Remember the Waco Siege (Reno, Clint: crimes, felony, attorneys)

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by spacecitytx

So, lemme get this straight...if an officer has a gun pointed at you (after just killing my dogs), and you know for a fact that you're about to die (irrelevant to me...if you so much as point a gun at me, I MOST CERTAINLY have the right to assume that you're about to shoot it...whether that's your intention or not isn't my concern), you're telling me that you're just going to sit there and die?

Wow...


I think you have it backwards sir...MAN'S LAW may say you can't fire upon an agent...but GOD'S LAW most DEFINITELY gives me the right to defend me and mine.

[atadytic19]

Originally Posted by spacecitytx

So, lemme get this straight...if an officer has a gun pointed at you (after just killing my dogs), and you know for a fact that you're about to die (irrelevant to me...if you so much as point a gun at me, I MOST CERTAINLY have the right to assume that you're about to shoot it...whether that's your intention or not isn't my concern), you're telling me that you're just going to sit there and die?

Wow...


I think you have it backwards sir...MAN'S LAW may say you can't fire upon an agent...but GOD'S LAW most DEFINITELY gives me the right to defend me and mine.

Weren't they executing a valid search warrant though?
Couldn't all of this been avoided by allowing the search?

I have seen what happens when people try to impede search warrants.

Idk much of the story, but from what I heard it was wild in that camp. From shoot outs amongst each other to the molestation of children. Didn't Karesh have several pre-teen brides?

Again, I don't remember much of what happened, but I hear time and time again when INNOCENT people get killed during an arrest that they should not have resisted so it is hard for me to justify any of the actions of the Branch Dividians.

I feel sorry for the kids who got killed in the process but the adults in that camp were not innocents

[Pilsn3r]

Love all the conspiracy theories, "God-given" justification for ignoring valid TX judge issued search warrants followed by "God-given" justification for shooting/killing any LEO/fed agent trying to administer the search warrant, support for self-confessed white nationalists who also ignored warrants (because it's a "God-given" right to ignore warrants and be a self-confessed racist), etc. by people of certain leanings!! What else is out there? It's like a Bannon and Alex Jones podcast - "OKC didn't happen, Sandy Hook didn't happen"! Since anything can be a "God-given" right, let's ignore all laws and do what we want! Woo-hoo! LOL!

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by atadytic19

Weren't they executing a valid search warrant though?
Couldn't all of this been avoided by allowing the search?

Yes, they were serving a search warrant.

In this country the cops only have to see you going for your gun and they can blow you away with a justified shooting. Or even just *think* that the see you going for your gun. You do not even need to fire first.

Maybe the law shouldn't be that way. But that is a whole different argument. The fact of the matter is that all the Branch Davidians had to do was flash their firearms at the agents and the agents were legally justified to blow them away. Every day in this country police shootings are justified on those same grounds.

Last year police killed 1,194 people in the US of which only the tiniest fraction were not legal kills. So far in 2023 we are up to 158. In Texas there were over 1,000 police shootings in the past decade of which over 99% were legal.

[atadytic19]

Originally Posted by texasdiver

Yes, they were serving a search warrant.

In this country the cops only have to see you going for your gun and they can blow you away with a justified shooting. Or even just *think* that the see you going for your gun. You do not even need to fire first.

Maybe the law shouldn't be that way. But that is a whole different argument. The fact of the matter is that all the Branch Davidians had to do was flash their firearms at the agents and the agents were legally justified to blow them away. Every day in this country police shootings are justified on those same grounds.

Last year police killed 1,194 people in the US of which only the tiniest fraction were not legal kills. So far in 2023 we are up to 158. In Texas there were over 1,000 police shootings in the past decade of which over 99% were legal.

Yeah, I am not justifying the actions of law enforcement but some of the comments so far lean on political divisions rather than the matter at hand. I'm hearing Janet Reno this and that but I'm not heading that:

1. There was a SUSPECTED crime.
2. The perpetrators had previous involvement in crime (including weapons)
3. There was a search warrant obtained
4. The cult attempted to impede the execution of the warrant.

I don't care if Janet Reno was in office at the time. Why even bring that up. Why even bring political actors up.

I hate that we try to deify evil actors by justifying their crimes because of politics of thinly connected individuals.

It's just weak minded. Who controls the DOJ isn't always a big conspiracy. People don't think critically them they say Fox News made me do it

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by atadytic19

I don't care if Janet Reno was in office at the time. Why even bring that up. Why even bring political actors up.

This is the actual timeline.

