For this assignment, you will analyze this well-known and widely debated incident where policing style played a factor. You will need to do basic research on the (Branch Davidian Standoff), which took

Title: The Branch Davidian standoff: an American tragedy

Authors: Wood, James E., Jr.

Source: Journal of Church and State. Spring, 1993, Vol. 35 Issue n2, 233-240

Publisher Information: Oxford University Press, 1993.

Publication Year: 1993

Subject Terms: Church and state -- Laws, regulations and rules

Law

Philosophy and religion

Political science

Branch Davidians -- Laws, regulations and rules

Subject Geographic: United States

Description:

There are several lessons to be learned from the tragedy which ended the standoff between the Branch Davidians and the FBI near Waco, TX in 1993. Government agencies must make a good-faith effort to understand the beliefs of religious groups involved in a church-state confrontation. As long as religious groups appear to be following the law, whether they are considered cults or not, all their constitutional rights should be protected, even if their beliefs seem bizarre to the mainstream. Military action against a religious group not charged with a crime is never warranted.

Document Type: Editorial

ISSN: 0021-969X

Accession Number: edsgac.A14194685

Database: Gale in Context: College

Section:

EDITORIAL

THE BRANCH DAVIDIAN STANDOFF: AN AMERICAN TRAGEDY

For fifty-one days, the drama of the Branch Davidian standoff in Central Texas was given daily coverage by the media throughout the world. From the time of the assault on the Branch Davidian compound on Sunday morning, 28 February 1993, by approximately one hundred federal agents, during which four agents and six Davidians within the compound were killed and sixteen agents and an indeterminate number of Davidians were wounded, to the drama's fateful fiery climax on Monday, 19 April, in which at least eighty-six persons in the compound (including seventeen children) lost their lives, the flow of news stories remained constant. Daily reports were released by the press, radio, and television, with several feature cover stories appearing in weekly news magazines. Cover stories of the standoff appeared in major news magazines such as Time and Newsweek.

From the very beginning, the confrontation between federal agents and the Branch Davidians provoked a storm of controversy and acrimonious debate. It should be kept in mind that the Branch Davidians had not been charged with any crime. The initial assault by approximately one hundred armed agents of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms on the compound occupied by little more than one hundred Branch Davidians, more than half of whom were women and children, was itself an unprecedented government operation against a religious group.

The use of a powerful chemical, O-chlorobenzalmalononitrile (CS), by the FBI on the final day of the standoff raised further questions as to the methods employed by the government in its assault on the Branch Davidians. The fine white powder chemical was blown into the compound for approximately six hours. Banned for United States military use and earlier this year banned at the Chemical Weapons Convention in Paris by more than one hundred nations, including the United States, CS has been declared by Amnesty International to be "particularly dangerous" when "launched directly into homes or other buildings." One weapons expert, Paul Hoven, charged that he doubted with the use of CS that members of the compound would have been able to find theft way. "Exposed to CS," he said, "I doubt they would have been able to run and get the kids. Certainly, the children would have been out of control and it would have been a very difficult situation.

All the more puzzling was the government's stated purpose for this type of military operation: to issue a search warrant to David Koresh to determine if his group, which had no history of committing acts of violence or manifesting hostile resistance to government authority, was in possession of illegal weapons--namely fully automatic weapons. Many asked why was it necessary to have approximately one hundred armed agents encircle the compound, with three helicopters overhead, to issue a search warrant or even a warrant for the arrest of the group's leader? In a recorded telephone conversation with the ATF in the first few hours of the raid, the leader of the group, David Koresh, informed the federal officials that the assault was unnecessary to deliver a search warrant. "It would have been better if you just called me up or talked to me," Koresh said. "Then you all could have come in and done your work." In the past, outsiders, including neighbors, friends and family members of residents, as well as public officials on occasion, frequently visited persons in the compound, known as the Mount Carmel Center.

While a search warrant had been issued to investigate the group's possible possession of an arsenal of weapons, the mere possession of such an arsenal, if legally purchased and not thereafter illegally altered, is not itself a violation of Texas law. Upon payment of $10.00, a permit may be obtained to purchase arms virtually without limit, as persons may do who engage in the business of buying and selling arms either as collectors or as commercial enterprisers. After the initial Sunday assault, government agents charged that illegal modifications had apparently been made to convert some of the cache of arms to automatic weapons.

After the assault by federal agents, it was frequently stated that a second reason for the action was based on reports of child abuse. While the charge must be regarded as a serious one, the ATF has no authority in this area. In fact, child abuse is not under federal jurisdiction. Previous visits to the compound by Texas state child welfare workers had been unable to substantiate any charges of child-abuse and state officials had virtually closed their investigation some months earlier. On 23 April 1993, the Texas Department of Protective and Regulatory Services provided the following summary of a nine-week investigation it conducted the previous year of charges of child abuse by Koresh: "None of the allegations could be verified. The children denied being abused in any way by any adults in the compound. They denied any knowledge of other children

being abused. The adults consistently denied participation in or knowledge of any abuse to children. Examinations of the children produced no indications of current or previous injuries."

