid, then there must be a raid. If there are other more effective tactics, then those tactics should be used as long as the law is enforced.
April 20, 2010, 7:38 amcboldt says:
Some quick non-authoritative cites for the proposition that errors on the face of a warrant, while they might lead to an excessive use of force, aren’t part of the affirmative defense. From one source, “no right to resist an arrest, that the actor knows is being made by a peace officer, solely because the arrest is illegal.”
And from http://www.uk.sagepub.com/lippmanccl2e/study/supplements/Texas/TX_08.pdf:
April 20, 2010, 7:45 amcboldt says:
– But obviously, law enforcement didn’t have the benefit of hindsight at the time. … If the only way to enforce the law is through a raid, then there must be a raid. If there are other more effective tactics, then those tactics should be used as long as the law is enforced. –
April 20, 2010, 7:52 amNobody has the benefit of hindsight when deciding a course of future action, only forethought and judgment. That’s the nature of physical reality.
You position, in blaming the Davidians, must be that the only way to enforce the law, in that case, was via this raid. IOW, there is nothing to learn about the initial raid, the details of THAT action plan were justified. A raid on the compound was the only way to ensure the law would be enforced, peace maintained, etc.
A. Zarkov says:
This is about the most disgusting post I’ve ever come across at the VC. I rarely get personal here, but you have gone beyond the Pale. I have to stop myself from further comment.
I suggest you read the DOJ’s own review of the Ruby Ridge incident. Since the FBI is a creature of the DOJ one might expect them to downplay what happened, and I’m sure they did. Nevertheless it makes one’s skin crawl to read it. Randy Weaver received the wrong date to appear in court, and when he (naturally) didn’t show up, they went after him. Somehow he was supposed to know the correct date. DOJ skirts the issue as to whether he was given the wrong date by accident or deliberately– they don’t deny it might have happened that way.
Let’s also note that Weaver sued the federal government and it settled. They only settle when they know they can’t win, and to avoid bad publicity. Besides it’s the taxpayers money. The FBI sniper was indicted. From Wikipedia (a notoriously left wing site),
The government put Harris and Weaver on trial. The government’s entire case collapsed under it’s own weight. Defensive attorney Gerry Spence called no witnesses. BTW Spence got a lot of flak from his liberal friends for defending Weaver.
In short at Ruby Ridge we have out and out murder of innocents by the federal government. Not collateral damage.
April 20, 2010, 8:02 ammattski says:
I highly recommend this film.
Speaking as someone with a left-liberal perspective, I was convinced by this documentary that Waco was indeed a massacre. But it was also evident from the film that the middle and lower-level BATF people responsible made a concerted effort to cut Washington out of the loop.
April 20, 2010, 8:03 amOpenVolokh says:
cboldt,
Yesterday’s hindsight can sometimes become tomorrows foresight. It is called learning.
And in my eyes, there is no way for the Branch Davidian leadership to escape blame. They resisted with deadly force and refused to surrender.
If the raid wasn’t the best tactic, the Branch Davidians are still to blame for causing the situation in the first place. Just as when the U.S. Military fails to use the best tactics against, say, terrorists in Afghanistan and civilians end up dying due to arguable imperfections in U.S. military tactics, the terrorists are to blame. Now, maybe the U.S. Military was even negligent and should compensate the families of the killed civilians. Even so, that would not reduce the blame of the terrorists one iota. Likewise, nothing can reduce the blame of the Branch Davidian leadership. They never had a right to not be raided. The only reason not to raid would be to save innocent life.
April 20, 2010, 8:07 amOpenVolokh says:
I don’t know enough about the Ruby Ridge incident to comment. Maybe it shouldn’t be lumped in with the Waco incident, which appears to be what you are saying.
As a general principle my sympathy is close to zero for those who unnecessaryily resist law enforcement with deadly force.
April 20, 2010, 8:14 amcorneille1640 says:
A. Zarkov,
You may very well be correct about Ruby Ridge. But Openvolokh was talking about Waco, at least in the portion of his/her comment you quoted.
April 20, 2010, 8:18 amcboldt says:
– there is no way for the Branch Davidian leadership to escape blame –
April 20, 2010, 8:19 amTotal escape from blame is different from your previous, and isn’t something that my posts suggest.
You said, “Maybe if the government had handled it more intelligently, the destruction could have been avoided or minimized. But when it comes to the issue of blame, I have to blame the Branch Davidians primarily.”
In your posts, you appear to suggest that the “it” the government may have handled more intelligently was the siege; not the initial raid.
– They never had a right to not be raided. –
Nobody has that right.
Stephen Lathrop says:
I was horrified by Waco, and have spent the years since believing the management of the situation was simply wrong and irresponsible. But did anyone see the Waco video footage which showed up on the Timothy McVeigh documentary last night? It went by pretty fast, but what it seemed to show was federal agents approaching the compound (I think to serve a warrant) and being met by gunfire coming outward through the walls, and taking casualties. My attention wasn’t fully focused when that showed up, and I would like to be corrected by anyone who knows what it was that was shown, or who can point to the video source online, which I searched for this morning but did not find.
April 20, 2010, 8:21 amcboldt says:
– But Openvolokh was talking about Waco, at least in the portion of his/her comment you quoted. –
April 20, 2010, 8:22 amUhhh, ” … you deserve what you get. The same goes for Ruby Ridge.” was quoted. Later OpenVolokh is “I don’t know enough about the Ruby Ridge incident to comment.” LOL.
corneille1640 says:
cboldt,
Yikes, I completely missed that. Thanks for the correction.
Edit: P.S. I owe A. Zarkov an apology.
April 20, 2010, 8:25 amOpenVolokh says:
cboldt,
Well, I would put primary blame on the Branch Davidians. It doesn’t mean I approve of mistakes by law enforcement.
And just to be clear, I am emphatically not trying to put words in your mouth, just clarifying my own position. I didn’t mean to imply that you were relieving the Branch Davidian leadership of blame.
It annoys me slightly when people mention Waco and mention how law enforcement is to blame without mentioning the blame of the Branch Davidian leadership. I think this is usually because as a policy matter, you can’t do anything about the Branch Davidians but you can improve the responses of law enforcement in the future. Still, it annoys me.
April 20, 2010, 8:30 amcboldt says:
– I would like to be corrected by anyone who knows what it was that was shown, or who can point to the video source online, which I searched for this morning but did not find. –
April 20, 2010, 8:31 amI didn’t see the documentary, but there is footage of government agents on a roof, approaching a window, and taking fire. Is that the video you are looking for? It was shown many times on network news programming of the time, and made a very effective backward-looking justification for the extent of force used to conduct the initial raid.
YouTube excerpt of Court TV presentation
Teh Anonymous says:
So, are there people anywhere in the U.S. who have a right not to be raided? Just wondering.
April 20, 2010, 8:33 amOpenVolokh says:
I will admit that I should not have clumped Ruby Ridge in with Waco insofar as my memory of Ruby Ridge is very fuzzy. I remember being inclined to law enforcements side at the time it happened, but I never really followed it very closely at the time or since. I shouldn’t have put it in based that fuzzy memory which was never well informed to begin with.
April 20, 2010, 8:37 amOpenVolokh says:
Of course. Read the 4th Amendment.
April 20, 2010, 8:40 amcboldt says:
– I didn’t mean to imply that you were relieving the Branch Davidian leadership of blame. –
April 20, 2010, 8:41 amI didn’t take it as that. I thought it might be a shifting of the standard you initially articulated, but based on your further comments, you are adhering to the position you stated in the first place.
One point I’ve been establishing is that your position appears to be based on a review of events starting after the government raid was put in motion.
Stephen Lathrop says:
cboldt, thanks for the link. It looks similar to what I remember. Not sure it’s the same. I thought I saw a file of guys approaching a door at ground level, but with very similar through-the-walls gunfire coming from within. Maybe I really did just see what you linked to. As I said, my attention was divided at the time.
April 20, 2010, 8:42 amWaste93 says:
OpenVolokh,
If I remember correctly Howell was known to leave the compound on a fairly regular basis. Also when the feds were investigating him and talking to some people that knew him one of them called him and he offered to meet with the agents. They declined. The raid was unnecessary as there were plenty of opportunities to pick him up away from the compound and to minimize the situation. The declined to do so and instead mounted a high risk and showy raid that blew up on them. Some have speculated that the raid was meant to be a show piece to justify their budget. Maybe, maybe not. But regardless it was unnecessary and costly to both agents and civilians within the compound. When you have a doomsday cult you don’t put them undersiege and feed their belief that you are out to get them.
It is unknown who exactly fired first. And Texas law does allow the use of deadly force against police officers that are using unreasonable force in their duties. As far as I know it is the only state that allows this. So if the officers were using excessive force during the raid, under Texas law the occupants were fully within their right to resist with deadly force.
April 20, 2010, 8:45 amcboldt says:
– the 4th Amendment [embodies a right not to be raided] –
April 20, 2010, 8:47 amFalse. The 4th amendment does not embody a right not to be searched, or not have property seized, or a right not to be raided. The 4th amendment merely sets forth a trivial procedural hurdle precedent to the government’s conduct of whatever search, seizure, or raid action the government chooses to take in those regards, as it enforces its substantive law.
Swan Trumpet says:
Thanks for the excellent in depth work on No More Wacos. I especially found the section on The Warrantless Warrant illuminating. Every April 19th, I recall the horrifying government assault on innocents at Waco. Last night, I posted part 1 of Waco: The Rules of Engagement on my own website.
April 20, 2010, 8:48 amSill says:
At the time of Waco, the head of the ATF was an appointee by Ronald Reagan’s administration, and the investigation and planning for the raid happened during the Bush administration. The decision to raid was made by Ronald Reagan’s head of ATF. The head of the FBI, meanwhile was a Bush administration appointee, who ran the siege. So you can talk about the “Clinton administration” but it shows what a partisan hack you are.
April 20, 2010, 8:51 amcboldt says:
– thanks for the link. It looks similar to what I remember –
April 20, 2010, 8:52 amI hit YouTube’s search function with “waco raid” (no quotes) and got many hits. I don’t recall viewing video of a front door, but do recall a dispute on the direction of fire going through the front door. The government insists that first shots (through the door) came OUT through the door. If there is video (or stills), and the front door is what you are interested in, perhaps modifying the search function to include “front door” would bear fruit.
Malvolio says:
“Blame” is a funny word and not very helpful in these cases. On the one side, you have the plainly incompetent; on the other, the plainly insane. Both sides have guns, it’s not a big surprise that a lot of people — on both sides and in the middle — end up dead.
The insane side? They and theirs are largely numbered among the dead. The incompetent side? Still employed, still armed, still running around trying to “fix” things.
April 20, 2010, 8:56 amanonymouse says:
So OpenVolokh, what do I do if federal officers come to my house and demand to be quartered for the weekend; try to force their way into my home?
April 20, 2010, 8:58 amOpenVolokh says:
I am going to have to quibble with the word trivial.
Here is how I would put it. If law enforcement does not have a reasonable basis according to the applicable legal standard, it cannot perform a raid. That is, you have a right to not be raided as long as the government lacks sufficient reason for suspicion.
April 20, 2010, 9:00 amOpenVolokh says:
This is so absurd that I would have a hard time believing they were really law enforcement.
April 20, 2010, 9:05 amOpenVolokh says:
You are correct that I am focusing on events after the initial raid. I have no opinion on the execution of the initial raid. But, regardless the Branch Davidians had plenty of opportunity to surrender. No matter how crazy they are, they could not believe that they would be slaughtered in front of CNN or that if the government wanted to kill them all it could have easily done so.
It is an interesting point that thinking of the Branch Davidians as insane as someone up thread did would tend to diminish their responsibility. But, I do not think they were literally insane.
