ATF officials said that agents heard gunshots coming from within the compound, while Branch Davidian survivors said the agents fired first. And there also is later in the book a considerable amount of accounting for how Waco had played an important role in radicalizing many people right through Timothy McVeigh, who bombed Oklahoma City on the second anniversary of the Waco fire, through Alex Jones, and all the way up into Jan. 6 and beyond. Five of the shooting victims were children younger than 14. Lessons for media still echo from Waco tragedy. The Branch Davidians 51-day standoff with the FBI and the ATF ended as the cults compound burned. Waco: Created by Drew Dowdle, John Erick Dowdle. A man paralyzed from the waist down was able to voluntarily control and move his legs with the help of an electrical implant in his spine. Branch Davidian cult leader David Koresh Waco Tribune He flew into a rage, claiming God made all his sexual selections. ATF and FBI officials made terrible mistakes that led to loss of life, and that is horrible. Hostage negotiators tried to convince Koresh to surrender. The exhausting, frozen state of terror and avoidance overwhelms cult members and their ability to think critically about the ideology theyve suddenly committed themselves to. ", Pittsburgh woman missing for 31 years found alive in Puerto Rico, Alex Murdaugh found guilty of murders of wife and son. Hint: They hold off on talking about their alien god until much later. With the perceived Communist threat all but vanquished, these groups insisted, the U.S. government would increasingly turn its warmaking powers inward, targeting deviant individuals and groups. Officials said the Branch Davidians opened fire on the ATF agents first a claim which surviving members of the religious community deny to this day. A massive show of force, agents thought, would stun and incapacitate Koresh and his followers and help to rehabilitate the image of federal law enforcement. / CBS News. How can it be otherwise? At least 20 people were shot, possibly as mercy killings, after they became trapped. The ATF became aware of the Branch Davidians after a UPS driver who was delivering a package to a gun store owned and operated by the Branch Davidians in 1992 discovered that the package contained at least a half-dozen grenades. ATF agents were looking. We All Live in the John Birch Societys World Now, The Myth of the Socially Conscious Corporation. Steven Emil Schneider (16 October 1949 19 April 1993[1]), or Steve Schneider, was an American Branch Davidian commonly called a "lieutenant" to David Koresh, the leader of the new religious movement. As federal agents laid siege to the Mount Carmel compound, the Davidians hung a bedsheet from a window that read, RODNEY KING WE UNDERSTANDan allusion to the unarmed Black motorist whose vicious beating at the hands of four white police officers (and their subsequent acquittal) touched off the 1992 Los Angeles rebellion. Within the first five days, 21 children were released and taken to Methodist Children's Home in Waco. Web Site Copyright 1995-2023 WGBH Educational Foundation. Koresh's Branch Davidian sect, a fundamentalist Christian sect that interprets the Bible literally, had about 120 members earlier this year. The FBI claimed that there was gunfire from Mount Carmel. Jobs | The flames rose in the air. It also allowed them to build the stockpile at Mount Carmel for their final battle. What really happened? Copyright 2007-2023 & BIG THINK, BIG THINK PLUS, SMARTER FASTER trademarks owned by Freethink Media, Inc. All rights reserved. Waco FBI Transcripts Tapes 007 - 009 View. Waco FBI Transcripts Tapes 010 - 012 View. Now theyre taking the fight to local school boards and county councils, mainstreaming ideas that would have seemed fringe a few years ago. Militias are now blending with QAnon, another national security expert explained, people who see Democrats as child-abusing predators. It is not difficult, then, to trace a direct line between Waco and the January 6 insurrection (in which so many QAnon believers participated) or the anti-gay, anti-trans panic currently buffeting the nation. The Branch Davidians (Students of the Seven Seals) trace their history to the SeventhDay Adventist Church, one of several successors to the nineteenth-century Millerite movement. Authorities said he successfully converted more than 100 people and convinced them to live in his secluded compound near Waco after preaching his teachings throughout the U.S., Israel, Australia and Great Britain. How can we reconcile these two seemingly contradictory truths? Some of the agents at the ceremony werent alive during the raid. 15The term "Branch" was chosen again by Roden to signify a separate identity within the Davidian movement. But I want to ask more about this idea of David Koresh as cult leader. Broadly, cults retain control over their members by controlling the narrative. In reality, the well-armed Davidians were more than ready for a fight, and they delivered