Cops and Cults--Preordained Disaster : Law enforcement: The Waco apocalypse proves that more civilian input is needed in policing ‘odd’ communities.

When the odd behavior of cult groups lurches into the criminal zone, society delegates the entire problem to law enforcement. Too often, death is the tragic result. Just in recent years, five law officers lay mortally shot and 90 men, women and children in cult groups burned to mere ashes as government sought to control two groups--the MOVE community in West Philadelphia in 1978 and 1985 and the Branch Davidians in Waco earlier this year. We have to find another way.

MOVE was led by John Africa, who believed and taught that only his laws as to the sanctity of every creature in Nature need be obeyed. He prophesied an ultimate confrontation with “the system,” which he perceived as an enemy seeking to compel MOVE to conform to an alien rule. In Waco, the Branch Davidians were led by David Koresh, who had spent his youth memorizing biblical text and now saw himself as the fulfillment of a crucial role prophesied in the Old and New Testaments. Like King David, Koresh took many wives to unify his following and used his mastery of a musical instrument to propagate his message. From the Book of Revelation, he saw himself as the Lamb of God, the prophetic instrument of the Apocalypse. As Revelation foretells, earthquakes and fire will destroy the people but lead to the millennium, the thousand years of God’s peaceful rule.

The militancy of law enforcement is ill-equipped to attack these strong belief systems. In both Waco and West Philadelphia, enforcement leaders misjudged their adversaries with awful consequences, and we have to explore and understand why. Several reasons come to mind.

Law-enforcement leaders take little heed of a cult leader’s views and therefore do not take the time to understand the concepts and thoughts that cult leaders use to persuade their following. Enforcement mentality views the David Koreshes and John Africas of this world as con artists--ordinary criminals holding and victimizing their flock through flimflam and psychological dominance. The enforcement philosophy also tends to judge such fringe groups by middle-class family standards and values. And enforcement discounts how well cult leaders can employ society’s soldier-like responses to unite the group against the common enemy.

The ensuing action rests on these fundamental misconceptions. The FBI uses its hostage rescue team in Waco to deliver the Davidians from the evil leader, Koresh. They then treat the Davidians as the U.S. Army treated Gen. Noriega when he was cornered in Panama, subjecting them to constant blaring noise, blazing lights and no heat or electricity. And, surely, enforcers believe, mothers will not put their children at risk by resisting the law. Most tragic of all, the enforcement planning focuses primarily on arrests and seizure of evidence. The lives and safety of children are a distant secondary consideration.

The result? In West Philadelphia, the police, and in Waco, the FBI and the ATF (the Treasury Department’s Alcohol, Firearms and Tobacco agency) failed to grasp the absolutely central point that violent confrontation and assault by agents of society merely fulfills the prophecy propounded by the leader and reinforces the flock’s belief in their leader as God’s messenger. When the enforcement assault begins, the police expect the besieged group to surrender, because that is the rational, middle-class thing to do. For reasons beyond my comprehension or imagination, enforcement leaders actually plan their final assault in the belief that men, women and children will react to overwhelming force, confusion, the knocking down of their walls, tear gas and the noise of flash-bang devices with total calm and deliberate, rational judgment.

How can we learn from these tragedies? Thorough external investigations can help, as with the independent MOVE commission in Philadelphia. And forthright agency investigations will aid law enforcement, as exemplified by the Treasury’s and Secretary Lloyd Bentsen’s courageous, candid evaluation of ATF performance in Waco. But, as often occurs with internal studies, and as did occur with the deputy attorney general’s “investigation” of the FBI and Justice Department performance at Waco, self-evaluations produce limited, disingenuous assessments that raise more questions than they answer.

Unfortunately, Waco and MOVE will be mirrored in future enforcement actions unless society and its governmental agents use their broad knowledge, their resources and civilian control to construct a strategic plan for dealing with “odd” groups that pose legitimate social problems. In 1986, after the MOVE deaths, Philadelphia mobilized its city agencies to deal promptly with the housing, child welfare, nuisance and other social issues if and when presented by the remaining MOVE groups in the city. And law enforcement can be taught by civilian control that a child’s life takes precedence over seizure of evidence, that a tactical enforcement plan must first consider that government shall not once again be the instrument to fulfill the prophecy of apocalyptic deaths.