April 20, 2010, 9:13 amWaste93 says:
Feel free to correct me if I’m incorrect. The Constitution protects agains the quartering of soldiers. Not law enforcement. So you quarter them and charge the government room and board at an inflated price.
April 20, 2010, 9:17 amcboldt says:
– Here is how I would put it. If law enforcement does not have a reasonable basis according to the applicable legal standard, it cannot perform a raid. –
April 20, 2010, 9:21 amBut given probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized (all of which are trivial elements to produce), it can perform a raid.
OpenVolokh says:
It would obviously be a violation of the 4th amendment. So, you wouldn’t charge them so little. Imagine the outrage. I would love to try this case in front of a jury.
April 20, 2010, 9:23 amOpenVolokh says:
cbolt,
But given that the government doesn’t have those things, it cannot. In fact, usually the government does not have those things, so you usually have a right to not be raided.
April 20, 2010, 9:27 ambpbatista says:
Gas American infants and toddlers. But don’t water-board Islamic terrorists.
Typical Liberals.
April 20, 2010, 9:32 amcboldt says:
– The Constitution protects agains the quartering of soldiers. –
More specifically, it imposes conditions for the quartering of soldiers against the consent of the homeowner. Much as the 4th amendment imposes conditions for search and seizure. Soldiers can be quartered in homes in time of war, according to whatever the law prescribes.
April 20, 2010, 9:38 amcboldt says:
– I have no opinion on the execution of the initial raid. … But when it comes to the issue of blame, I have to blame the Branch Davidians primarily. –
April 20, 2010, 9:43 amHeh.
rachel says:
Wiki is no authority, but for what it’s worth, its take (bold mine):
April 20, 2010, 9:44 amCatCube says:
IANAL, but I’d say the right answer here is to file a lawsuit…unless you’re out of your mind, there is no way that you could think that resisting would end well.
If the LEOs showed up at your door and forced entry without a warrant, and you shot them, I’d say that’s perfectly justified morally and you should be acquitted in any court proceedings*. However, you’d better be damn well aware that you’re probably never going to see the inside of a courtroom if you get into a shootout with the police. Sometimes your pride has to bow to tactical reality.
The wrinkle here is that I don’t have a significant problem with “no-knock” warrants if the situation calls for it. So if you shot some cops who entered your place unannouced, and it turns out they had a valid warrant allowing them to do so, I’d say you’re still on the hook for murder. There’s a reason doorways are called “The Funnel of Death” in urban combat. If I’m going up against someone with automatic weapons and the willingness to use them, I’m not going to stand in the door and tell him I’m there, and I don’t expect the civilian authorities to do so either. Sometimes the police have to bow to tactical reality, too.
(*N.B.: I don’t know if you’d actually be acquitted in court in this situation. I’d like to hear from the actual lawyers here on that score.)
April 20, 2010, 9:44 amgeokstr says:
The planning for 9/11 was going on for years under Clinton, who had refused to take bin Laden when he was handed to him on a silver platter. Hasn’t stopped the leftist partisan hacks from blaming Bush, who was only in office for 8 months, now has it?
April 20, 2010, 9:44 amcboldt says:
– I don’t know if you’d actually be acquitted in court in this situation. I’d like to hear from the actual lawyers here on that score. –
April 20, 2010, 9:51 amError in formal process (absence of warrant, wrong house, etc.) never justifies the use of deadly force. The use of deadly force is justified if the person asserting it reasonably believes to be facing imminent, unlawful and excessive force.
Not relevant to your hypothetical, in some jurisdictions, use of deadly force is justified on other grounds as well.
rachel says:
More from my link above:
April 20, 2010, 9:52 amneimoller says:
blame clinton for mishandling waco. he fully deserves it.
as much as bush deserves blame for being asleep at the wheel (of his golf cart? of his bushwhacker?) despite being told that bin laden was determined to attack in the u.s. with hijacked planes, and for completely losing focus on af-pak and destroying american resources in a useless war in iraq/
April 20, 2010, 9:54 amRelevance Watch? says:
Can someone remind me what this post by Kopel is supposed to be about? I guess, because he was invited to be an author, he has the right to pimp his book to the other wingnuts who want to blame Clinton for everything and talk about the black helicopters and federal agents coming to take away our guns. But its sort of pitiful. The other authors on this blog are often very conservative – but have something to say of substance and reflection. This is rabble rousing tied to a book which will sell some copies to the few right wingers who are still thinking about Waco, texas. If Kopel were actually concerned (from a libertarian perspective) about the Federal policing power, I would think there would be a lot more relevant issues about the federal law enforcement that have recently arisen from the war on terror. For example, Maybe tie this discussion in with the targeted killing of american citizens which has also been dicussed quite cogently and thoroughly by other conspirators on the site. But instead, flashback to Waco, flashback to Clinton….ring the bell and watch the dogs salivate, huh?
April 20, 2010, 9:59 amLook, Kopel, you have a good point about the militarization of the police. But thats not a federal issue. Thats a nationwide issue. And if you are bothered by FBI agents with military issue materials running around pretending they’re in the army – have you looked at the local law enforcement recently?
Lets talk about those bunch of yahoos running around with their SWAT teams and M4s and tactical assault shotguns thinking they are hot shit.
Or just sell your book, by hitting all the right notes…Clinton, FBI, taking our guns, etc…
but don’t pretend its anything more than a Glenn Beck screed with more thoroughly researched footnotes, and the hint of a substantive discussion.
Andy McGill says:
The siege at Waco ended badly, but it is hard to see how it could have ended otherwise. The government waited 51 days in siege. That is a lot of patience. You can criticize the government action at the end because they did not do what they planned to do, but the deaths at the end were probably inevitable and morally the fault of the Branch Dividians.
The first attack in Waco, however, deserves to be heavily criticized.
April 20, 2010, 10:03 amneimoller says:
well, maybe he was reluctant to kill an ex reagan contractor.
April 20, 2010, 10:06 amcboldt says:
– Can someone remind me what this post by Kopel is supposed to be about? –
April 20, 2010, 10:09 amYou’re sentient. Read it yourself, and make up your own mind.
I don’t think his book pimping is going to be productive, and my opinion is that the ultimate point / mission of the post is to push back against the meme that the TEA party gatherings and objection to the current administration’s legislative and fiscal policies embody a present danger of violence.
Anderson says:
Texas law does allow the use of deadly force against police officers that are using unreasonable force in their duties
I am trying to grasp how “Texas law” could permit armed resistance to federal officers. Supremacy Clause? Hello?
… My dad was a revenuer for ATF for many years, and his reaction to Waco was that the initial raid was sheer grandstanding by agents who wanted to feel like badasses. I agree with the commenter above re: the agency’s efforts to mislead their political bosses.
It does seem from the previous thread that the CS gas was a bad idea and perhaps even wicked, but then, some of the sources seem less than objective, so I’m suspending belief on that issue for the moment.
April 20, 2010, 10:09 amHelena Kobrin's Ghost says:
Clinton was once indirectly responsible for a wrongful domestic violence incident so he’s impeached forever on the subject of domestic violence.
Nice argument. Sea Org is proud, your thetans are cleared.
April 20, 2010, 10:11 amFrank Drackman says:
Predatory Sociopath??
April 20, 2010, 10:13 amlike Ted Kennedy, Bill Clinton, and John Edwards??
neurodoc says:
Why couldn’t they be that “crazy”? Because you can’t imagine anyone who wasn’t diagnosably psychotic believing such a thing? Unless you can adduce actual evidence that they didn’t in fact believe it (e.g., recordings of them saying to one another something to the effect of “let’s make them kill us so we can be martyred and go directly to heaven”), I think it reasonable to see them as indeed that “crazy.” You wouldn’t look upon those who would submit to a cult leader like a David Koresh or a Jim Jones as rational actors, would you?
“Literally insane” has little or no meaning for these purposes. “Insane” is not a psychiatric term or concept, but rather a legal one related to whether one possesses the necessary mens rea to be held criminally responsible for illegal conduct. So if you are weighing whether or not they were “literally insance,” you aren’t focused so much on the nature of their thinking and whether it is plausible that they did think they were going to be slaughtered in front of CNN, rather you are taking up the legal question of whether or not if captured they could have been successfully prosecuted.
BTW, the followers of Charles Manson were arguably just as lunatic as the followers of David Koresh, but they did not escape criminal prosecution and conviction for their crimes. So, not “insane,” but what does that legal finding tell us much about the state(s) of mind of those enthralled by the likes of Koresh, Jones, and Manson, other than that they would probably not pull of a “not guilty by reason of insanity” defense?
I was going to suggest that we use a term of art her and say that the Branch Dravidians were “whacked,” but then I realized it wouldn’t do because of the double entendre. So, how about we just call them “nuts” or “lunatic” and stay away from both medical (“psychotic,” which they probably weren’t) and legal (incapable of necessary mens rea) conclusions that we don’t have to reach or can’t reach.
April 20, 2010, 10:13 amSteve says:
I’m not sure the referent for bringing up Waco in the context of President Clinton’s recent comments, other than to suggest that violent rage against the federal government is sometimes justified. Otherwise it seems like a complete non sequitur.
April 20, 2010, 10:15 amKeith says:
There once was a partisan who screamed
April 20, 2010, 10:22 amThat an author’s POV was skew- memed
He/she admonished him to be relevant
(Braying to not sound like an elephant)
Pertinence being whatsoever he/she deemed.
neurodoc says:
Did you intend the irony of your nom de plume or was it unwitting (and witless)?
April 20, 2010, 10:25 amskeptic says:
In response to Floridan, who said:
Clinton’s assessment is that the root cause to be attacked is the “extremist” view that government is not just wrong, but abuses our freedoms: “the belief that the greatest threat to American freedom is our government, and that public servants do not protect our freedoms, but abuse them.”
If the OP is right, the feds — up to the Prez and AG — deliberately chose to gas children to put pressure on their not-gassed mothers. That, I think, qualifies as “abuse” by the government, not “protecting” us. That, in turn, means that people who have that concern about government are realistic and right. It’s not paranoia if it’s true.
Also, even if the government’s threat to my freedom is not that great at the moment, he specifically attacks the notion that it’s the “greatest” threat. What, if not government, is the greatest threat to my freedom? American Idol?
April 20, 2010, 10:28 amRelevance Watch? says:
Thank you for answering the rhetorical question.
April 20, 2010, 10:28 amClearly there are multiple reasons for a post, he is responding to that meme, his memory was jogged by the earlier post on Waco by K. Andersen.
But my point – which I tried to make with the rhetorical question – is that I was dissapointed that he would choose to pimp a book about federal law enforcement power by trying to tie it in to the current discussion about whether extremist rhetoric and open carry rallies and “take our country back” nonsense is in fact dangerous. And I think that effort is indicative of what often goes on with conservative thinkers, primarily, though lord know the left partakes as well. People refuse to discuss issues sensibly, and instead try and get people riled up and angry by twisting and warping the entire argument. See discussion of “death panels.” Here Kopel – instead of discussing anything of substance on a variety of issues that he could have chosen – decides to sell his book by trying to evoke the ridiculous idea of some sort of Clinton-led liberal fascist police state.
Sill says:
The truthers blaming Bush for planning 9-11 are particularly close to Republican Ron Paul. This is just further evidence that “libertarian” hacks are psychologically wedded to conspiracy theories.
April 20, 2010, 10:29 amcboldt says:
– I’m not sure the referent for bringing up Waco in the context of President Clinton’s recent comments, other than to suggest that violent rage against the federal government is sometimes justified. –
April 20, 2010, 10:30 amYou’ve bought the meme.
The referent, as I took it, was the connection between OKC and Waco. The meme is that the right feels justified in violent rage, see objections to Waco which culminated in a right wing attack on the Murrah Building.