yet another black eye to federal agents. First published on February 28, 2023 / 2:50 PM. The remaining occupants in the compound refused to exit. He had promised them that they were going to be translated into great glory. As the gunfire began at the Branch Davidian compound 25 years ago, kicking off what would become a 51-day siege, a group of journalists found . Mobile Site Theres a variety of techniques they can use to accomplish this, but these usually involve iteratively subjecting the cult recruit to terror and love. Family members of Branch Davidians hired their own pathologist to double check the federal government's own autopsy reports and both parties concurred. Waco FBI Transcripts Tapes 013 - 016 View. In April 1993, some 75 members of the millennial sect known as the Branch Davidiansincluding their messianic leader, David Koreshperished in the blaze that destroyed their compound near Waco,. The Davidians, a small adventist reform movement, was established by Victor T. Houteff in 1929. That sparked a 51-day standoff with the FBI taking over. And the victims were the ATF agents who died and the Davidians who died. It worked. October 17, 1995 According to NPR, as of 2013, the group . Meals were spartan, and water scarce, while discipline, punishment, and abuse were never in short supply. Branch Davidian, member of an offshoot group of the Davidian Seventh-day Adventist Church that made headlines on February 28, 1993, when its Mount Carmel headquarters near Waco, Texas, was raided by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF); four federal agents were killed in the assault. This is not unique among religious demagogues who claim a special relationship with God. So the ATF made the decision: They are going to go into Mount Carmel, they're going to raid, they're going to take away these illegal guns and they are going to arrest whoever is in charge, meaning at least David Koresh. The ATF was looking for a stockpile of weapons Koresh and his followers had reportedly amassed at the site. A clash for control of the Branch Davidians between Lois' son George and Vernon Howell ensued. If we ever want proof that trying to cover up small things when mistakes have been made is the worst thing you can possibly do, just look at Mount Carmel in Waco. WACO, Texas On Feb. 28, 1993, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms tried to execute a search warrant at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. (It's unclear who took the first shot.) The obscene, baseless conspiracies propagated, and racist violence perpetrated, in the Davidians name should anger any observer. "We weren't in there for a gunbattle," Risenhoover said. "David Koresh wanted to make sure that when the final battle occurred, his followers would be able to fight the way the Book of Revelation said they must," Guinn says. Davidians believe that living prophets are given. Critics called what happened a Waco a massacre. February 28, 2023 / 2:50 PM The series of events, which gripped the nation two decades ago, is now the focus of Paramount Networks WACO, a six-part television miniseries that premieres Wednesday. Beating babies was the term told to new Attorney General Janet Reno. In February 1993, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms raids David Koresh's Branch Davidian compound, a small religious community located just outside of Waco, Texas, triggering a drawn-out gun battle that kills four ATF agents and six civilians and wounds dozens more people. Example video title will go here for this video. By, A service of the Moody College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin, Hundreds of volunteers will fan out on San Marcos waterways Saturday to clean up trash, UTEP hosting Borderland Chopin Festival honoring a poet of the piano, Hoping to retain staff, Austin gives police officers a 4% raise, Detrs del proceso 'desordenado' para elegir al prximo responsable del metro ligero de Austin. And they will fake mutual interests in order to give the impression that they share many things in common. He also described how one cult trained its members to wait outside counseling centers to poach troubled students and offer them the comfort they would otherwise get from a trained professional. [9] Scholars James Tabor and Eugene Gallagher note that he claimed to have converted twenty people on a trip to England in 1988. After convincing you that theyre the best friends youve ever had and bombarding you with the cults ideology, the cultists next job is to make sure they hang on to you. The fire was almost instantaneous. Nothing was happening. The name Branch Davidians is most synonymous with the tragic 1993 siege in Waco, Texas which resulted in the death of 86 people. It's unshakable. On the fire that broke out at Mount Carmel. Steven Emil Schneider (16 October 1949 - 19 April 1993), or Steve Schneider, was an American Branch Davidian commonly called a "lieutenant" to David Koresh, the leader of the new religious movement. What was