OT-Key U.S. Attorneys Abruptly Removed From Waco Investigationgreenspun.com : LUSENET : TimeBomb 2000 (Y2000) : One Thread |
Tuesday September 14, 8:15 PM'Saturday Night Massacre' Hits Waco Probe
Has Bill Clinton pulled a "Saturday Night Massacre" with the Waco investigation? That's the ominous question raised by Tuesday afternoon's Associated Press report, deceptively headlined: "Justice Did Disclose Use of Pyrotechnic tear gas in '95, Democrat Says."
The first half of the AP story is devoted to the bombshell decision, sealed since Friday, of U.S. Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder, who has "abruptly removed" assistant U.S. Attorney Bill Johnston and his boss, U.S. Attorney James Blagg from the investigation.
It was Johnston who first raised questions about a possible Justice Department cover-up in Waco, when he persuaded government lawyers to allow independent filmaker Michael McNulty to review evidence collected by the Texas Rangers from the site of the April 1993 massacre.
The evidence uncovered by McNulty compelled the FBI to admit that incendiary tear gas cannisters were used the day of the government's final assault on Mt. Carmel, reversing six years of Justice Department denials.
Johnston's surprise firing, which came with no public explanation from Holder, looks extraordinarily bad. Only two weeks ago the Assistant U.S. Attorney had written Attorney General Janet Reno to warn, "Facts may have been kept from you -- and quite possibly are being kept from you now -- by components of the department."
Were those Justice Department "components" worried that under Johnston's control, smoking gun evidence might emerge?
On Monday the FBI admitted that Lon Horiuchi, the crack FBI's sniper who picked off Ruby Ridge victim Vicki Weaver as she held her baby in her arms, was involved in the final Waco siege. Expended shell casings were discovered at the scene but the FBI claims they didn't come from Horiuchi's rifle. Instead, says the government, the casings were left over from the initial February 28 BATF assault on Mt. Carmel.
A ballistic examination of those casings; something that was not done as part of previous Waco investigations, could determine if the casings came from bullets fired by Horiuchi.
Other ballistics tests, which at least one Texas law enforcement official claims were withheld from investigators, could prove whether some of the 23 Davidians who died from gunshot wounds were killed in a shootout with FBI agents or members of an elite military squad who's presence was only recently disclosed.
David Pareya, one of four McClennan County officials who ordered autopsies for the dead Davidians, complained about the sealed ballistics evidence to the Waco Tribune-Herald on Friday, "The thing that always stayed in my mind was if (FBI officials) were afraid some ordinance or ballistics could be matched up with their weaponry."
For six years the Clinton administration has vehemently denied that federal forces fired shots into the compound during the final siege, claiming instead that Davidians had "murdered themselves" -- the phrase used by Clinton himself to explain their deaths the next day.
Has the Clinton Justice Department now cashiered the one federal prosecutor interested in getting to the bottom of this sorry episode just as the truth was about to emerge?
Stay tuned.
-- Nabi (nabi7@yahoo.com), September 14, 1999
Tuesday September 14, 11:14 AMWaco Crime Scene Photo Deja Vu
What is it about the Clinton FBI and critical crime scene photographs taken for some of the most controversial cases of the last decade? Somehow the key snapshots just seem to keep disappearing.
Evidently, 1993 was a particularly bad year, with the FBI's photo lab mishandling key evidence in both the Waco and Vincent Foster death cases. Consider this from Monday's Dallas Morning News:
"A Texas Rangers sergeant assigned to sort through the Branch Davidian evidence kept by the Texas Department of Public Safety wrote that his efforts were slowed by the lack of a complete set of crime scene photographs from the case. 'It is my understanding that the FBI had taken all of the 35-mm film, negatives and reference material into their possession, and only a limited number of photographs were returned to the Texas Department of Public Safety,' Ranger Sgt. Joey Gordon wrote in a report obtained by The Dallas Morning News."