The tone of the OP strikes me as advice to the liberals, to tone down propagation of the meme stated above; and perhaps as a reminder of long-ago given advice to the government as it plans and executes its assertions of force.
cboldt says:
– Here Kopel — instead of discussing anything of substance on a variety of issues that he could have chosen — decides to sell his book by trying to evoke the ridiculous idea of some sort of Clinton-led liberal fascist police state. –
Well, that idea is ridiculous IMO, because Clinton wasn’t fingered for setting Waco up, or for setting up a liberal fascist police state.
April 20, 2010, 10:39 amI see Kopel’s post as pushback to current-Clinton resurrecting OKC (and by implication, Waco) as a reminder of how dangerous right wingers are.
IOW, Kopel’s move is defensive in nature, he is not playing offense.
neurodoc says:
Clinton observed that the Oklahoma City bombing followed from violent rage against the federal government, and of course Waco was what animated the execrable McVeigh to commit that horrible crime. That’s the referent. Now, you aren’t suggesting, are you, that because Kopel thinks what happened in Waco was so wrong, it follows that he, or others who see what happened in Waco, must think that Oklahoma City or other similar violent expressions of rage against the federal government can be “justified”?
April 20, 2010, 10:42 amShelbyC says:
Yeah, those babies should have come crawling out with their hands up.
April 20, 2010, 10:48 amFederal Farmer says:
You seem to live in a world where one party or another has 100% blame and the other 0%. In my world, both parties have 100% blame. I don’t want my government doing again what it did at Waco. In my opinion, the best way to ensure that is to pillory those responsible.
April 20, 2010, 10:51 amWaste93 says:
Does Federal law prohibit self defense against federal officers?
None of the surviving Davidians was convicted of murder. Some were convicted of manslaughter. So regardless of Texas law it seems that they jury may have engaged in some jury nullification on the murder charges at least.
The trial judge also apparently prohibited a self defense justification by the defense at least until closing arguements.
Should someone have no recourse to self defense just because the person is a law enforcement officer? Should you not be able to defend yourself even if they are acting outside their duties?
Feel free to look at the trail transcripts and determine what you think of what transpired.
There are a number of controversies that surround the event. And there probably always will be. The Congressional hearing were pretty much a farce as they always are with each party trying to score political points and little interest in what really happened.
April 20, 2010, 11:01 amCatCube says:
OK. So it goes back to my first statement…fight it out in court, not on the street. “Legal” and “right” don’t always match, but that’s the cost of living with other people. I can see the reasoning for this, even if I don’t necessarily agree with it.
April 20, 2010, 11:08 amSammy Finkelman says:
I get the feeling that Rush Limbaugh feels theer is more – more about Vincent Foster than Waco – but he doesn’t actually know and he doesn’t want to say something taht will turn out to be wrong.
I don’t think he ever saw my research. If somebody really wants to know I can give a lot of data to follow up.
April 20, 2010, 11:08 amCarl Donath says:
Let’s back up to why there was a siege in the first place.
April 20, 2010, 11:09 amIn fact, let’s back up to why there was a raid in the first place.
Nobody discusses the alleged offense which precipitated the raid.
The alleged offense?
Failure to pay some $200 in NFA taxes. Little more than a paperwork violation.
Was that worth a siege unto “literally causing the people to starve to death”?
The siege could have, should have, been dropped. It never should have happened in the first place.
The raid should never have happened.
It’s over-the-top, beyond-the-pale, out-of-all-proportion behavior like this (high-profile dynamic raid unto siege and fiery end, over a $200 tax) that warrants the Texas law referenced earlier. The siege should have been dropped outright.
Tamerlane says:
McVeigh clearly stated that Waco was one of only many elements that motivated the Oklahoma City bombing. On numerous occassions, he also specifically mentioned his experiences as an American soldier in Iraq. He regarded that war as another unjust attack by the US government on innocent civilians. It was at least as important a factor in his thinking as Waco. So perhaps we should blame McVeigh’s bomb attack on all those liberals who were so critical of the first US attack on Iraq.
Ever since the Oklahoma City bombing there have been rumors floating around that McVeigh may have received assistance from Islamist terrorist groups. The possibility that Oklahoma City may have been one of bin Laden’s earliest attacks on the US has never been adequately investigated. Perhaps this may be due, at least in part, to the embarrassment a positive finding might have caused the Clinton administration.
April 20, 2010, 11:09 amSteve says:
Clinton observed that the Oklahoma City bombing followed from violent rage against the federal government, and of course Waco was what animated the execrable McVeigh to commit that horrible crime.
But if we all agree that McVeigh was unjustified, what’s the point of bringing up Waco? How does the fact that Waco was an atrocity detract from Clinton’s point about McVeigh?
Imagine that Osama bin Laden had cited Waco as his justification for 9/11. Would it follow that every time the subject of 9/11 comes up, we would need a concomitant reminder of Waco?
April 20, 2010, 11:13 amDon Miller says:
I am personal friends with one of the Federal Prosecutors involved on the Ruby Ridge case.
He is a good guy. He spent many years working in Columbia for the DOJ, helping Columbia improve their prosecution system. He thought he was prosecuting a really dangerous person. He also thought the evidence was overwhelming and that it would be a straightforward case. After the trial, he was very disillusioned. He felt the FBI, and the US Marshalls, purposefully kept him in the dark about key items. He was caught flat footed by the Defense because he did not have the full story.
Shortly after this case he went back to his work in South America.
April 20, 2010, 11:13 amSill says:
Apparently, they don’t call this blog ‘The Conspiracy’ for nothing.
April 20, 2010, 11:14 amReader says:
At first I thought that mention of “Waco,” or even just “Clinton,” had the limited effect of causing bloggers here to spit up their oeuvre. But does it also spread by twilight bark?
April 20, 2010, 11:15 amcboldt says:
– None of the surviving Davidians was convicted of murder. Some were convicted of manslaughter. So regardless of Texas law it seems that they jury may have engaged in some jury nullification on the murder charges at least.
April 20, 2010, 11:18 amThe trial judge also apparently prohibited a self defense justification by the defense at least until closing arguements. –
The specific charges, along with the elements that comprise them, are recited in written instructions to the jury. There is no “nullification” if there is a finding of manslaughter. I think it is possible for a jury to be given alternative findings, one for murder, one for manslaughter, but usually the lawyers and judge arrive at one or the other, in part to avoid giving the jury too much freedom.
The “self defense” affirmative defense, if successful, results in acquittal. I don’t know if this affirmative defense was an option to the jury – if it was, it too was in the form of a written instruction that recites all of the elements necessary to justify the use of deadly force.
neimoller says:
i thought liberals were pilloried for saying that america might be responsible in part for the anger directed against it? how is this different?
April 20, 2010, 11:22 amneimoller says:
thank goodness somebody said it. this and that moon landing hoax need to be thoroughly investigated. why is obama covering everything up????
April 20, 2010, 11:24 amSammy Finkelman says:
Clinton’s basic “point” was that saying crimes had been committed by the government at Waco – which of course he wants people to assume did not happen – could cause people to commit even worse crimes themselves. Therefore don’t accuse people in the government of committing crimes. He is very interested in this point precisely because in fact crimes *were* committed and he was basically responsible for them.
Now the idea that making accusations of crimes, causes some people to commit even worse crimes is absurd of course, except that someone can always have an idiotic ideology that justifies it. Now can we govern our conduct by what people who are both fools and moral idiots might do? They could be foolish and immoral in all kinds of other ways too. But if someone is worried well, then, an honest investigation maybe might help but Clinton’s whole idea here is that people shouldn’t have accused the U.S. government of doing anything wrong at Waco.
By the way, they weren’t really committed by “the govbernment” they were committed by him. Yes, a lot of the people were appointed before him but that does not make him innocent. He knew one of the key people involved very well: J. Willliam Buford, the head of the BATF in Little Rock and the timing of the investigation follows his Presidential prospects. Few people even know the Little Rock BATF office was involved let alone the connection to Clinton. When Buford added some more finishing touches to the warrant on January 1 and 3 1993, Clinton was still in Little Rock and I’d be very interested to find out if they met.
And the FBI Director had absolutely nothing to do with this and was allowed to interfere.
April 20, 2010, 11:24 amDJR says:
Isn’t the lesson here that both left and right agree that:
1. Government should not ignore core civil liberties, even in the goal of domestic security (in the case of Waco/Ruby Ridge) or stopping international terrorism (in the case of Guantanamo and other Bush-era excesses).
2. Violent anti-American (or American government) rhetoric encourages those who would attack America (whether domestic or international).
April 20, 2010, 11:29 amSammy Finkelman says:
You shouldn’t say McVeigh but Nichols.
I think the truth would have caused Clinton a whole lot more than embarassment and it is what accounts for his being soft on bin Laden.
It was assumed right away that it was Islamic terrorists who had caused it – but Clinton was very quick to jump out on a limb and link it to Waco – much too soon, if he didn’t know the facts already.
I would check into who were the people in the entourage of Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto when she visited Washington on April 10 and 11, 1995. On
April 20, 2010, 11:30 amApril 12, McVeigh left Arizona where he;d been hanging around for more than a week, probabkly awaiting the go-ahead.
cboldt says:
– But if we all agree that McVeigh was unjustified, what’s the point of bringing up Waco?
How does the fact that Waco was an atrocity detract from Clinton’s point about McVeigh? –
Clinton’s direct target is McVeigh, but McVeigh is dead.
April 20, 2010, 11:31 amClinton’s current target is right wingers who object to certain government actions. Clinton “drew parallels to words demonizing the government before Oklahoma City.” If he wasn’t referring to criticism of the Waco incident, what was he referring to?
The OP insinuates that Clinton aims to associate right wingers who object to the government as potential domestic terrorists. Object to the government (e.g., think the government bollixed Waco?); right winger? Then you are a potential McVeigh.
Sammy Finkelman says:
Let me lead you through some of the evidence about Clinton;s involvement in Waco:
There was an article about a week in the life of President Clinton in the Tuesday, March 9, 1993 Wall Street Journal. You can read. . .
For March 1:
“He also wants to know the condition of one particular ATF agent who was wounded at Waco: Jay William Buford, an acquaintance of his from Arkansas.”
AND
” And Deputy Treasury Secretary Altman is dispatched to Waco to visit Mr. Buford and the other wounded agents.”
And, under Wednesday, March 3:
“Mr. Altman reports on his trip to Waco and his visit with the President’s friend, Mr. Buford, who was nicked in the nose by a bullet. The president wants to know if there will be any permanent scarring. Mr. Altman says he doesn’t think so. ”
(By the way somebody should check out just what were Buford’s wounds. Differenet stories have been published.)
Now this last sentence indicates that SOMEBODY went to a great deal of trouble to lie. You may know Altman, from Whitewater. If he and Clinton didn’t stage a phony conversation, the paper lied.
In Massacre at Waco, Buford’s wounds are described as much more serious and he is said to have rolled off the roof. In the Treasury Department report he is said to have had two wounds in the legs, which is probably
the truth.
Now, just who is Buford? Well, he’s not just any old ATF agent, but the special agent in charge for the ATF in Little Rock, Arkansas and one of the leaders of the raid.
Now, there is some video footage of the raid, shot by TV station KWTX, Channel 10 in Waco, included in Linda Thompson’s famous Waco video. Bits of it were rebroadcast for a few seconds during the CBS Evening News of Wednesday, May 5, 1995 although not the segment showing Buford killing the other agents under his command, and I’m not sure if the network has the crucial frames. But the quality of the tape is very good.
It shows two groups of four agents climbing ladders to reach a second floor roof. Once there, one group of agents break a second-floor window. Three go in, and the fourth apparently throws some kind of smoke grenade into the house after them. There then is a short cut in the tape, in Linda Thompson’s version at least, and the
fourth man then fires a MP-5 machine-gun into the room.