Project MKUltra? Schneider was very active in the Branch Davidian community before and during the siege of the Mount Carmel Center. Waco FBI Transcripts Tapes 004 - 006 View. With Michael Shannon, Taylor Kitsch, Andrea Riseborough, Paul Sparks. Waco Rising: David Koresh, the FBI, and the Birth of Americas Modern Militias, Stranger Danger: Family Values, Childhood, and the American Carceral State. Milestones | This is a carousel. On the 51-day stand-off between the FBI and the Branch Davidians. One scholar called him Koresh's main "spokesperson. Victor Tasho Houteff, a Bulgarian immigrant to the United States, founded the Branch Davidians in 1935 after growing disillusioned with his Seventh-day Adventist congregation. After the retreat, the FBI took command of the incident and tried to negotiate a peaceful surrender without success. Questionable circumstances. And those folks inevitably would say, "How could I believe this? Until 1993, the word Waco brought to mind a Texas city located along the Brazos River a popular setting for numerous fictional sagas about cattle ranchers and the Old West. You use that phrase cult leader. Branch Davidians, of course, separated from Seventh-day Adventists in, I believe it was, the 1930s, and the church formally distanced itself from the branch. David Koresh may have been a false prophet, but he was onto something, the current pastor of the Branch Davidians recently remarked at his congregations compound near Waco, Texas. That was his promise. Along the way, Waco Rising poses vital and urgent questions about state power and the role of violence and warmaking in the . Theres a link between dark personality traits and breaches of battlefield ethics. The 30th anniversary of that event is coming up this year, but some big questions about the standoff still remain. Here are the four steps to getting sucked into a cult. Branch Davidians, Religious sect that believes in the imminent return of Jesus Christ. [10] Schneider was in the Mount Carmel compound at the beginning of the Waco siege on 28 February 1993. Four . In an initial raid on Feb. 28, four ATF agents were killed, 16 were wounded, and six Branch Davidians died. WACO, Texas On Feb. 28, 1993, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms tried to execute a search warrant at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas. The government then came to deliver a search warrant barreling up the driveway at the Branch Davidian compound northeast of Waco. Under the leadership of Vernon Howell, a charismatic and apocalyptic preacher who would take the name David Koresh (1959-1993), it stockpiled . of Assistant U.S. And Waco would become to the conspiracy minded, a great symbol of the evil of American government. The shootout lasted two hours before a local sheriff contacted the ATF and negotiated a ceasefire, though some reports say the agents had run out of ammunition, according to the documentary Waco: The Rules of Engagement. After the ceasefire, the Davidians held their fire as they allowed the ATF agents to evacuate their dead and wounded and retreat. In the end, peaceful means did not succeed. J. David Ake/AFP via Getty Images Feb. 28, 2023, marked 30 years since the beginning of the Waco siege, the confrontation at a Texas compound that killed around 80 members of the Branch Davidian religious community and four . The Waco siege also proved formative for Alex Jones, who was just 19 years old in 1993. We dont have to idealize Koresh or his followers to acknowledge their victimizationor to link it to that of Rodney King, Tamir Rice, Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Elijah McClain, Breonna Taylor, George Floyd, and the countless individuals ensnared in Americas crimmigration and carceral machinery. In fact, Koresh had passed out weapons at the compound, so most members of the group were stocked with guns and ammunition. The initial messages basically were ways everyone could work better, love the Lord more, and basically make yourself worthy of being saved when the end times came. USAA wants some remote employees in the office three days Jury takes an hour to reach verdict over deal at Port S.A. Texas Vista owner has threatened hospital shutdown before. There are conflicting reports over who fired the first shot, but by the end of that first day, five ATF and five Branch Davidians were dead. Adults regularly paddled children, and Koresh demanded total obedience to his rigid yet arbitrary rules. [2][3] He was formally married to Judy Schneider, but in the community Koresh impregnated Judy and she bore a child with him. The high-profile event captivated Americans and national media outlets as it unfolded during the seven weeks and in the years following. There was such an accumulation of it and the building went up like a book of matches. In an initial raid on Feb. 28, four ATF agents were killed, 16 were wounded, and six Branch Davidians died. The Branch Davidians wanted to use guns to raise money initially. "It would be enough, if