[11] The Branch Davidians, led by David Koresh, were headquartered at Mount Carmel Center ranch in unincorporated McLennan County, Texas,[12][13][14] 13 miles (21 kilometers) northeast of Waco.

Following the ATF entering the property and its failure to execute the search warrant, a siege was initiated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), during which negotiations between the parties attempted to reach a compromise.

[20][21][22] The Ruby Ridge standoff and the Waco siege were cited by Timothy McVeigh as the main reasons for his and Terry Nichols's plan to execute the Oklahoma City bombing exactly two years later, on April 19, 1995, as well as the modern-day American militia movement.

[25] As the original Davidian group gained members, its leadership moved the church to a hilltop several miles east of Waco, Texas, which they named Mount Carmel, after a mountain in Israel mentioned in Joshua 19:26 in the Bible's Old Testament.

He has dimples, claims a ninth-grade education, married his legal wife when she was 14, enjoys a beer now and then, plays a mean guitar, reportedly packs a 9 mm Glock and keeps an arsenal of military assault rifles, and willingly admits that he is a sinner without equal.

On February 27, 1993, the Waco Tribune-Herald began publishing "The Sinful Messiah", a series of articles by Mark England and Darlene McCormick, who reported allegations that Koresh had physically abused children in the compound and had committed statutory rape by taking multiple underage brides.

[49] Allegedly, the initial investigation began in June 1992 when a postal worker informed a sheriff of McLennan County that he believed he had been delivering explosives to the ammo and gun store owned and operated by the Branch Davidians.

[50][better source needed] Using the affidavit filed by Aguilera that alleged that the Davidians had violated federal law, the ATF obtained search and arrest warrants for Koresh and specific followers on weapons charges, citing the many firearms they had accumulated.

[69] This was the key justification offered by the FBI (both to then President Bill Clinton and to Attorney General Janet Reno) for launching CS gas attacks to force the Branch Davidians out of the compound.

Increasingly aggressive techniques were used to try to force the Branch Davidians out, for instance, sleep deprivation of the inhabitants through all-night broadcasts of recordings of jet planes, pop music, Buddhist chanting, and the screams of rabbits being slaughtered.

[44] Criticism was later leveled by Schneider's attorney, Jack Zimmerman, at the tactic of using sleep-and-peace-disrupting sound against the Branch Davidians: "The point was this—they were trying to have sleep disturbance and they were trying to take someone that they viewed as unstable to start with, and they were trying to drive him crazy.

After examining this and four other letters by Koresh, Miron wrote in an April 15 report that he exhibited "all the hallmarks of rampant, morbidly virulent paranoia"[74] concluding "I do not believe there is in these writings any better, or at least certain, hope for an early end to the siege.

"[80] Newly appointed US Attorney General Janet Reno approved recommendations by the FBI Hostage Rescue Team to mount an assault, after being told that conditions were deteriorating and that children were being abused inside the compound.

Recalling the April 19, 1985, The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (CSA) siege in Arkansas (which was ended without loss of life by a blockade without a deadline), Clinton suggested similar tactics against the Branch Davidians.

Reno countered that the FBI Hostage Rescue Team was tired of waiting; that the standoff was costing a million dollars per week; that the Branch Davidians could hold out longer than the CSA; and that the chances of child sexual abuse and mass suicide were imminent.

"[81] Over the next months, Reno's reason for approving the final CS gas attack varied from her initial claim that the FBI Hostage Rescue Team had told her that Koresh was sexually abusing children and beating babies (the FBI Hostage Rescue Team later denied evidence of child abuse during the standoff[82]) to her claim that Linda Thompson's "Unorganized Militia of the United States" was on the way to Waco "either to help Koresh or to attack him.

Regarding the initial plan to tear gas the building the spokesperson of the FBI Carl Stern claimed that input was taken from psychologists, psychiatrists, behavioral specialists, as well as, “scientific, medical stuff”.

They raised a host of issues, challenging the constitutionality of the prohibition on possession of machine guns, the jury instructions, the district court's conduct of the trial, the sufficiency of the evidence, and the sentences imposed.

The Fifth Circuit concluded that these allegations did not reflect conduct that would cause a reasonable observer to question Judge Smith's impartiality, and it affirmed the take-nothing judgment, in Andrade v. Chojnacki,[109] 338 F.3d 448 (5th Cir.

Portrayed as "self-obsessed, egomaniacal, sociopathic and heartless", Koresh was frequently characterized as either a religious lunatic who doomed his followers to mass suicide or a con man who manipulated religion for his own bizarre personal advantage.

"[120] In a New Yorker article in 2014, Malcolm Gladwell wrote that Arnold and Tabor told the FBI that Koresh needed to be persuaded of an alternative interpretation of the Book of Revelation, one that does not involve a violent end.

[126] By 1999—as a result of certain aspects of the documentaries discussed below, as well as allegations made by advocates for Branch Davidians during litigation, public opinion held that the federal government had engaged in serious misconduct at Waco.

None of the Branch Davidians who died on that day displayed evidence of having been struck by a high velocity round, as would be expected had they been shot from outside of the complex by government sniper rifles or other assault weapons.

Ramsey Clark—a former US Attorney General, who represented several Branch Davidian survivors and relatives in a civil lawsuit—said that the report "failed to address the obvious": "History will clearly record, I believe, that these assaults on the Mt.

[156] The first book about the incident was 1993's Inside the Cult co-authored by ex-Branch Davidian Marc Breault, who left the group in September 1989, and Martin King who interviewed Koresh for Australian television in 1992.

The American novelist John Updike has been directly inspired by the Waco events for the fourth and last part of his book In the Beauty of the Lilies (1996) which described how a troubled child could integrate such a sect and the inner dynamics that led to a collective massacre.

[162] The next film was Day 51: The True Story of Waco, produced in 1995 by Richard Mosley and featuring Ron Cole, a self-proclaimed militia member from Colorado who was later prosecuted for weapons violations.

[164] In 1997, filmmakers Dan Gifford and Amy Sommer produced their Emmy Award-winning documentary film, Waco: The Rules of Engagement,[64] presenting a history of the Branch Davidian movement and a critical examination of the conduct of law enforcement, both leading up to the raid and through the aftermath of the fire.

Hip hop duo Heavy Metal Kings, featuring Vinnie Paz of Jedi Mind Tricks and Ill Bill, reference the siege in their song Impaled Nazarene from their 2011 self-titled debut.

His book served in part as the basis for the 2018 Paramount Network six-part television drama miniseries Waco, starring Michael Shannon as the FBI negotiator Gary Noesner, Taylor Kitsch as Koresh, and Rory Culkin as Thibodeau.