Originally, the BATF claimed that three men died in that room, and that is what the caption in the March 15, 1993 issue of Newsweek indicates.
However, in the final Treasury Department report, the group that went to the “weapons” room (which wasn’t actually a weapons room, but that was the excuse for sending them there) consisted of only three men, and
all three survived, and one of them is Buford!! While Robert J. Williams is said to have died outside the room on the roof, Todd McKeehan and Conway LaBleu are totally bereft of any place or cause of death.
I believe that that man with the MP-5 machine-gun is Jay William Buford.
April 20, 2010, 11:34 amJoseph Slater says:
Sammy F.: That’s exactly what the Queen of England and the Masons want you to believe, to throw you off their scent. Don’t forget the Rosicrucians and Knights Templar either.
April 20, 2010, 11:40 amMark Buehner says:
First off- i’ve never heard Clinton, Obama, or anybody else in the Democratic leadership condemn the anti-war zealots as potential Oklahoma city like terrorists. Nor the anti-globalization zealots who like to riot at trade conferences. Nor the enviro terrorists that burn down buildings. Odd, you’d almost think there was a political element to this.
Secondly violent rhetoric, as in rhetoric that calls for violence, is already illegal as far as I know. What we are talking about here is taking something that is certainly legal speech and attemptint to chill it politically, which is fine, but the question is will it become more than just politics?
Americans should NOT be told to watch what they say by our leadership, so long as that speech is legal. That was true under Bush and its true under Obama.
Finally- telling a huge political movement that what they have to say isn’t just not worth listening to, but is also equivalent to blowing up a federal building probably isn’t good politics at all.
April 20, 2010, 11:41 amElliot says:
Indeed there are. And there are still left wing wackos rioting at WTO meetings in Seattle, rioting at the Republican National Convention, and rioting at tuition increases at universities. One group of wackos is training. The other is engaged in violent revolution.
And the President tells us an Islamist Army doctor who shot up Fort Hood is an isolated extremist.
April 20, 2010, 11:47 amChris Travers says:
I take things from a very different perspective.
One element of American patriotism is a deep distrust of the government. We love our country but trust our government only slightly more than most people in developing nations do (not nearly as much as Europeans generally do). Personally I think the most patriotic Americans are those who see government as a necessary evil. This is why dissent is patriotic regardless of who is in office.
The simple fact of the matter though is that people who are already unstable will be able to take any position and use it as a justification for heinous crimes. McVeigh is a good example of this. As was the guy who flew his plane into the IRS building. But the alternative doesn’t leave us safer. There is no terrorist organization in the world which has ever had a capacity to undermine our own safety even a tenth as much as our government can, and in fact that’s one reason why we have our bill of rights. This is one reason why I find government efforts to constrain civil liberties in the face of terrorism (characteristic of both the Clinton and Bush administrations) so troubling.
April 20, 2010, 11:47 amMark Buehner says:
Something else- why is the left allowed (even expected) to be angry about their political grievances, but when the center-right gets angry its a problem on par with federal building full of innocent people being blown up?
There is nothing wrong with being angry. We’re adults, we should get angry at perceived injustice. Anger can be a great motivator for change (as the left is well aware surely). Being angry doesn’t mean you are prone to violence.
April 20, 2010, 11:48 amChris Travers says:
No it’s not. Re-read Brandenburg v. Ohio* and Yates v. United States.** Rhetoric that calls for violence in the abstract is very much protected under the First Amendment. It only loses that protection when it is both intended and likely to cause imminent lawless action, or where concrete steps are taken to ensure that one advocating concrete and specific violent acts. There is a huge difference between teaching people that it is morally necessary and good to overthrow the government through force on one hand and training an army to accomplish that on the other.
If I say (hypothetically), “I hope a thousand McVeighs avenge Waco” that’s entirely protected speech. If I hand you plans for an actual attack and say “go avenge Waco” that’s not.
Granted Holder v. HLP has a potential to reshape these Constitutional lines, but I actually think that case will be resolved on statutory grounds (ruling aid to the LTTE issue being moot, and the PKK-coordinated advocacy being outside the statutory definition of material aid).
* Over speech spoken at a KKK rally including “Kill the niggers… we intend to do our part.”
** Over whether distributing The Communist Manifesto, and trying to teach that revolution was necessary, was protected under the First Amendment.
April 20, 2010, 11:55 amSwan Trumpet says:
As is often the case, the idea that a grand conspiracy was behind the Waco massacre is mostly fanciful thinking or a substitute for events which few persons have taken the time to research. The truth is far more banal than a conspiracy. The BATF was long known as a dumping ground for FBI and other law enforcement agents who screwed up. Instead of firing the incompetent, they’d be transferred to the BATF.
In the early 90s the BATF was under fire for allegations of sexual harassment and Congress was meeting to consider abolishing the agency altogether. It was under those circumstances that the BATF planned what they dubbed “Operation Showtime” – a massive raid which would show “heroic” agents carrying out large amounts of firearms from the Branch Davidian home. The BATF had even gone to Fort Hood for training, lying about the operation to Fort Hood officials when they claimed it was a drug raid.
Most people have the luxury of viewing a full combat swat team raid based upon a perjurious affidavit by an agent with a personal grudge signed by a careless and incompetent judge from an abstract perspective. It’s something that happens to other people and therefore, those other people had to have done something to bring this tragedy upon themselves. It looks a whole lot different when you are one of those other people.
April 20, 2010, 11:57 amSammy Finkelman says:
I think I missed something a bit before. This is the the idea that tear gas was used for a full six hours before the fire.
The claim that CS tear gas was injected in any quantity before noon is a lie. That is a medical impossibility. The Davidians did not have the kind of gas masks that would have enabled them to stand up to it. They were not overcome. Therefore, CS tear gas was not injected until noon, and the first time it was used, it started several fires a few minutes and a point not next to, the place of injection.
I was saying they were kept from going out. That is true, but it was CN tear gas that was being used then.
The FBI had to resort to this pathetic lie:
“Though the CS compound disabled the masks, it was not as debilitating to the humans as the FBI had hoped.”
- U.S. news and World Report, May 3, 1993, page 33.
Now what is this? Did CS tear gas change its physical properties when it arrived at Waco? Is Waco in the Twilight Zone?
The U.S. News article adds as reasons:
“The giant holes punched in the building by the tank allowed much of the gas to escape; its concentration was weakened in the large dorm-style rooms and was dissipated by winds that reached 30 mph that morning.”
The dog ate their homework.
The Justice Department report notes that the FBI reported some hours earlier that the whole compound had been filled with tear gas.
The FBI certainly did not fill up the entire building with gas like they claimed. Claims that the Davidians were all wearing gas masks and that even the children did are not tenable and don’t fit the stories the
Davidians told. CS tear gas was NOT USED until the fire and when it was used, it started the fire.
Also see if the live radio reports by members of the HRT match the places where the fires in fact first broke out (I believe they do not, judging from the Justice Department report, indicating that the fire
was anticipated and planned for.)
The members of the HRT probably also shot Koresh about and Schneider and David Michael Jones and only when all three were dead was the signal given to inject the gas that would start the fire. Thats what took six hours.
They didn’t want them to escape
April 20, 2010, 11:59 amMark Buehner says:
Right- in other words, fire in a crowded building. Is Clinton calling for a different standard?
One constant example given as the Tea-partiers ‘excessive’ (violence promoting) rhetoric is quoting Thomas Jefferson’s famous call for watering the tree of liberty. Which begs the question, was Jefferson promoting terrorism?
April 20, 2010, 12:02 pmElliot says:
Is that sympathy also zero for the babies and kids who were there? The fact that the situation could not go on forever is not an excuse for the incompetent and bungled conclusion engineered by the DOJ.
April 20, 2010, 12:03 pmLarryA says:
Cite?
There’s the (probably apocryphal) story about the right-wing wacko group that planned to blow up a government warehouse. On the day the coup was supposed to come off every law enforcement SWAT team in that part of the state showed up. When it all got sorted out, it turned out that each of the “militia” members was an undercover LEO for one of the agencies.
Not quite. Under Texas Penal Code Chapter 9 use of force is generally not justified to resist any arrest, whether illegal or not. The exception is to resist excessive force when it is both unprovoked and immediately necessary. Such resistance is not based on whether the arrest itself is illegal. From the code: (cbolt beat me to it)
Actually, McVeigh spent only a short time in the militia movement before they asked him to leave. His hate was flowing the other way, and they wanted no part of it.
Or that the government wants you to surrender so they can kill everyone without risking themselves.
The FBI/ATF could have arrested Koresh on any of the numerous trips he made into town. They also could have sent the county sheriff to politely knock on the compound door and request entrance. They also could have inspected the firearms the group offered for sale at any of the gun shows they attended. Pulling several M-113 armored personnel carriers into the front yard would indicate that “peaceful” was not high on the Federal Priority List.
Once you define public Tea Party conventions as “far right-wing rhetoric” he’s wrong.
Actually, the post was about one of the left-wingers who are still thinking about Waco, Texas. But Clinton isn’t the only one.
From Newsweek, A Surge of Hate”: Stewart Rhodes does not seem like an extremist. He is a graduate of Yale Law School and a former U.S. Army paratrooper and congressional staffer. He is not at all secretive. In February he was sitting at a table at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) at a fancy downtown hotel in Washington, handing out fliers and selling T shirts for his organization, the Oath Keepers. Rhodes says he has 6,000 dues-paying members, active and retired police and military, who promise never to take orders to disarm U.S. citizens or herd them into concentration camps. Rhodes told a NEWSWEEK reporter, “We’re not a militia.” Oath Keepers do not run around the woods on the weekend shooting weapons or threatening the violent overthrow of the government. Their oath is to uphold the Constitution and defend the American people from dictatorship.
But by conjuring up the specter of revolution—or counterrevolution—is Rhodes adding to the threat of real violence?
That’s a stretch.
And from MEDIAite, “Two Groups Choose Oklahoma City Bombing Anniv. For Armed Marches On D.C.”: At what point does this all become very worrisome? In less than three weeks the 2nd Amendment March will take place Washington D.C. on April 19th to be exact, which also happens to land on the 15th anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing. Terrible, thoughtless, possibly inciting, coincidence? Maybe.
April 19th also happens to be the day Patriots’ Day falls on this year (third Monday in April) and according to the March’s website that is the motivation for the date choice. Meanwhile, the group is currently organizing marches across the country as a lead up to the big day.
As Rachel Maddow pointed out on her show last night, April 19 did not have significance with Timothy McVeigh because it landed on Patriots’ Day (it didn’t that year), he picked it because it was the anniversary of the David Koresh, Branch Davidion fire at Waco and, according to Maddow, that “convinced him he need to wage violent war on the United States.” So yeah, a loaded date, and absolutely no pun intended.
Wow. In the first place, no “armed” march is planned for D.C., where gun control would be a bit of a problem. In the second place, well, I’ll let Longfellow make the point:
Listen my children and you shall hear
Of the midnight ride of Paul Revere,
On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-five;
Hardly a man is now alive
Who remembers that famous day and year.
Yeah. April 19 is the anniversary of the battle of Lexington and Concord, of “The shot heard ‘round the world.” Apparently news commentators have forgotten that as well.
Oh, and it was another “armed resistance against a government search and seizure case.”
Note also that, while the original warrant concerned weapons violations, no automatic or other prohibited weapon was ever entered into evidence. Last I heard (years ago) the remains of the rifles taken from the wreckage were still in a warehouse somewhere, and the ATF wasn’t letting anyone look at them.
April 20, 2010, 12:05 pmMark Buehner says:
And here is where the conspiracy theories, so reasonably put forth, fall apart.