Meanwhile, Texas child protection officials declared that they had received no further abuse allegations since last spring. Furthermore, these officials disclosed after the tragic fire engulfing the compound that they had received no allegations of child abuse from either the ATF or the FBI, "either before or after the Feb. 28 raid." Texas officials also reported that they found no evidence of physical or psychological abuse in their examinations of the twenty-one children released from the compound during the early stages of the standoff. As the standoff continued for some weeks, Texas officials reiterated that they had no new evidence of child abuse. To be sure, these reports by public officials and agencies do not provide a final word as to whether or not child abuse did in fact take place, but they do underscore the fact that Koresh and the Branch Davidians had not been, at any time, legally charged with any crime of child abuse at the time of the assault by federal agents in February. The question that remained was if conditions were so abusive for Branch Davidian children, why was nothing done by local or state authorities earlier?

At the time of the assault on the Branch Davidian compound, few persons outside of Central Texas and members of families associated with this religious community knew of the Branch Davidians, but by the end of the standoff perhaps few could deny some awareness of this religious community even if its religious identity remained unknown to all but a very few.

The armed clash between the Branch Davidians and the ATF provoked widespread controversy and debate not only throughout the United States but throughout the world. In some countries resistant to religious pluralism and religious freedom, the incident was used as a reminder of what may happen in a nation which permits a wide array of religious associations without government certification and jurisdiction. In registering from Waco at a Moscow hotel during the time of the standoff, this author was immediately asked, "What is religion like in Waco"? The shock of the tragedy that resulted from the Davidian standoff was compounded for many because it involved a religious community with which they had no acquaintance and was, therefore, entirely unknown.

In the face of the tragedy that resulted from the confrontation between this almost unknown religious community and the federal government, the question naturally arises: Who were the Branch Davidians? From the beginning, the Branch Davidians, as the Davidians from which they originated, held to a radical separation from the world of unbelievers and to a radical apocalyptic belief in the imminent Second Coming of Christ and the approaching battle of Armageddon. Indeed, it may be said that the Davidians, as well as the Branch Davidians, were obsessed with the Second Coming and the end of time.

In addition to its radical apocalyptic emphasis, the Davidians have been dominated by an acknowledged prophetic leader, whose revelations form the basis of their understanding of the Bible and their beliefs and teachings. This feature is readily manifest throughout their history. The roots of the Branch Davidians may be traced back almost sixty years, to 1934, when a splinter group of Seventh-day Adventists was founded by Victor Houteff, who had emigrated from Bulgaria to the United States at the close of World War I. A former member of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, from which he had disassociated himself before leaving Bulgaria, Houteff joined the Seventh-day Adventists in 1918 soon after his arrival in the United States. In time he became the assistant superintendent of a Seventh-day Adventist Church Sabbath school in Los Angeles. As in Bulgaria earlier, Houteff once again found himself in conflict with the religious views of church leaders. As a result he formed his own group and in 1935 moved the group to the outskirts of Waco, Texas, and established a commune known as the Mount Carmel Center. Not all members of the group, however, ever embraced communal living. Because of his belief in the imminent establishment of David's kingdom on earth with the Second Coming of Christ and his emphasis on Sabbatarian observance, he gave his group the name of Davidian Seventh-day Adventists. Because the group had no organizational ties to the denomination known as Seventh-day Adventist, Houteff and his followers were generally referred to as Davidians.

The years passed without the Second Coming of Christ, which Houteff maintained was at hand virtually from the time of the establishment of the Mount Carmel Center. With the death of Houteff in 1955, his wife, Florence Houteff, assumed the role of prophet and leader of the Davidians. She predicted that on 22 April 1959, during the Jewish Passover, the kingdom would be established on earth. Hundreds of Davidians, from as far away as California and the West coast, sold their homes, properties, and businesses and came to Waco only to wait for the Second Coming. For several months, the faithful gathered in tents and house trailers waiting outside the city of Waco for the end to come.

In the aftermath of this experience, Ben Roden challenged Florence Houteff's leadership and subsequently led the majority of the Davidians to form a splinter group, to be known as Branch Davidians. With the expansion of the city, the group sold their original Mount Carmel Center in Waco, and acquired property near Elk, ten miles east of Waco, the site of the recent standoff with federal agents. Upon Roden's death in 1978, his wife, Lois Roden, became the prophetic leader of the group. She traveled to different parts of the world, reportedly meeting with political leaders of some of the countries she visited, in an effort to win followers to the Branch Davidians. Thereby, she increased the group's international membership, which had been a feature of the group from the days of its founder.

