The ATF is honoring its agents who were killed as they kicked off the slaughter of American women and children at the Waco, Texas Branch Davidians compound in 1993, in an event widely known as the “Waco Massacre.”
The Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco Firearms and Explosives Houston, Texas office posted to Twitter this week to mark the 30th anniversary of the beginning of the Waco Siege, that led to the Waco Massacre. Included in the ATF’s tweet was a photograph of four agents “standing post” at the “Waco Peace Officer Memorial in Waco, TX in honor of Special Agents Conway LeBleu, Todd McKeehan, Robert Williams, and Steve Willis.”
The ATF was blasted in the responses to its tweet by a chorus of Twitter users, including prominent accounts like those of Jake Shields and Mindy Robinson.
“We mourn for the innocent women and children you burned alive,” Shields commented on the ATF’s tweet.
“Oh, you mean the baby killers?” Mindy Robinson wrote. “Are they standing guard so real patriots don’t dance on their graves? Yea, it takes a real man to shoot, kill, poison, and set innocent women and children on fire for their own “safety.”
The 1993 siege at Waco began after members of the Branch Davidians religious sect refused to cooperate with a federal sexual assault warrant against their leader, David Koresh, which the agency was using as a way to get into the compound and investigate the shipments of firearms Koresh had been receiving, which had been reported to the feds by a UPS driver.
The shooting deaths of the four agents took place in a gunfight with the Branch Davidians in which both sides claim the other side fired first. This led to a prolonged stand-off that ended with the Clinton Administration and then-Attorney General Janet Reno ordering a massive assault on the Branch Davidian compound. During the assault, more than 100 Branch Davidians were killed, as the federal government used gas and incendiary devices against the civilians. Among the casualties were at least 46 children.
Remarkably, after the death and destruction, the door to the compound that could hold the key to who fired the first shots at Waco mysteriously disappeared.
Waco Siege: Door That Could Hold Key to Who Fired First Has Never Been Found
Crucial to the question of who fired first was the right side of a two-door entryway into the Mount Carmel compound. The left-hand door featured prominently in the resulting investigation after the compound and the majority of its occupants — including all of the children — was burned to the ground. The right-hand door, however, has never been found after it was mysteriously “lost.”
Earlier in the trial, Houston attorney Dick DeGuerin, who went inside Mount Carmel during the siege, testified that all of the bullet holes he saw in the doors were on the right side, and all were made by incoming rounds.
The Davidians had pointed to the door being a key piece of evidence before the government began their assault on April 19. Steve Schneider, one of Koresh’s closest confidantes, told FBI agents that “the evidence from the front door will clearly show how many bullets and what happened.”