Why? Did an entire organization under the eyes of the world, suddenly, spontaneously, and universally become homicidal? What was the motive worth wiping out a house full of civilians while the world watched?
April 20, 2010, 12:06 pmorca says:
I think their real crime was showing all the gun nuts how easily the government can put them down any time it wants.
April 20, 2010, 12:11 pmjohn says:
Don Miller -
Regarding your DOJ friend: I’m sure for brevity’s sake you omitted the parts of his story dealing with his confrontation with those FBI and Marshall agents who lied, with the judge in the case, and with his superiors in DOJ. Or his letter sent directly to the US Attorney General describing in detail this gross miscairrage of justice. Or his heroic statement (against this prosecutorial crime) by quitting DOJ and thus losing his tenure, retirement, and best-in-the-world health care, and taking that long lonely slog back to Columbia to work with those who will some day actually be concerned with justice.
April 20, 2010, 12:27 pmSammy Finkelman says:
Nobody ever asked the right questions. Every one of these investigations was managed and people were just not familiar with the facts – and after the Oklahoma bombing people didn’t really want to – which of course was the reason for the Oklahoma bombing.
Clinton also gave people only a choice between seeing all government people as very evil or completely innocent with nothing in between so they tended to fall on the side of innocence as you are doing.
Here are somne questions that could have been asked:
You know, Mr. President, there’s just one thing that’s bothering me.
I am sure it really doesn’t matter, but I’m curious, it’s really nothing, but why exactly do you think the FBI rejected the water cannon plan at Waco in favor of tear gas? What they said could happen sounded
like exactly what did happen, only what happened was worse.
One second, also, could you tell me, I’m sure you have a good explanation, but what did you mean by this:
<
Why was it important for you to know the exact identities of who survived the fire and who did not before you could comment on it???
Why would it matter if David Koresh or some other individuals had survived? I mean it’s not a question of nobody being around to contradict something you might say, is it?. . .
And then, you also said at the same press conference:
<>
Now, I’m just wondering, but if she told you no progress had been made, and they were ending it now, then what did you think she meant by telling you that April 19 was not going to be D-Day, as the Justice
Department report says she told you?
And if you were misled about the need, and the possibilities of things going wrong, why didn’t have
someone look into what kind of mistakes were made – who went wrong and where they went wrong. The report did not look into it.
And how were the military consulted and about what?
Oh, I see, yes. The Davidians started the fire. They overheard them on the bugs. The day before even. Then why did the FBI go ahead?
They were not listening to the tapes. I see.
What do you think, by the way, could be the cause of some of the leaks, like that story of people in headquarters in Washington listening live to the bugs that appeared in the April 26, 1993 New York Times.
I could send more.
April 20, 2010, 12:30 pmFloridan says:
CT: “One element of American patriotism is a deep distrust of the government.”
When that “deep distrust” is separated from reality, it is not patriotism; it is paranoia.
April 20, 2010, 12:30 pmSammy Finkelman says:
Some of the quotes were not copied here.
April 20, 2010, 12:31 pmArthur Kirkland says:
This is illuminating. People who customarily exhibit a nearly inexhaustible appetite for government power and violence under sketchy circumstances (at home and abroad, from Iraq to Italy, in secret prisons and “black” torture sites, delivered by drones or mercenaries) continue to nurture latent love for the wackos from Waco.
April 20, 2010, 12:32 pmSwan Trumpet says:
The world couldn’t watch because the FBI insisted the media not be allowed close enough to film. The negotiators did succeed in getting some people to voluntarily leave. The problem was that after watching law enforcement deliberately kill their dog – use army tanks to mutilate the bodies of Branch Davidian dead and other atrocities – was that few had the trust required to leave. Koresh repeatedly requested the media be present and those requests were denied by Janet Reno.
Afterwards, the BATF’s video was “mistakenly” erased, and the steel front doors proving the BATF fired first were “lost”. Other evidence against law enforcement was deliberately destroyed.
April 20, 2010, 12:39 pmbyomtov says:
Sammy Finkelman,
[Rush Limbaugh] doesn’t actually know and he doesn’t want to say something taht will turn out to be wrong.
That has to be one of the top ten most ridiculous things ever posted on the Internet.
April 20, 2010, 12:41 pmDangerMouse says:
Arthur, they deliberately gassed the children. What do you have to say about that?
April 20, 2010, 12:49 pmpireader says:
LarryA –
My comment didn’t mention the militias,and neither did Mr. Clinton in the article cited by Mr. Kopel. So your response to me seems confused.
April 20, 2010, 12:55 pmgeokstr says:
But it seems to me that the escalating in-your-face rhetoric from the left is a thinly veiled attempt to get somebody – anybody – on the right p*ssed off enough to set them off. From Obama mocking the tea partiers’ concerns to Pelosi and CBC arrogantly marching through the crowds on their way to pass the health takeover bill to the constant ridicule and denigration of the tea parties by the MSM to the SEIU beatings and eggings, eventually someone will crack. So far it’s only been leftlings who have committed violence, conveniently ignored or dishonestly misrepresented by the Lewinskyite media as coming from the right.
Then if the phony “racist” accusations continue to fail miserably they can call “violence” as a way to tar every other critic of Obama and his policies. Personally, I think the D’s would welcome any kind of violence to offset the tea party groundswell growing against them.
April 20, 2010, 1:04 pmDJR says:
I was suggesting that the left and right both agree on this in principle, not that partisan politicians evenhandedly apply the principle. I take it you’re on the right, and that you agree that rhetoric encouraging the anti-globalization people to violence and “enviro terrorists” is a bad thing? If so, why would you disagree that similar rhetoric on the right is also a bad thing?
As other commenters have noted, is protected speech. However, I posit that both sides agree it is nevertheless worthy of condemnation.
Setting aside that Bill Clinton is not officially part of the administration (correct me if that’s wrong) the President is free to offer condemnation of legal activities, including speech. Bush was perfectly within his rights, for example, to imply that criticism of the war gave comfort to America’s enemies, despite how despicable some might consider that. Until he starts rounding people up, the First Amendment isn’t violated.
So the administration can certainly say it’s bad to inspire violence against the government. My point is that both sides basically agree on that point. The only reason you’re complaining is that the targets come from your side of the aisle. For my part, I would equally condemn rhetoric that encourages violence by the anti-globalization or environmental loonies as that which encourages the black helicopter crowd.
As for you comment on whether or not it’s good politics, that’s not really responsive.
April 20, 2010, 1:10 pmTatil says:
Note to Bin Laden: Take some women and children into your cave. Molest them while you are at it. Republicans will not fire at your cave and are perfectly willing to wait until you surrender even if it takes years. Oh, in the end, if you feel helpless and decide to burn down everybody including the children, it would be our fault, so don’t worry about it.
April 20, 2010, 1:13 pmTatil says:
Should it be illegal for prosecutors to start out with an easy crime when they obtain their first warrants or indictments before they have time and evidence to build a case involving more serious gun law violations, child molestation charges, kidnapping, murder etc. in general?
April 20, 2010, 1:17 pmTatil says:
Certainly do not fire at them. File a lawsuit later if you believe your rights are violated. Besides, even if they made a mistake or some of them abused their power, what gives anyone the right to sentence all of them to death at that instance? You fire at law enforcement, expect to be killed… Fairly simple in my mind.
April 20, 2010, 1:20 pmShelbyC says:
I don’t get it. Are you suggesting that it would be OK to fire at the children in the hope that Bin Laden would surrender to protect them?
April 20, 2010, 1:23 pmShelbyC says:
Maybe, but your wives and children? In the case of Waco, by directly targeting the children, and in the case of Ruby Ridge, by shooting the wife accidently while shooting at someone who is fleeing?
April 20, 2010, 1:27 pmDilan Esper says:
Gas American infants and toddlers.But don’t water-board Islamic terrorists.Typical Liberals.
You know, sometimes I think that certain conservatives don’t give a crap about what liberals actually think or say. Plenty of liberals have condemned Waco. Timothy Noah of Slate called it an outrage. The Nation magazine was highly critical of it. Several liberals have posted on this thread and said it was terrible.
So in light of that, instead of stereotyping the left, maybe you (and some other conservative commenters) might acknowledge that there are at least some folks on the left that agree with you, that there is no monolithic defense on the left of the Clinton administration’s actions on this issue, etc.?
Is it really more important to you to hate liberals than to tell the truth?
April 20, 2010, 1:37 pmFederal Farmer says:
Seems quite a few commenters here have a view of politics that is limited to left vs. right. Pretty simplistic. You’ll find quite a few people here like myself that hold some left, some right views. However, we place more importance on the statist vs. individualist axis. I opposed Bush’s encroachments on my liberties as fervently as I opposed Clinton’s and Obama’s.
April 20, 2010, 1:49 pmChris Travers says:
Reminds me of a recent thread here about maternal mortality rates…..
April 20, 2010, 1:51 pmMark Buehner says:
None of which provides a motive for the BATF to intentionally murder everyone in the compound. Those are all interesting details, but Occam’s Razor strongly suggests it is equally powerful evidence for simple incompetence, or even Murphy’s Law taking over.
April 20, 2010, 1:54 pmMark Buehner says:
I agree that violence is a bad thing. I agree that the legal definition of inciting violence is a bad thing. I’m still hazy on exactly what it is that Tea-Partiers are supposedly engaging in that doesn’t quite meet that criteria. Whatever it is, I doubt I have a problem with it whether Eco-zealots do it or anti-tax zealots.
Can we have some actual examples of what this speech is that is so dangerous but doesn’t arise to the level of incitement? The garbled messages i’ve heard from the president et al is that exhibiting a powerful distrust of government rises to that occasion. Is that what we’re talking about?
April 20, 2010, 2:02 pmDangerMouse says:
Is it really more important to you to hate liberals than to tell the truth?
Dilan,
I commend any lib that, notwithstanding their natural statist tendencies, is able to see the outrages committed by the government in Waco.
They’re the exception, not the rule. Libs are mostly very fine with using the government to break some eggs. For what it’s worth, I also have nothing but contempt for many conservatives who have a statist attitude towards law enforcement merely because cops often beat up hippies. Do-No-Wrong Authoritarianism is despicable whether it comes from the left or the right.
April 20, 2010, 2:03 pmJMA says:
OpenVolokh, perhaps you could clarify: as soldiers of all nationalities already risk death in the course of any armed conflict, how much more risk would you like them to take on?
I suspect that for many people, the only acceptable level of risk is “the least possible,” understanding that what is and is not ‘possible’ is sometimes subject to budgetary constraints–as seen in deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan with inferior body armor. However, when something manages to make operations both safer and cheaper, I have to ask: what is the value in casting aside those benefits?
Do individuals making such arguments think the enemy will go easy on us if we fight fair? This, ladies and gentlemen, is the real world–not a playground dodgeball match.
I’ll bet you five bucks if we replaced every soldier deployed overseas with a robot capable of doing the same job, the average insurgent wouldn’t even bother planting IEDs anymore. These people post Youtube videos of young men being killed in action. There is no reason we ought to give them that opportunity any more often than we have to.
Anyone who responds to this by pointing out that there are similar American-made videos on Youtube will have only proven that they can do an exceptional job of missing the point completely.
April 20, 2010, 2:12 pmMaureen001 says:
He’s wagged worse in the past. ;0
Is there anything more annoying and pretentious than a politician telling the rest of the country how to behave?
April 20, 2010, 2:13 pmPersonFromPorlock says:
Ancient (1960s) Playboy cartoon: bearded Latin revolutionaries seated around a table, pointing pistols at each other. Caption “Well, if we’re all with the CIA, this meeting is adjourned.”
April 20, 2010, 2:13 pmneimoller says:
also, why do women wear those revealing clothes that make men want to do bad, bad things to them?