Three months after Waco, crime scene pics entrusted to the FBI vanished once again -- after U.S. Park Police turned over a full set of 35-mm and Polaroid photos taken of Vincent Foster's body after it was discovered in Ft. Marcy Park.
First, the FBI claimed that 35-mm photos taken by Park Police Detective Peter Simonello were "underexposed" and therefore useless. (Simonello later testified that the developed 8 x 10's he had seen "looked good to me.")
Then, many of the Polaroids taken by Park Police Detectives John Rolla and Franz Ferstel just vanished outright. Here's how the appendix to Ken Starr's report on Foster's death covered the disappearing Foster crime scene photos, above a reproduction of the FBI's signed receipt for 18 Foster Polaroids:
"FBI report for receipt of Polaroids: First set of five Polaroids of body site taken by USPP Edwards; second set of five Polaroids of car taken by USPP Braun; third set of eight Polaroids of body site taken by USPP Rolla. All of Ferstel's 'approximately seven' Polaroids vanished, and Rolla's 'backside' Polaroids vanished -- only nine usable photographs of body officially exist (seven of body and two of face)."
If the FBI did weddings and bar mitzvahs, they'd be out of business by now.
-- Nabi (nabi7@yahoo.com), September 14, 1999.
Ruby Ridge FBI sharpshooter was at Waco
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
An FBI sharpshooter who killed the wife of white separatist Randy Weaver during a 1992 siege in Ruby Ridge, Idaho, manned a sniper post outside the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, where Texas Rangers found spent rifle casings.
FBI Hostage Rescue Team member Lon Horiuchi, who saw involuntary manslaughter charges brought by state officials in the death of Vicki Weaver later dismissed by a federal court, was in one of two sniper posts outside the Davidian compound during the FBI's 1993 Waco siege.
A report released yesterday by the Texas Rangers on the Waco tragedy said a dozen .308-caliber shell casings, two dozen .223 casings, three .45 casings and a .22-250 casing were found at the post manned by Mr. Horiuchi and at another sniper site. The .308 casings are similar to those often used by snipers and are consistent with the round used by Mr. Horiuchi in the death of Mrs. Weaver.
The Rangers' report raises further questions about the FBI's role in the 51-day standoff, now the subject of inquiries by former Missouri Sen. John Danforth and two congressional committees. Investigators want to know whether FBI agents started a fire that killed 86 persons, including 24 children, and if they fired shots into the compound.
Coupled with reports of the expended shell casings and a two-page statement by FBI Agent Charles Riley -- who said he heard shots fired from a sniper post occupied by Mr. Horiuchi -- the new information will generate further public and political pressure for full disclosure of the FBI's actions in Waco.
The FBI and the Justice Department have denied that any shots were fired by agents during the siege. FBI officials yesterday declined comment on the new information, citing pending litigation and the Danforth investigation. They also refused comment on the Riley statement.
But bureau officials, who asked not to be identified, said Mr. Riley later retracted his statement, saying he heard no gunshots from the sniper post. They also noted that Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents -- involved in a gunfight at the site on Feb. 28, 1993 -- had occupied the same sniper posts.
The Riley statement was filed as part of a wrongful death suit by surviving Davidians. It is among more than two dozen volumes of motions, rulings and exhibits listed in the suit, which claims that some of those who died in the April 19, 1993, raid were killed in an exchange of gunfire. The suit is scheduled to go to trial next month in Waco.
Commissioner James B. Francis, who heads the Texas Department of Public Safety, has said there is some indication "gunfire took place there by government police officers," although he declined to elaborate.
He said it was "a subject matter that needs to be investigated."
Mr. Horiuchi, a 15-year FBI veteran and graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., has not been available for comment. He told Justice investigators shortly after the Waco raid that "none of the snipers under his control at Sierra-1 fired any rounds from their weapons."