inserted gradually, so the Branch Davidians would come out.". What's more, the Branch Davidians knew the ATF was coming. Who caused the fire has remained a point of contention, although an independent arson investigation concluded the fire was started from within the building. In keeping with the Seventh-day Adventist tradition from which Houteff had emerged, the Davidians focused intently on the violent prophecies contained in the Book of Revelation, and they believed that the Second Coming was imminent. And I think that shows the power, the charisma of David Koresh. Feb. 28, 2023, marks 30 years since the beginning of the Waco siege, the confrontation at a Texas compound that killed around 80 members of the Branch Davidian religious community and four federal . Agencies | "Almost one third of the ATF agents are carried away, bleeding or dead from this fight," Guinn says. Investigators would later determine that people barricaded inside had spread gasoline and set it ablaze. The group was founded by Victor Houteff, a Bulgarian immigrant who converted to Adventism in 1919. Everyone else died in a flaming hell. Videocassettes of this FRONTLINE program are no longer available for purchase. By decades end, Jones had become somewhat of a local celebrity in Austin, gaining clout as a public access TV and talk radio host and right-wing provocateur. The infamous footage of the massive blaze was broadcast live by television crews who were outside the property. Thirty years ago this month, federal agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms attempted to serve a lawfully obtained federal search and arrest warrant on David Koresh, leader of the Branch Davidian religious sect, at the group's compound in the small community of Mount Carmel, outside Waco. Instead, it was a massive fire in the compound that finally brought the standoff to an end with 76 Davidians dying. The group was formed in the . Mother of 15-year-old shot at a house party wants someone held accountable, 'He came at me with a loaded 9mm gun' | Man robbed at gunpoint at his own garage in broad daylight, Houston forecast: Grab your jacket as you head to the rodeo, it's a cool and breezy Friday, Damage reported throughout North Texas area during severe weather. Kevin Cook: Thats true. Heres what to know about the Waco siege. Originally coined by the Moonies, love-bombing is more or less self-explanatory. Their plan didn't go so well, and four FBI agents and six Branch Davidians ended up dead in the ensuing exchange of gunfire. An aerial photo shows the Branch Davidian compound in March 1993. Active and retired ATF agents held a ceremony Tuesday honoring the four agents who were shot and killed 30 years ago during the siege of David Koreshs Branch Davidian religious group in Waco, Texas. Investigators would later determine that people barricaded inside had spread gasoline and set it ablaze. / 59m, Photo: Greg Smith/Corbis via Getty Images. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. In a lengthy report relaying the Waco events, the Justice Department said the 51-day standoff at the Branch Davidian compound was unprecedented in the annals of American law enforcement. Never before have so many heavily armed and totally committed individuals barricaded themselves in a fortified compound in a direct challenge to lawful federal warrants, the report said. Why is it so hard to stop a highly contagious stomach bug now spreading in the US? Agents Conway LeBleu, Todd McKeehan, Robert Williams and Steven Willis, as well as six Branch Davidians, were killed Feb. 28, 1993, in what was one of the largest law enforcement operations in the U.S. at the time. They lied, in that early that morning, they had used some combustible military rounds to insert gas, as well as the noncombustible rounds that they had promised the attorney general. After Waco, the ATF standardized training specializing in warrant execution and hostage rescue. They've been sustained in this belief for 30 years. I've written about Charles Manson and I've talked to some of his followers all these years since, talked to the people who followed Jim Jones and survived Jonestown. In the early 1980s, a troubled man from Houston joined the group. Milanowski said some of the agents who participated in the raid were traumatized. Paul Renfro is an assistant professor of history at Florida State University and the author of Stranger Danger: Family Values, Childhood, and the American Carceral State. It's been 20 years to the day since the federal government began its siege of the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas. The ATF wanted to arrest Koresh for unlawful possession of a destructive device and search the 77-acre compound. The Clinton administration was under a great deal of pressure to end this 51-day standoff at Waco. Funding for FRONTLINE is provided through the support of PBS viewers and by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. No refunds for partial months. David Koresh, the leader of