April 20, 2010, 2:21 pmneimoller says:
we dont do body counts.
April 20, 2010, 2:24 pmMark Buehner says:
Apparently if the bad things aren’t happening enough to suite your agenda you have to manufacture them. Is there a Duke Lacrosse metaphor in the offing?
April 20, 2010, 2:31 pmA. Zarkov says:
Lawyers are supposed to read things carefully, but I guess that dictum does not apply to blogs.
April 20, 2010, 2:36 pmneimoller says:
actually, they are happening often enough to keep my agenda very well suited. (all of us “libs” gather in our star chamber, rub our palms in glee and cackle evilly every time violence is inflicted on a “dem” or a “lib”)
April 20, 2010, 2:44 pmA. Zarkov says:
To your credit, you’re backpedaling on your original statement. While the Davidians certainly bear a lot of responsibility, they were not acting under the color of authority. It’s pretty clear to me that BATF was chest thumping. There was no need to make such a fuss in the first place, and they could have easily arrested Koresh without storming the Davidian compound. BATF showed callous indifference to the lives of innocents within the compound who had no control over what was happening. There was no excuse for not letting the Davidians surrender in front of the press. There was no excuse for not simply waiting them out.
Now Clinton has chosen to open up an old wound, in an effort to discredit the Tea Party movement. In my opinion, it won’t work. Information flows too freely today, and too many people understand the MSM has become a virtual arm of the Democratic Party. With small, cheap video cameras and YouTube, we have citizen journalism to fill it the deliberate gaps left in the news.
April 20, 2010, 2:49 pmArthur Kirkland says:
If that occurred, it was not as bad as much of what occurred under the “Intergalactic War On Terror” cloak, but nonetheless bad.
April 20, 2010, 3:03 pmStrict says:
Waco was obviously a disaster..
Anyway, DK writes: “The book describes the Branch Davidian false prophet Vernon Wayne Howell (a/k/a David Koresh)”
Interesting.
1. Does the book [purport to] prove he was a false prophet?
2. What religious authority or grounds do you have to declare him a false prophet?
3. Who in your view is a true prophet?
4. Didn’t the US Government do exactly what the Yesha Rabbinical Council, Deuteronomy, Talmud, and the Mishnah say to do – execute the false prophet? I’m not sure why you raise religion in your objection to the government’s conduct here. It seems like your religious objection to Koresh [he's a false prophet] doesn’t make much sense here…
April 20, 2010, 3:28 pmMark Buehner says:
Which in turn isn’t a patch on what happened in WW2. Is context important?
April 20, 2010, 4:00 pmneimoller says:
heh. nailed ‘im!
April 20, 2010, 4:09 pmWhadonna More says:
How about using an ad homenim as a lead-in to stating your moral superiority?
April 20, 2010, 5:01 pmMark Buehner says:
Bobby Jindal’s (female) campaign director had her jaw broken last night, apparently by left-wing protesters after a fundraiser. If that was a democrat assaulted by a tea-partier, it would be the front page, leading story in every media outlet in America. Anybody want to argue with that?
April 20, 2010, 5:30 pmShelbyC says:
Nope. Less annoying.
April 20, 2010, 5:45 pmjosh says:
When DangerMouse’s comment (“Arthur, they deliberately gassed the children. What do you have to say about that?”) is just plain vanilla for the thread, you know it’s time to seek your weirdness elsewhere.
Holy crap. {But seriously, wasn’t Koresh schtuping 12-year-olds? Isn’t that illegal under Texas, federal, common and natural law? Funny, that barely warranted mention in Kopel’s peddled article about child abuse at Waco).
April 20, 2010, 6:11 pmSarcastro says:
[Yeah, I'll argue. The media loves them some conflict. You think the idea of crazed folks on both sides would sell? Like gangbusters. I recall the Cantor story doing pretty well.
The flaw in the story is that it isn't true. Or at least the perpetrator isn't ID'd as a left wing protester except by this one hayride blog. The New Orleans Police have said it doesn't seem to be political. The Jindal folks agree.
Things may change as the story develops, but as of now I am not surprised the media has not picked up on this very dodgy story]
April 20, 2010, 6:13 pmrimfire says:
My suspicion is that OpenVolokh would have been a loyal subject of his majesty during the Revolutionary War
April 20, 2010, 6:22 pmSarcastro says:
Or he’d have been a Federalist. Same diff, really.
April 20, 2010, 6:36 pmGuy says:
Bring a Bivens action?
April 20, 2010, 6:41 pmGuy says:
There may not be a Third Amendment violation, but I think the Takings Clause and Due Process Clause would be applicable.
April 20, 2010, 6:43 pmFederal Farmer says:
Those dreadful anti-federalists were such obstructionists…the party of NO.
April 20, 2010, 6:44 pmFederal Farmer says:
Judging by their armaments and ‘combat-pajamas’ the police are a military force.
April 20, 2010, 6:46 pmCalvin Ball says:
My gut feeling is the davidians started the fire themselves as a counter to the breach assault with the plan to run back to the buried school bus and let the invaders burn themselves up in assault. Unfortunately they didn’t make it to the bus, probably because the fire expanded too quickly amd the bad effects of the gas attack.
It’s also quite a cooincidence that Bush made his western white house a few years later within a stones throw of the conflagaration
April 20, 2010, 6:49 pmleo marvin says:
Not to get anyone’s tin foil in a twist, but it’s worth mentioning that when you see a thread like this one:
“(cough)” is probably a Republican.
April 20, 2010, 6:52 pmzuch says:
Prof. Kopel:
Do you mean “assert”? Your book’s first chapter says that:
Have you changed your mind on this in the interim since the book’s publication?
And I’m curious: How many ‘victims’ were found with tank tread tracks running down their back? How were any killed by the “tank attack”?
That said:
Does it say that the feds started the fire accidentally? Or does it say that Koresh Crispy-Crittered his own followers (as some accounts would have it)?
And:
What difference does that make (to you)?
Also from the book:
Would four dead ATF agents argue in favour of an “armed, military assault”? Would it have been better or worse for a couple of agents to just walk to the front door unarmed?
Cheers,
April 20, 2010, 7:06 pmzuch says:
I guess I’d use a different term than “speculation”, more specific to the locale. But apparently, ‘reasonable’ minds may differ….
I must say I’m a bit surprised and enlightened to see a Davidian defence on the Volokh Conspiracy.
Cheers,
April 20, 2010, 7:18 pmzuch says:
Is this true of federal agents? Or just ones from Union states….
Cheers,
April 20, 2010, 7:23 pmzuch says:
OIC. Clinton planned the 9/11 attacks. That changes everything. I think I’ll become a RW conservative. It would be the only moral choice.
Cheers,
April 20, 2010, 7:35 pmleo marvin says:
Ha! As if your warning isn’t part of the same subterfuge. I have it straight from Bertrand Russell, whose mummified corpse I keep in a tool shed behind my garage, that you’re in this up to your eyeballs. J’accuse! As I said in another thread, this whole sideshow is just a misdirection of Clinton’s (no doubt engineered by David Rockefeller) to make us forget Vince Foster’s murder remains unpunished. Why doesn’t anyone seem to care that the coroner has never denied he found Clinton’s semen on Foster’s clothes and his fingerprints around Foster’s neck? You’d think I’m crazy or something for how often I ask exactly that question and get flat out ignored. Anyway, I demand release of the full autopsy record. Bill can run, but he can’t hide. His day will come. And his sneaky little accomplice, George Stephanopoulos, too!
April 20, 2010, 7:36 pmzuch says:
They may have been purposefully “lost” (for whatever reason), but how would they prove who fired first?
Cheers,
April 20, 2010, 7:46 pmzuch says:
… whereas all the torture was purely accidental (and they already said “sorry, my bad”).
Cheers,
April 20, 2010, 7:58 pmzuch says:
This is first and foremost a pragmatic, not a legal, injunction. You can always worry about the legalities later, but the practicalities of the situation should first be addressed.
Cheers,
April 20, 2010, 8:01 pmElliot says:
Law enforcement failed in the way they dealt with the Davidian situation. They failed in the way they initiated their approach to the Davidians, and they failed in the way they concluded it.
April 20, 2010, 9:22 pmShelbyC says:
Geez. Yourself, Arthur, and plenty of other folks did all sorts of typing criticizing the Bush torture without mentioning Waco, why isn’t it OK for folks to do the opposite?
April 20, 2010, 9:56 pmGaryC says:
The woman, Allee Bautsch, had her leg broken in 5 places when her assailants stomped on it. She currently has a pin from her knee to her ankle. Her boyfriend, Joe Brown, is the one with the broken jaw, broken nose, and concussion.
There is no proof that the attackers were associated with the protest, although I would bet that they were. The slurs that have been mentioned in the press were not explicitly political, but do indicate hatred.
April 20, 2010, 10:09 pmGaryC says:
You could count the number of outgoing versus incoming rounds, and in a few cases you might be able to determine which of two adjacent holes preceded the other, but determining which side fired first would not be possible based solely on the door.
It does seem fairly clear that the ATF killed several dogs before any Branch Davidians fired, and Koresh himself seems to have been wounded in the stomach as he was standing in the doorway before he personally could have fired a round.
April 20, 2010, 10:14 pmJoseph Slater says:
Leo Marvin:
And we would have gotten away with it too, if not for you meddling. . . .
But now, you know too much /cue menacing music/ And I’m afraid we just can’t have that.
April 20, 2010, 10:16 pmMike K says:
In fact, the Branch Davidians did not attack anyone until attacked. There was an option to arrest Koresh when he went into town to collect mail. Instead, they chose to stage an attack because the ATF budget was before Congress.
The Ruby Ridge case was clearly illegal entrapment of the fellow who was enticed to inform on other groups in return for the dropping of completely phony weapons charges.
Both were extreme examples of government overreach and Bill Clinton bears direct responsibility for the decision to use CS gas on infants and children.
April 20, 2010, 10:19 pmMike K says:
They were protesting the southern Republican governors meeting and shifted to the restaurant in response to fliers with maps. That sounds political to me. They weren’t members of the DNC but do you think the same delicacy would be used if a tea party member did something ?
April 20, 2010, 10:22 pmFlyover Fred says:
Clinton is diametrically wrong. Current social systems theory explains that the action that gives rise to radicalism and terroristic violence stems from exclusion from the discursive system. Applied to Clinton, the Branch Davidians were a bunch of bizarre cultists kooks who had extreme distrust of the government, believed the government would do things (like kill their children and exterminate them), but were within the social realm until Clinton directed Janet Reno to show them who was boss. Unfortunately, emulating the behavior that coincided with their apocalyptic myth only ensured a bad end. Worse yet, this signified the exclusion, eradication and extermination of this subsegment from societal discourse, radicalizing Timothy McVeigh and others and causing the OKC man-caused incident. In other words, Clinton’s actions directly caused OKC, as supported by accepted social systems theory.
Applying that same analysis, the teaparty is within the discursive political system. It seeks recognized, authentic change within the political system and is subsequently as non-threatening as it can get. Every protest they make reinforces the authority of the political system. But Clinton’s dangerous language encourages Obama and other progressives to make the same mistake he did, removing them from legitimate discourse and causing them to radicalize. If there is a single violent event in this process, odds are it will again be directly attributed back to Clinton’s approach of silencing, delegitimizing and eradicating productive, natural and cyclical dissension.
Neither the left nor the right can escape these dynamics. Pragmatic political participants will recognize that these systems are cyclical, reflect over-compensation and intrinsic problems in both left/right perspectives, and must facilitate argumentation, protest and discourse if the political system under either side is to survive. To silence the other side only insures violence, upheaval, radicalization and ultimately the end of the political system itself.
April 20, 2010, 10:40 pmJoseph Slater says:
And along comes Mark K. in his 10:19 post to give the clearest example of this yet.