Attorney General Janet Reno ordered an investigation two weeks ago after the FBI acknowledged a "limited number" of incendiary devices may have been used during the Waco siege. Miss Reno said she was told they were not going to be fired into the wooden compound.
In July, the Texas Rangers first called into question FBI claims that its agents had not used pyrotechnics on the day of the fire. They said items found at the site were "problematic or at least questionable" in corroborating FBI claims. A review of 12 tons of evidence was part of a criminal probe for the 1994 trial of eight Davidians on charges ranging from manslaughter to weapons violations.
In an Oct. 30, 1993, report, the Justice Department said the FBI and the ATF acted responsibly during the siege and that Branch Davidian leader David Koresh was to blame for the carnage. Records show the FBI told Justice within months of the raid it had used incendiary devices, but the department never made the information available to Congress or the public.
In a December 1993 report, the FBI said it had found "a fired U.S. military 40 mm shell casing which originally contained a CS gas round" and two other "expended 40 mm tear gas projectiles."
That information was listed on the last page of a 49-page report the FBI gave to Justice and the Rangers. Justice said last week only the first 48 pages of the report were turned over to Congress, which held hearings on the siege in mid-1995.
Congressional Democrats argued yesterday, however, that Justice gave Congress the full report in 1995, saying the entire 49-page document was located by Democratic staff members in House Government Reform Committee files. Rep. Henry A. Waxman of California, ranking Democrat on the committee, said he has forwarded the documents to Mr. Danforth.
During the April 1993 Waco raid, FBI agents were authorized to use deadly force. Richard Rogers, head of the hostage-rescue team, said that while the Davidians did shoot at the agents, the FBI did not fire "a single shot" because they did not "acquire clear and identifiable targets."
But two experts in thermal imaging are expected to testify during the wrongful death trial that an infrared video shows that gunfire was directed at the compound. That testimony and the Riley statement were what U.S. District Judge Walter Smith Jr., who will oversee the trial, cited as "at least some evidence" to support the claims that Davidians were afraid they would be shot if they tried to escape from the compound.
Judge Smith refused to dismiss Mr. Horiuchi as an individual defendant in the suit, although he dismissed other individual defendants, including numerous FBI and ATF agents.
Mr. Horiuchi testified he did not mean to shoot Mrs. Weaver, 42, as she stood in the doorway of their remote Idaho cabin. He said the shot was intended for Kevin Harris, a family friend who was armed. The fatal shot came from a distance of 200 yards, fired from a specially modified .308-caliber sniper rifle.
A federal judge dismissed the state charges against Mr. Horiuchi in May 1998, saying he was acting in the line of duty. The Justice Department had argued he was protected by an 1891 Supreme Court ruling preventing federal officers from being prosecuted by states for actions within the scope of their job.
Meanwhile, Tarrant County Medical Examiner Dr. Nizam Peerwani said he would welcome the opportunity to reopen his inquiry into how the Davidians died. He headed the team that performed autopsies on Mr. Koresh and his followers, including the children, and said it may be possible to determine whether any of the 23 Davidians killed by gunfire were shot from outside the compound.
-- Nabi (nabi7@yahoo.com), September 14, 1999.
U.S. Probers: Feds Used Bogus Drug Charges to Push Waco Raid
By Jonathan Broder WASHINGTON — A congressional probe into the 1993 fatal assault on the Branch Davidian compound is focusing on suspicions that federal law enforcement officials trumped up drug manufacturing charges to pave the way for their attack on the group. A senior official with the House Committee on Government Reform told Fox News Online that the military determined that the drug charges were "bogus," and that investigators are now trying to determine why the Army nevertheless became involved in the Waco siege and assault, and to what extent soldiers participated.
"The question is: Why were the military folks — who were pretty strident against having any involvement — overruled? And who overruled them?" said the committee official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Official documents obtained by Fox News Online show a senior Army Special Forces lawyer warned his commanders that the direct involvement of soldiers in a civilian operation against the cults Waco compound would violate the so-called posse comitatus law, which bans the use of U.S. military forces in domestic operations.