the Branch Davidian cult AP Photo The Branch Davidians were actually founded in 1929 by Victor Houteff, after splintering from the Seventh Day Adventist Church. During the 51 days, Koresh ordered 30 people, including 19 children, to leave. ATF agents share long-shrouded details about Branch Davidian raid. For Cook, Koreshs apocalyptic visionsand the brutal end he and his followers met in 1993helped lay the groundwork for the distrust, disinformation, and denialism of the past decade. (The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) As historian Kathleen Belew has shown, the late 1980s and early 1990s represented a moment of uncertainty and transformation for white power, paramilitary, and anti-statist groups in the United States and beyond. Waco FBI Transcripts Tapes 017 - 022 View. Posted: 3/1/23 at 7:50 AM under News Story. And Koresh said this was a blessing to them because now they could focus their energies on studying the Bible more and becoming more worthy of the Lord. Waco FBI Transcripts Box 25 I - Folder 2 - Part 02 of 02 View. Persecution is coming, Koresh told his followers. On February 28, 1993, a 51-day siege began on a compound in Texas. Some 672 federal agents, 131 Texas Department of Safety officials, 31 Texas Rangers, 35 local police officers, 15 U.S. Army soldiers, and 13 Texas National Guardsmen sat and stared as 76 people suffocated, suffered blunt-force trauma, burned to death, or died by suicide or mercy killing.. In an interview with Aeon, social psychologist Alexandra Stein explained that when we are frightened, we dont simply run away from the fear, but run to a safe haven, to someoneand that someone is usually a person to whom we feel attached. They also became increasingly worried about allegations of sexual abuse and misconduct by Koresh. On February 28, 1993 at approximately 9:30 a.m., 100 lawmen from the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms division of the United States Treasury Department descended on a religious compound owned and operated by the Branch Davidian cult 10 miles east of Waco, Texas. According to Vox, the religious group has its roots in the 1930s and was an offshoot of Seventh Day Adventist theology. After 30 years, authors are still finding plenty to say about the failed, deadly Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms raid on the Branch Davidian complex outside Waco on Feb. 28, 1993, the . The February 1993 raid claimed the lives of four ATF agents and six Branch Davidians and triggered a 51-day standoff overseen by the FBI. With Waco, one FBI official noted, you can go to YouTube and see women and children incinerated, the government using military tools and training against Americans. The global war on terror, the Great Recession, the election of Barack Obama, and the solidification of the neoliberal order have intensified this radicalization, paving the way for the Tea Party, Trumpism, the so-called alt-right, QAnon, the insurrection of January 6, 2021, and increasingly naked expressions of racism, antisemitism, homophobia, transphobia, and sexism. Texas Department of Safety investigators and medical examiners search the rubble of the burnt-out Branch Davidian compound in Waco, on April 22, 1993. The feds never forgave the Davidians. Additional funding is provided by the Abrams Foundation; the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; Park Foundation; the Heising-Simons Foundation; and the FRONTLINE Journalism Fund with major support from Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation, and additional support from Koo and Patricia Yuen. [13], He attended Newbold College in England before being expelled for drunkenness. By 1983, Koresh had joined a religious sect that called themselves the "Brand Davidians" (Branch Davidian) -- a splinter group of the Seventh Day Adventist Church -- founded by former Seventh . [5][6] Schneider studied at Newbold College in the United Kingdom, and eventually worked to receive a Ph.D. in comparative religion at the University of Hawaii. His followers were in thrall . Pathology studies concluded that at least 20 Branch Davidiansincluding Koreshwere shot in the head or mouth and onea 3-year-old boyhad been stabbed in the chest. 25 Years After The Tanks, Tear Gas And Flames, 'Waco' Returns To TV, Nearly 40 Years Later, Jonestown Offers A Lesson In Demagoguery. Once theyve enticed a recruit with approval or the promise of some fulfilling understanding of the universe, cultists then work to isolate the recruit. Relatively healthy people going through stressful periods, therefore, are their prime targets. Jon and Jo Ann Hagler on behalf of the Jon L. Hagler Foundation. Bridget Bentz, Molly Seavy-Nesper and Meghan Sullivan adapted it for the web. Magazines, Digital The siege left 75 people including children dead and changed the way some Americans felt about the federal government. The combination of deteriorating conditions and reports that the children were being abused inside the compound prompted newly appointed U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno to authorize the FBI Hostage Rescue Team to mount an assault. The government is afraid of the guns people have. They also stockpiled firearms and trained for armed combat at the Mount Carmel compound. Contact Us | New college students are a prime example of good targets for cult recruitment since theyre still forming their identity and have recently been separated from their families. The remaining 62 adults and 21 children, who refused to leave the Mount Carmel compound, then began their standoff with the government. Four ATF agents and 82 Branch Davidians died during the 51-day standoff, which began in late February 1993, when law enforcement and the Waco, Tx.