April 20, 2010, 10:44 pmanonymouse says:
To those that responded to my hypothetical with “Bring a suit. File a complaint. Don’t resist with force.”:
How do I know the illegal conduct will end with sleeping on my floor for a weekend? How do I know some member of my family won’t be assaulted, killed, or raped? I should roll over and sort things out later, if possible, because the disproportionately armed government’s modus operandi is shoot/raid/gas first and ask questions later?
These responses are indisputable evidence that government abuse of power has put the fear of excessive force in the hearts of regular, reasonable, law abiding citizens. This “pragmatic” reality, as zuch put it, is exactly what the first ten amendments were meant to prevent.
April 20, 2010, 11:11 pmapetra says:
Democrats didn’t oppose Iraq out of principle.
Most brand name Democrats of the post 9/11 era supported the invasion, then shifted and ultimately flip-flopped their position out of political calculus, and in fact spread the lie that they’d been against it all along.
Dissent isn’t unpatriotic. But withdrawing your support for a mission you voted for, shifting your position to anti-war, and pretending to have been against it from the beginning, that’s most certainly unpatriotic, putting ambition before country.
There’s nothing in the Tea Party Movement that holds a candle to the anger, incitement to violence and talk of ousting an “illegitimate” “regime” you saw regularly among Democrats during the presidency of George W. Bush.
April 20, 2010, 11:59 pmnlcatter says:
pychopath David?
April 21, 2010, 12:24 ambut Kopel is the DAVID I am talking about taht is a psychopath!
adn a moron
nlcatter says:
pychopath David?
April 21, 2010, 12:24 ambut Kopel is the DAVID I am talking about that is a psychopath! as well as a retarded conspirist.
John Skookum says:
Let’s see, there was a kill ratio of 82:4 of gun nuts to Federal agents in the Waco incident. That’s approximately 20 to 1.
So if there are 20 million gun nuts in this country who have the means and inclination to resist the government with force, that would require the loss of at least a million Federal agents to weed them all out. That’s pretty much every sworn Federal law enforcement agent plus all US Army regulars in the continental US.
If anything I think this shows just how hard it would be for the Feds to go after the gun nuts as a class. And that’s even setting aside the loss of legitimacy they would face in the eyes of all the non-gun nuts, as Clinton or any other honest observer on the Left should acknowledge was the main result of Waco. Just this one incident has ensured that tens of millions of Americans will never again in their lives trust their government or its law enforcement apparatus.
April 21, 2010, 2:42 amBrett Bellmore says:
It was, at the time, SOP during federal raids to shoot any dogs found on site, on the theory that if you didn’t, they might subsequently be sicced on you. The problem with this is that when you show up in overwhelming force and start shooting in the general direction of the people you’re raiding, the usual reaction is not, “Ho, hum, they’re just killing the family pets. Little Bobby will be so heart broken. Dear, would you get some snacks for the nice federal agents?”
It’s more like, “Holy spit! They didn’t even give us a chance to surrender before opening fire on us!” And sometimes it proceeds to, “We’re all going to die, we might as well take some of the bastards with us!”
This was the proximate cause of things going south at Ruby Ridge, and from what I’ve been able to reconstruct, Waco, too.
It does not appear that the BATF showed up at Waco intending to kill a bunch of people. Rather, they showed up in overwhelming force in the expectation that, as usually happened, the subjects of their raid would soil themselves and surrender, and they’d get some spiffy footage of brave Agents carting out guns by the dozen to show Congressmen, when the started getting asked at their funding hearing about the “Good ol boy’s roundup”, a racist gathering where BATF agents were handing out “Nigger hunting licenses”.
And the hearings would be long over when it developed that the guns were all legally owned, and had to be returned…
Things didn’t go down that way, the spiffy footage had to be ‘disappeared’ to avoid providing the Davidians with exculpatory evidence, and the FBI got called in with a BS description of what was going on, to handle the subsequent events.
But, on the bright side, they did change that bit in the manual about shooting the dogs…
April 21, 2010, 6:01 ammacko says:
Far right wing rhetoric might incite some nut job to commit a violent act but the blatant use of deadly force by the government against it’s citizens will and has.
But then maybe it was the far right wing rhetoric that incited the government to do what they did at waco and ruby ridge.
What came first the rhetoric or the governments abuse of authority.
Please keep in mind that we have the right to free speach for the purpose of speaking out against the government. slick willy says don’t exercise your free speach because he doesn’t want anyone speaking out against his party. If his lemmings start listening they might actually realize that they’re being a bunch of lemmings.
April 21, 2010, 7:15 amSusan Harms says:
Do any of you realize that the US Army had TANKS at the Branch Davidian (BD) compound? Since when is the US Army called out against US citizens? And everyone took that in stride just like Clinton/Reno hoped they would. The BDs hung a sheet out a window begging for the press to report their plight. The way to end the seige was to END THE SEIGE – walk away, arrest Koresh when he went into town for groceries. The plan was to subject CHILDREN to CS gas for 48hrs to get them to surrender and SOME MORON forgot that CS has an LEL, thus the fire. But the movie and a subsequent academic report shows more than that. This was a crime by the government.
April 21, 2010, 7:22 amLogicalUS says:
Well, another attempt by the President Sleaze to pawn responsibility off on conservatives for his atrocious decisions and actions.
Regardless of how demented McVeigh and his co-horts were they were quite specific about the reasons behind their attack and it had nothing to do with conservative policies or opposition to the socialists in Clinton’s government, but everything to do with the fact that his government was running around the country targeting American citizens and killing the innocent bystanders.
For all the leftist rage about the “Bushitler”, it wasn’t Bush who killed all those AMERICAN CITIZENS. But see, that was perfectly okay because they were considered Christians (though, they were really just a cult like the leftist Jonestown nuts.) It is the same reaction we see by them now that Obama is using the exact same methods as Bush in relation to the conduct of the national security. What was the 3rd Reich under Bush is now glorious brilliance under Obama.
April 21, 2010, 8:22 amPer Son says:
Waco was a travesty.
Ruby Ridge was a travesty.
The firebombing of Philly was a travesty.
My only question is why do people get so galvanized over the horrible decisions regarding Waco and Ruby Ridge, but not the murder of black radicals in Philly?
April 21, 2010, 10:43 amcboldt says:
– My only question is why do people get so galvanized over the horrible decisions regarding Waco and Ruby Ridge, but not the murder of black radicals in Philly? –
April 21, 2010, 11:20 amSeveral reasons, I would guess. In no particular order, there isn’t much political hay to be made by taking a side objecting to or defending the government action; the government action was local, not federal; the city of Philadelphia admits it done wrong, and made restitution; there is less media coverage revisiting the anniversary (as it does Waco/OKC) which gives an excuse to air the same old shit again.
I was going to cite the MOVE incident a few days ago – FWIW.
1995 USA Today story revisiting the 1985 firebombing
Chris Travers says:
According to pretty much all sources, David Koresh offered to let the BATF inspect paperwork and firearms. I don’t think Koresh or Weaver are folks I would want to have as my friends, nor do I think they were clearly right, but what went on in these cases is patently offensive to our basic sense of rule of law.
(Part of me wants to remix Waco footage, add the sexy voice of a woman talking in sadistic terms, and releasing this on the internet, simultaneously satirizing crush videos and portaying the government actions in this case as “obscene.” But I wouldn’t want to be judged by a jury for it….)
April 21, 2010, 12:20 pmChris Travers says:
Where are the Sikhs when you need them?
April 21, 2010, 12:23 pmzuch says:
Well, yes. No one was accidentally tortured in Waco, so I saw no need for such.
Just so it’s clear where I stand: I think that the police (BATF/DEA/whatever…) are often overboard and often refuges for cowboys, thugs and other undesirables. I think that “no-knock” warrants and SWAT-type forcible entries may be a tad overused (and this is a sad legacy of the unwinnable and stoopid “War on [Some] Drugs” that might well be better handled in such a way as to actually help people and reduce crime). I think that 41 bullets in Amadou Diallo’s body was a tad over the edge. I think that a broomstick up the rectum of Abner Louima was a bit beyond procedure. And I think that the cops there ought to have been prosecuted to the full extent of the law and convicted. Strangely enough, given the popularity of “real life” cop shows with the high-speed chases and such, I may be in a minority as to what is good police practise. I admit that criminals are stupid, violent at times, and need to be dealt with, but I also think that this is no excuse for excesses on the part of police: It’s the police’s freakin’ job to deal with such, and they need to find a way to do so without becoming a problem themselves.
But in the real world, I recognise that cops, even with defensive body armour and proper training, are subject to danger from deadly force, and that they will oftentimes respond to deadly force with even more deadly force. That’s the rationale behind my “pragmatic” terminology above.
I don’t think there’s any doubt amongst anyone here that the Davidians fired at the original BATF officers. Some might claim that the officers fired first. I don’t think there’s any proof of such, but in this imperfect world, we probably never will have a definitive answer, and it may well be justified to assume that such malintent was not present in the officers conducting the raid, thuggish as they might conceivably have been. But the fact remains: If you fire on an officer, you ought to expect that they will return fire. They will try to “take you out”. Once you’ve done that, you’ve placed yourself in danger all on your own, and you place in danger all that are in your presence, and you are responsible for the fates of any such people. You can surrender peacefully, or not. If you don’t, just as in any hostage situation, you might hope that the officers take care to minimise any collateral casualties, but you have no right to expect it, and anything that happens from then on is on your neck.
Cheers,
April 21, 2010, 12:31 pmzuch says:
Even if you had an outgoing hole after an incoming one (the second shot deforming part of the bullet hole left by the first), that would only show the order of those two shots. It still could not show who fired first.
But thanks for your admission.
Cheers,
April 21, 2010, 12:35 pmzuch says:
“Discursive” political system?!?!? Spouting FauxSnooze nonsense and balderdash?!?!?
I guess they’d better stop right now then, before they accidentally make Obama the next Fürrer….
Cheers,
April 21, 2010, 12:47 pmzuch says:
They can vote all they want in November (and in 2012). Their problem is that they lost an election and have not managed to get through even the first stages of grieving. No one is making them “radicalize” except themselves and the little voices in their head (what’s Clinton supposed to do, say, “sorry you folks lost, let’s do an re-election right now (and do it as many times as we need until you’re satisfied) so you won’t feel bad”?!?!?) The thought that it’s Clinton who’s radicalizing them is absurd. You might as well say the FEC is responsible for any violence when some nun gutz get a crazy idea about how they’ve been robbed in the election and thwarted in their will, and go on a rampage (which has already happened a couple of times so far; how many times in 2001 did you see anything like that, even though there there was arguably more reason for feeling that the democratic process had been thwarted?)
Cheers,
April 21, 2010, 1:00 pmzuch says:
Don’t count me in. While I agree that gummint is prone to excesses (see this), I am not shaking in my boots with “fear of excessive force” (despite having much better personal experience than most of you, I’d wager, in terms of understanding the dynamic). The solution is to better pick and screen the police, not for the “citizenry” to also be packing, and to keep a hair-trigger. The latter only results in two unnecessary deaths. The “pragmatic” approach is what prevents total chaos and anarchy, and allows the system to work things out. The Bill of Rights was not intended to be enforced by a S&W, but by a complaint & response. A S&W can enforce any “law” and cares not for precedent nor textualism.
Cheers,
April 21, 2010, 1:09 pmzuch says:
What a load of horsepuckey.
Cheers,
April 21, 2010, 1:11 pmzuch says:
Do all gun nuts f*ck 12-year-olds? Just wondering … and bringing the situation back to reality here.
Stated more plainly, I’m hoping you think that most of the 20M “gun nuts” in the U.S. are not as bat-sh*te crazy and immoral (if not massively and illegally predatory) as Koresh.