Another potential split occurred upon the death of Lois Roden in 1986 over a struggle for leadership which ensued between Roden's son, George, and Vernon Howell (later to be known as David Koresh), who, ironically, was favored by Lois Roden over her son, George. In 1987, following a shootout between George Roden and Vernon Howell and some of their followers, Howell was found innocent and a mistrial was declared in his favor. Later George Roden was charged with the murder of a man from Odessa, but was found not guilty for reason of insanity and sent to a Texas state hospital where he remains. Since 1987, Vernon Howell, who changed

his name to David Koresh (David, the king of Israel, and Koresh, the Persian ruler known as Cyrus), served as the undisputed leader and prophet of the group, finally declaring himself to be the Messiah himself.

There are surely lessons to be learned from the tragedy of the Branch Davidian standoff. First and foremost there is the need for government agencies to try to understand and take seriously the beliefs held by a religious group brought into any church-state confrontation, particularly where there is the potential use of force involved. The principle is one that must be applied even when to outsiders the beliefs of a given religious group appear to be preposterous. Government agencies would do well not to rely, as they did in the case of Branch Davidians, on so-called "cult" experts and deprogrammers whose one purpose is to discredit the religious claims of nonconventional and unpopular religious groups and thereby promote intolerance and discrimination toward them. The repeated references in the press and the media at large to members of the Cult Awareness Network (CAN) as "experts" was misleading and unfortunate. The fact is that members of the Cult Awareness Network have a history of persecution of members of groups they deem to be "cults."

Actions of federal agents from the beginning confirmed for the Branch Davidians their adversarial relationship with the outside world, fueled even further by their strong belief that the end of time and the battle of Armageddon are near. The precipitous action of the ATF in its raid on the compound not only raises serious constitutional questions about the abuse of federal authority, but proved to be counter-productive. In fact, it may well be argued that the actions of the ATF and the FBI provoked a fanatical response in view of the very beliefs of the Branch Davidians. Since David Koresh was looked upon as the Messiah by his followers, as one professor of religion observed, "To come out with your hands up is not what a messiah is supposed to do." There was little indication that government officials either understood or took seriously the beliefs and religious claims of the Branch Davidians. In any event, merely to suspect a religious group to be in violation of firearms laws cannot justify the severity with which the government acted against Koresh and his followers.

A second lesson should reaffirm the need for far greater monitoring and regulation of the purchase of firearms, including the ordering of grenades and kits to convert guns into automatic weapons. In Texas, as elsewhere, there are no real limits on the stockpiling of weapons. Private collectors and traders in weaponry may amass large supplies of arms with a license that is easily obtainable. Religious groups, no less so than other voluntary associations, may amass large supplies of weapons with virtually no restrictions. In the words of Clinton Van Zandt, the FBI's chief negotiator in Waco during the standoff, "Nothing in this country says you can't own 100 rifles and a million rounds of ammunition." As one observer wrote, in this country "even zealots have the right to own and carry guns."

Finally, as long as a religious group operates within the confines of the law, even though their teachings may seem fanatical, even bizarre, to the religious mainstream, theft teachings are irrelevant to their full constitutional rights and their religious freedom. As an editorial writer in the Los Angeles Times observed, if the state had intervened elsewhere in the world against a religious group as had occurred at the Branch Davidian compound, it would have been reported in the United States as an act of oppression. "Even if David Koresh might have been a maniac," the editorial continued, "there is no good excuse for what happened. . . . Prattling on about thought control and deprogramming, profiling its leader as a nut case and his followers as social misfits do not alter that fact."

Although no attempt is being made here to justify the actions of the Branch Davidians in committing acts of violence against ATF agents both at the beginning and at the end of the fifty-one day standoff, far too little attention was given by both federal agents and the media to the circumstances of the assault against a religious group that had not been charged with any crime. Constitutional church-state issues were virtually obscured by the repeated use of the term "cult" by both government officials and the media to justify government action directed against a "cult" phenomenon. The very term "cult," which invariably is directed at a religious group other than one's own and a group with which one disapproves, has no place in American public law or jurisprudence. Aided and abetted by the Cult Awareness Network (CAN), "cult" deprogrammers have already begun meeting with surviving Branch Davidians. In the words of Bret Bates, "exit counselor" for the Texas chapter of the Cult Awareness Network, "Before they [i.e. the survivors] become productive witnesses in the prosecution, they have to realize that they were victims of mind control."

The tragedy of the Branch Davidian standoff had hardly come to an end before there were calls for a government investigation of "cults." Such a broad government inquiry should be resisted. Any investigation of the Branch Davidian tragedy should be limited to this one case and it should not be used as an occasion for an expedition of inquiry into a broad range of so-called "cults." To do otherwise would be to raise serious constitutional questions and to ignore the restraint that prohibits government action short of probable cause. Government action against a religious group cannot be predicated upon its being nonconventional, unpopular, or socially disapproved.

Any inquiry into the Branch Davidian standoff should call into question the appropriateness of large-scale military action against any religious group not specifically charged with committing a crime. In any event, the use of force should come as a last resort. The concluding words of a feature article on this American tragedy in a recent issue of Newsweek are altogether timely: "Unless the Feds learn to deal astutely and carefully with religious cults [i.e. nonconventional religions], it is a tragedy that could occur again."

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By JAMES E. WOOD, JR.