-based religious cult engaged in a standoff as . So they built illegal grenades. He stayed in or near the compound for the entire siege and died there. The Branch Davidians (or the General Association of Branch Davidian Seventh-day Adventists) were an apocalyptic new religious movement founded in 1955 by Benjamin Roden.They regard themselves as a continuation of the General Association of Davidian Seventh-Day Adventists, established by Victor Houteff in 1935.. Houteff, a Bulgarian immigrant and a Seventh-day Adventist, wrote a series of . Davidian survivors have explained that Koresh knew the Bible (especially its brutal conclusion, Revelation) backward and forward, and he was a highly effective teacher. 2023 Tickle The Wire - Entries (RSS) - Comments (RSS) - Log in About Us | The Branch Davidians By Ashley Yeaman Often confused with the Davidians, the Branch Davidians are a splinter group organized in 1955 by Ben Roden following the death of Davidian founder Victor T. Houteff. But the people who survived Mount Carmel, who believed in David Koresh, believe in him to this day that what the ATF did, and then the FBI [did], perfectly fulfilled David's prophecy that he and the others who died at Mount Carmel have been translated up and are waiting, and at some point, God is going to return them at the head of his armies, we're going to have this clash and the end of days will come. Fred Milanowski, special agent in charge of the ATFs Houston Field Division, said the agency is committed to paying its respects to the fallen agents, KWTX reports. It's a tragedy that has once again entered America's collective consciousness after Netflix recently added "Waco" a 2018 show based on the tragic events of the deadly Texas siege that originally aired on Paramount Network to its streaming library. Steve Schneider answered, spoke with the FBI agents on the other end, reportedly slammed the telephone on the receiver, and pulled the phone from the wall.[17]. Houteff had founded the Davidians, a small Adventist reform movement, in 1929. Houteff and his followers settled on a plot of land near Waco, where the Davidians would live, worship, raise children, and prepare for the end times. In Waco Rising, theres a good deal of never-reported conversations between Koresh and the FBI negotiators who were trying to get him to lead his people out. Use Next and Previous buttons to navigate. The 51-day standoff began when agents suspected the religious group was stockpiling weapons. [The ATF] heard from a couple disgruntled Branch Davidians who had left that Koresh was actually training his people in the use of these weapons and that eventually the Branch Davidians might actually launch an attack out of Mount Carmel on civilians around Waco, that there was going to be some kind of mass attack or even a mass suicide, like the one that occurred some years earlier in Jonestown, with Peoples Temple in Guyana. The worker said UPS had delivered several suspicious packages to the store, according to the documentary Inside Waco.. To that end, far-right actors have often imagined the Branch Davidians as exclusively white. Theres a bit of a false belief out there that cult recruits tend to be mentally ill, but this usually isnt the case. KHOU 11 on social media:Facebook | Twitter | Instagram | YouTube. On speaking with the surviving Branch Davidians, 30 years later. **New subscribers get a 1-month free Paramount+ subscription. Retired FBI special agent Charlie Rasner (left), retired special agent Jim McGee (center) and retired Austin Police Department crisis negotiator Rick Shirley (right) discuss the Waco siege in an interview for the Paramount+ series "FBI TRUE. He told his followers that marriages were essentially annulled and that he would be the one creating a new generation of Davidians. Branch is a Biblical reference found also in Isaiah 11:1: "a shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse and a branch shall grow out of his roots." Pitts, p. 32.-3-and that God communicated with Davidians through Houteff. On Feb. 28, 1993, federal law enforcement agents came face-to-face with the Branch Davidians, a controversial group whose followers described themselves as students of the Bible, outside the Mount Carmel compound, where about 130 of them lived.