But you’d have to credit at least some more of the deaths to the “gun nuts” side; they apparently shot themselves in the conflagration.
Cheers,
April 21, 2010, 1:17 pm4-21-2010 | Drive Time Happy Hour says:
[...] With President Clinton wagging his finger at the Tea Party movement and claiming that the movement is inciting violence, it is worthwhile to remember the role the Clinton administration in perpetrating and covering up numerous violent and other crimes at Waco. [...]
April 21, 2010, 1:45 pmChris Travers says:
I think “overboard” doesn’t begin to describe the issues on the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents. I would characterize them as ‘rampant lawlessness on the part of our law enforcement agencies.’ I say this even though I would be absolutely clear that I would not want to be friends with Randy Weaver or join David Koresh’s group. However, as David Kopel documents in the free sample of his book, the feds set Randy up for charges he was later acquitted of.
Worse, the BATF turned down an invitation by David Koresh to do an inspection of the guns, parts, and paperwork, according to congressional testimony by an ATF agent. They didn’t have to do a raid. They could have simply executed the search warrant with a knock on the door and a few reasonably non-threatening officers. Instead they played directly (and possibly purposefully) into the image of the US government as the ones to come in with guns and start shooting, an image which had been discussed in media interviews with Koresh prior.
I don’t believe that the government set the fires deliberately though the cause of the fires is still somewhat disputed (they could have been due to flammable rubble coming into contact with candles and other sources of open flame as a result of the assault or by direct action on the part of Koresh’s followers).
This being said, the breaches in ethics on the part of the law enforcement agencies were so systemic and severe that I think outrage is well called for. I wouldn’t hesitate to call the tactics used in both those cases those of a totalitarian dictatorship rather than a democratic republic governed by the rule of law.
April 21, 2010, 2:03 pmChris Travers says:
Remember that the jury found that Randy Weaver had been entrapped into violated the National Firearms Act. Excessive force doesn’t begin to describe the lawlessness that went on in both of these cases.
April 21, 2010, 2:04 pmMark Jones says:
And if you shot at the police in self-defense after they began by trying to kill you unjustly. That’s “placing yourself in danger all on your own”? I don’t think so. That’s being forced into a shitty (probably no-win) position by THE POLICE, not your own responsibility.
April 21, 2010, 5:01 pmzuch says:
Wow. Really?!?!?
What would you call a country that deliberately tortures people, and even ends up beating some of them to death? You may be running out of superlatives. And certainly so when you have to describe the Nazi horrors…..
Cheers,
April 21, 2010, 5:33 pmzuch says:
Let me know when such happens. There was blame all around in both Ruby Ridge and Waco. Neither would have happened the way they did (and no one, except perhaps the four ATF agents, would have been killed) at either place, had not the Weaver clan and the Koresh nutcase fired at the officers.
The fact remains, once you start firing, you ought to expect that you may find yourself (and those around you) dead. This is far more certain than if you don’t start firing. Something to keep in mind. D’ya feel lucky?
Cheers,
April 21, 2010, 5:40 pmChris Travers says:
What does that have to do at all with what I said, that the tactics here were evidence of the sort of lawlessness among law enforcement agencies that one would expect to see in a totalitarian dictatorship rather than a democratic republic subject to the rule of law?
That one set of tactics is representative of an arbitrary, dictatorial government by men instead of by laws by no means excludes any other. For example, “show me the man and I will show you the crime” isn’t what was used here entirely (though it wasn’t far off, to be honest), but that doesn’t mean that approach is any less indicative of a slide into arbitrary government by men either.
My whole point is that the way this was handled, from start to finish, was not in accordance with the basic ideas of the rule of law. The same was true of Ruby Ridge.
April 21, 2010, 7:48 pmChris Travers says:
If the ATF had accepted Koresh’s invitation for an inspection of the relevant firearms, no raid would have happened either. He even made that invitation directly to the agent he knew was investigating him, and it was declined. If I invite the police to search my home because I know they are applying for a warrant and they decline, and they barge in with guns draw, I might not fire on them but I’m certainly assuming the worst.
And with Weaver, if you don’t pay informers to try to convince law abiding but paranoid individuals to break the law just so you can convict them, you won’t have shootouts. I agree with the government’s decision to pay the Weaver family over 3M USD in compensation for the killings….
April 21, 2010, 7:53 pmChris Travers says:
A note to Zuch:
It’s also clear that with Ruby Ridge, the FBI had been given shoot on sight orders well before the Weavers used any force against the FBI. How does that square with your analysis?
April 21, 2010, 8:13 pmzuch says:
I think you fundamentally misunderstand the general nature of police. Let me tell you, theory and practise are rarely acquainted when it comes to the nitty gritty of police work, even in the most democratic republics.
This is a fact not only tolerated but applauded by the RW. An incident comes to mind, where a caller to RW talk show host Mike Gallager called the police “pigs” (in the context of the Abner Louima case). A subsequent caller expressed a hope that said police should meet up with said caller in a dark alley some day … and Mike Gallagher agreed whole-heartedly (and without the slightest hint of cognisance as to what was being said).
Cheers,
April 21, 2010, 8:21 pmzuch says:
No. That was the Republicans back in the 90′s with their $6 million (no, sorry, our $6 million; taxpayers picked up the tab), going after Clinton.
Cheers,
April 21, 2010, 8:28 pmzuch says:
Cites? Was this before or after Harris shot the deputy? If before, why didn’t they just shoot (from ambush) Harris and the younger Weaver dead to begin with?
Cheers,
April 21, 2010, 8:35 pmzuch says:
This is some kind of justification for shooting at officers?
Cheers,
April 21, 2010, 8:37 pmChris Travers says:
I am not saying so. I am saying it was entirely predictable, especially when the magistrate lied to Weaver, telling him that if he was convicted he would have to sell his property to pay for the public defender. Here is a guy who didn’t have so much as a speeding ticket, and was convinced by an informant to break the law solely so the informant could make a quick buck, then railroaded and lied to by both the judges and the prosecutors as to what a conviction would mean.
Then they fabricated charges of a bank robbery, lied about him shooting at a helicopter, and issued shoot on sight orders to kill anyone except for the primary suspects (Randy Weaver, Kevin Harris, and IIRC, Vicki Weaver). These orders were so extreme that a number of agents flatly refused them including all of the Denver SWAT team that was called in. No offer for surrender was given before they started shooting (yes, the law enforcement officers in Ruby Ridge fired first and that is undisputed). The one time Randy was know to shoot at an officer was clearly in self defence after that officer tried to shoot him in the back.
In the end, the government paid Randy Weaver and his daughters 3.1 million dollars to settle a wrongful death lawsuit over his wife and son.
So yes, Mark Jones’ characterization of the no-win situation was pretty much what went on.
April 21, 2010, 10:57 pmleo marvin says:
Damn that Bill Clinton!!!
April 22, 2010, 1:17 amChris Travers says:
Given that Weaver’s railroading started in 1990/1991, it’s a little unfair to just blame Clinton, is it not?
The problem isn’t with one party or the other. It’s with the feds and the government.
April 22, 2010, 1:28 amChris Travers says:
Crap, I got my dates screwed up…. Clinton wasn’t involved at all, since he didn’t take office until 1993….
So why is everyone looking at Ruby Ridge as a Clinton screw-up rather than the Bush 41 screw up that it clearly was?
Maybe it’s to keep up the illusion that the Democrats are evil….
April 22, 2010, 1:34 amleo marvin says:
I stand by what I speculated the last time this question came up.
April 22, 2010, 2:55 amChris Travers says:
Interestingly, Kopel speculates that a major part of the problem stems from Reagan-era changes to the Posse Comitatus act.
April 22, 2010, 11:06 amChris Travers says:
Kopel also argues (in his law review article on militarization of law enforcement) that BATF agents strafed the roof of the building from helicopters just prior to the Waco raid. If this is the case, firing on the ground assault team was fairly clearly justified as self defence.
The more I read about these cases, the more I realize how even a reasoned discourse about the facts could lead a borderline person like McVeigh to commit a heinous crime. The facts themselves are pretty damning. It ought to be the duty of every patriotic American to ensure that changes are made so that this never happens again. Kopel’s suggestions here are solid, and I have put his book on my wish list.
April 22, 2010, 12:33 pmSammy Finkelman says:
Just ponder this totally overlooked contradiction:
http://www.nytimes.com/1993/04/20/us/death-waco-overview-scores-die-cult-compound-set-afire-after-fbi-sends-tanks.html?scp=4&sq=d-day%20waco&st=cse
DEATH IN WACO: The Overview — SCORES DIE AS CULT COMPOUND IS SET AFIRE AFTER F.B.I. SENDS IN TANKS WITH TEAR GAS; Apparent Mass Suicide Ends A 51-Day Standoff in Texas
By SAM HOWE VERHOVEK,
Published: April 20, 1993
….
“In Washington, Attorney General Janet Reno said today that she regretted the loss of life. “Today was not meant to be D-Day,” said Ms. Reno. “This was just a step forward in trying to bring about a peaceful resolution by constantly exerting further pressure to shrink the perimeter.”
But this is the version in Bill Clinton’s book “My Life”
“On Sunday night, April 18, Janet Reno came to the White House to tell me that the FBI wanted to storm the compound, apprehend Koresh…”
This is consistent what Bill Clintion started claiming
in a press conference on Tuesday, April 20, 1993, President Clinton said: (in an attempt to argue he was briefed)
” I asked a number of questions. The first question I
asked is, why now? We have waited seven weeks; why now? The reasons I was given were the following:
Number one, that there was a limit to how long the federal authorities could maintain with their limited resources the quality and intensity of coverage by experts there. They might be needed in other parts of the country.
Number two, that the people who had reviewed this had never seen a case quite like this one before, and they were convinced that no progress had been made recently and no progress was going to
be made through the normal means of getting Koresh and the other cult members to come out.
Number three, that the danger of their doing something to themselves or to others was likely to increase, not decrease, with the passage of time.
And number four, that they had reason to believe that the children who were still inside the compound were being abused significantly, as well as being forced to live in unsanitary and unsafe conditions.
So for those reasons, they wanted to move at that time.
The second question I asked the Attorney General is whether they had given consideration to all of the things that could go wrong and evaluated them against what might happen that was good. She said that the FBI personnel on the scene and those working with them were
convinced that the chances of bad things happening would only increase with the passage of time.
The third question I asked was, has the military been consulted? As soon as the initial tragedy came to light in Waco, that’s the first thing I asked to be done, because it was obvious that this was not a typical law enforcement situation. Military
people were then brought in, helped to analyze the situation and some of the problems that were presented by it. And so I asked if the military had been consulted. The Attorney General said that they
had, and that they were in basic agreement that there was only one minor tactical difference of opinion between the FBI and the military — something that both sides thought was not of overwhelming significance.
Having asked those questions and gotten those answers, I said that if she thought it was the right thing to do, that she should proceed and that I would support it. And I stand by that day.”
By the way, how were the military consulted and about what??
April 22, 2010, 5:17 pmChris Travers says:
Sammy:
April 22, 2010, 10:29 pmRead David Kopel’s article on police militarization for a discussion of the relationship between the soldiers and the law enforcement organizations.
Brett Bellmore says:
No, the justification for shooting at the officers is that they shot first. In both cases. The whole shooting the dogs thing. You’ve got a dog next to you, the officers a hundred yards away are shooting at it, how are you supposed to realize they’re not shooting at YOU?
And there is, in fact, no question about whether or not the feds shot first at Waco. Their operations manual called for them to shoot first, at the dogs. And one of the agents publicly stated that they’d shot first, before all the agents were called in to be briefed on the common story they were supposed to tell.
The feds shot first. Both times.
April 23, 2010, 6:08 am