The FBI Agent Who Can’t Stop Thinking About Waco

[Draggingtree]

The FBI Agent Who Can’t Stop Thinking About Waco

A quarter century after 82 Branch Davidians and 4 federal officers were killed, Byron Sage is still arguing about what happened.

BY ERIC BENSON ISSUE APRIL 2018

 At 12:32 p.m. on Monday, April 19, 1993, FBI agent Byron Sage placed his right hand on his PA system’s power switch and flicked it from on to off. 

 Sage knew the small gesture was momentous. For the previous seven weeks, he and 51 other negotiators from various agencies had tried to persuade the Branch Davidian leader David Koresh and his more than one hundred followers to leave their home, a rambling, multilevel structure on a 77-acre property ten miles east of Waco known as Mount Carmel. Now that building was engulfed in fire.

 “It’s one of those points in your life that you’ll never, ever forget,” Sage says. “By turning that switch off, it was like I had fifty-one other guys that were looking over my shoulder, watching me say, ‘We failed.’ ”      https://www.texasmonthly.com/articles/fbi-agent-cant-stop-thinking-waco/ 

[Draggingtree]

Bitter lessons 25 years after Waco, Texas, siege

Via 4Branc

Twenty-five years ago today, FBI tanks smashed int  o the ramshackle home of the Branch Davidians outside Waco, Texas. After the FBI collapsed much of the building atop the residents, a fire erupted and 76 corpses were dug out of the rubble. Unfortunately, the American political system and media have never faced the lessons from that tragic 1993 day.

Fifty-one days before the FBI final assault, scores of federal Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agents launched an attack on the Davidians' home spurred by allegations that they had converted semi-automatic rifles to full-automatic capacity. The ATF's lead investigator had previously rejected an offer to peacefully search the Davidians' home for firearms violations. Four ATF agents and six Davidians were killed in the fracas on February 28, 1993.   https://freenorthcarolina.blogspot.com/2018/04/bitter-lessons-25-years-after-waco.html