A Rebuke to the Government

A federal jury in Texas has brought a properly anticlimactic conclusion to the horrific events that led to the incineration of the Branch Davidian sect’s compound near Waco last year. The jury acquitted 11 of the survivors of conspiracy and murder charges in the deaths of four federal agents, killed Feb. 28, 1993, in the original, botched raid on the compound; seven of the 11 defendants were convicted on lesser charges.

The verdicts were a stinging rebuke to the government, which mounted the raid even though the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) knew it had lost the element of surprise. Later, the FBI failed in 51 days of negotiations to get the armed sect and its messianic leader, David Koresh, to surrender. In the end, on April 19, a raid resulted in the deaths of Koresh and 81 other Davidians by fire and self-inflicted gunshot wounds.

The Waco events followed another incompetent raid by federal agents--an August, 1992, attempt to arrest Randy Weaver, a white separatist who was a fugitive from trial on weapons charges, at his mountain cabin in northern Idaho. During an 11-day standoff, a federal marshal and Weaver’s wife and 14-year-old son were killed. In a foreshadowing of the Waco verdicts, a jury acquitted Weaver on murder and conspiracy charges, convicting only on a lesser charge. The Justice Department is probing possible official misconduct.

Nearly everyone involved in the Waco affair has been sullied by it. The ATF’s director was forced to resign after a Treasury Department report found serious intelligence deficiencies, poor planning and a “general failure” of the agency’s management. And from some quarters there was criticism of the then-new attorney general, Janet Reno, who oversaw the final calamity, in which about 25 children perished. While admirably accepting responsibility, she has still not issued an adequate public report on the FBI’s failure to find a peaceful end.

One does not have to hold much sympathy for the distorted views of Koresh and Weaver to see they were victims of excessive force. The Waco jury said as much in its verdict. The federal government must enforce weapons laws. But let the Waco verdict stand as a statement that it must use less Wild West bravado and more finesse in the future.