February 11: Clinton nominates Janet Reno has his new Attorney General
February 28: Waco siege begins with the aborted ATF raid
March 11: Janet Reno is finally confirmed by the Senate and sworn in as Attorney General.
April 19: Final siege of the compound beings, ending in fiery deaths.

Basically she walked into the middle of mess that was not of her own making.

And while yes, the Attorney General does oversee the FBI, it was actually the FBI that was the lead agency during the Waco siege and the FBI director at that time was William Sessions who had been appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1987. It was the FBI that was providing all of the information to Reno including their recommendations to move forward and end the siege.

Should she have overruled her own FBI? Perhaps. Hindsight is always 20/20.

[malcorub16]

Originally Posted by texasdiver

This is the actual timeline.

February 11: Clinton nominates Janet Reno has his new Attorney General
February 28: Waco siege begins with the aborted ATF raid
March 11: Janet Reno is finally confirmed by the Senate and sworn in as Attorney General.
April 19: Final siege of the compound beings, ending in fiery deaths.

Basically she walked into the middle of mess that was not of her own making.

And while yes, the Attorney General does oversee the FBI, it was actually the FBI that was the lead agency during the Waco siege and the FBI director at that time was William Sessions who had been appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1987. It was the FBI that was providing all of the information to Reno including their recommendations to move forward and end the siege.

Should she have overruled her own FBI? Perhaps. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Appointed by the same Ronald Reagan that outlawed open carry in California ala the Mulford Act?

[atadytic19]

Originally Posted by texasdiver

This is the actual timeline.

February 11: Clinton nominates Janet Reno has his new Attorney General
February 28: Waco siege begins with the aborted ATF raid
March 11: Janet Reno is finally confirmed by the Senate and sworn in as Attorney General.
April 19: Final siege of the compound beings, ending in fiery deaths.

Basically she walked into the middle of mess that was not of her own making.

And while yes, the Attorney General does oversee the FBI, it was actually the FBI that was the lead agency during the Waco siege and the FBI director at that time was William Sessions who had been appointed by Ronald Reagan in 1987. It was the FBI that was providing all of the information to Reno including their recommendations to move forward and end the siege.

Should she have overruled her own FBI? Perhaps. Hindsight is always 20/20.

Are they implying some personal vendetta against the cult or something?

Still don't know why people try to blame things individually on their choice politician of the day.

I remember when she was in office but too young to remember what she did, but judging by how people make the sleepy old guy in the white house out to be some evil mastermind, my guess is that peoples make her out to be the cause of all their troubles simply because of the D at the end of her name.

My guess is that cult would have come down sooner or later. Had she called off the siege when she was sworn in they would be saying she is sympathetic to child molesters.

How did we get so polarized that we are that easily brainwashed

[texasdiver]

Originally Posted by atadytic19

Are they implying some personal vendetta against the cult or something?

Still don't know why people try to blame things individually on their choice politician of the day.

I remember when she was in office but too young to remember what she did, but judging by how people make the sleepy old guy in the white house out to be some evil mastermind, my guess is that peoples make her out to be the cause of all their troubles simply because of the D at the end of her name.

My guess is that cult would have come down sooner or later. Had she called off the siege when she was sworn in they would be saying she is sympathetic to child molesters.

How did we get so polarized that we are that easily brainwashed

I have no idea who is implying what. Janet Reno has come in for a lot of criticism from the right wing over her handling of Waco. But any dispassionate and honest look at the whole situation will tell you that she walked into the middle of a ginormous mess that was not of her making. And as an outsider to the DOJ (she came from the State of Florida AG position) she was pretty much 100% reliant on the existing career people in the FBI and DOJ to provide correct advice and information.

Hindsight is always 20/20. Had they just sat tight and waited them out would things have ended differently? Who knows. They had a lot of information and intelligence that the cult was apocalyptic and that children were being abused and at threat of mass suicide. And we had relatively recent examples of Jim Jones and Jonestown which had only happened 15 years earlier where 918 Americans, including 276 children were killed. That was certainly in their minds.

[BobTex]

Originally Posted by atadytic19

Weren't they executing a valid search warrant though?
Couldn't all of this been avoided by allowing the search?

I have seen what happens when people try to impede search warrants.

Idk much of the story, but from what I heard it was wild in that camp. From shoot outs amongst each other to the molestation of children. Didn't Karesh have several pre-teen brides?

Again, I don't remember much of what happened, but I hear time and time again when INNOCENT people get killed during an arrest that they should not have resisted so it is hard for me to justify any of the actions of the Branch Dividians.

I feel sorry for the kids who got killed in the process but the adults in that camp were not innocents

Key admission right there !