The stage is set for a controversial re-enactment next Saturday of the deadly 1993 siege in Waco at the Branch Davidian compound — complete with tanks, submachine-gun fire and exploding grenades.
The federal judge presiding over a wrongful-death suit filed by relatives of cult members killed at the end of the 51-day standoff with federal agents has ordered the re-enactment at Fort Hood, Texas.
Seventy-four followers of David Koresh died in a raging blaze at the complex.
The lawsuit charges the government caused the fire by blasting the building with incendiary tear gas for nearly six hours, then shooting and ramming it with tanks.
The suit also charges that the government used excessive force, prevented cult members from escaping the burning compound by shooting at it and was negligent for not having plans to fight the blaze.
According to a plan approved by U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno, the gassing was supposed to continue for 48 hours, with the tanks then moving in if no one surrendered.
In the re-enactment, men in camouflage and painted faces will run alongside three tanks; eight gunmen will fire submachine guns and pistols; and grenades will explode in a field filled with shattered glass, shreds of aluminum, gum wrappers and large water containers, according to court documents.
The FBI has insisted it did not shoot at the compound — that heat flashes seen on infrared footage of the event were caused by sunlight hitting debris, not gunfire — and that the re-enactment will prove it.
But the plaintiffs argue the FBI is trying to stack the deck. The agency is now asking to be allowed to add an 8-by-10-foot tent covered with a reflective “space blanket” to guarantee flashes from sources other than gunfire.
“It is clear that [the government] and their experts are so desperate to create a flash during the Fort Hood demonstrations from something other than gunfire, that they are willing to sacrifice credibility and scientific accuracy in the process,” said Houston lawyer Michael Caddell, who represents some of the victims.
“It is clear to everyone that there was nothing like a six-foot-high tent covered with space blankets at [the site] on April 19, [1993],” Caddell said.
The FBI declined to comment on any aspects of the case.
Another sore point is that the re-enactment will be supervised and filmed by Vector Data Systems, a British subsidiary of a U.S. firm that has approximately $300 million in federal contracts.
The event will cost roughly $1million, to be paid by the losers of the case, and will be filmed by infrared cameras inside a British helicopter and an FBI Night Stalker plane from 4,000 and 6,000 feet.
The new footage will be compared with the FBI’s film.
“If there are flashes on the tape from gunfire, then we’ve got a huge problem,” Caddell said. “Then we have seven years of FBI agents lying about whether they fired on April 19.”
The trial is set for May.