The lawyer, Maj. Philip W. Lindley, judge advocate for the Pentagons Joint Special Operations Command, also questioned whether an amendment to the law, which permits the use of military personnel in domestic anti-drug operations, could be cited to justify the deployment of forces from the Armys Joint Task Force (JTF) against the Branch Davidians.
The JTF is a special Army unit that was created to assist law enforcement in drug-related cases.
"Since these are point targets with identified civilian subjects, this falls outside the scope of JTF mission and cannot be accomplished," Lindley wrote in a memo dated Feb. 3, 1993. This was three weeks before the 51-day Branch Davidian siege began.
Referring to the anti-drug amendment, Lindley warned that the JTF could face both criminal and civil liability unless the government had a strong drug case against the Branch Davidians.
"The case law is clear and the burden is still upon the government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the militarys actions were permissible in order to convict the civilians in a U.S. District Court," Lindley wrote. "No 'war on drugs' will be won if the guilty cannot be convicted."
-- Nabi (nabi7@yahoo.com), September 14, 1999.
Expert: Film shows numerous shots fired at Davidians
By MARK ENGLAND Tribune-Herald staff writerPlaintiffs in the Branch Davidian lawsuit against the government filed a document Monday in Waco's federal court stating they have an expert who will testify his analysis of a FLIR tape shows at least 60 shots were fired at the Davidians on the day their residence burned down.
Edward Allard was listed among the plaintiffs' expert witnesses for the lawsuit, set for trial on Oct. 18.
Allard — who made similar claims in the 1997 film Waco: Rules of Engagemen t — said he recently analyzed another FLIR tape brought to him by Mike McNulty, who is producing his second film on Waco.
FLIR stands for forward-looking infrared film, which, basically, picks up the heat signatures of objects.
"Any layman can look at what I looked at and say it's gunshots, assuming he knows something about gunshots," said Allard, who worked 10 years in the Army's Night Vision Laboratory and is a physicist at a private company in Virginia.
On at least three occasions, the FLIR film he analyzed showed automatic weapons fire directed at the Davidians on April 19, 1993, once while their residence was in flames, Allard said.
A government plane shot the FLIR images while circling Mount Carmel at 9,000 feet.
"What the FLIR shows is that while a fire is engulfing the kitchen area, gun positions on the outside are pouring automatic gunfire in there," Allard said. "I stopped counting at 45 shots. You don't see 45 shots. You see a flash here, a flash there. But if you break the film down, you can actually count the number of rounds."
The gun positions were about 30 yards away from the kitchen area, according to Allard, who believes the Davidians were essentially trapped in the fire.
Justice Department and FBI officials declined to comment on Allard's allegations.
"That's all part of the Danforth investigation," an FBI spokesman said. "We wouldn't want to comment."
Attorney Mike Caddell, who represents some of the plaintiffs in the Davidian lawsuit, said he saw the FLIR tape that Allard analyzed. Caddell plans to present it during the upcoming trial, he said.
"I think it's the most dramatic evidence that there was gunfire from government positions," Caddell said. "At the end of the day, I think that's what this case is going to be about. I don't know this many years after the fact if we can prove who started the fire."
Allard said the FLIR tape also shows two instances where men fired at least 15 shots at the Davidians while using a tank as cover.
He believes most people will conclude the "flashes" seen in the FLIR tape are gunshots. Caddell agreed.
"I know of nothing in nature that will create that kind of rapid heat generation," Caddell said. "I can't imagine what else it could be. Light would not heat up something so quickly and then cool off so rapidly that it would disappear."
A firm hired by the Washington Post to examine the FLIR images seen in Waco: Rules of Engagement argued that the flashes could be reflections of sunlight. Allard dismissed that premise, arguing that the company making the claim handles government contracts. He also claimed its methodology for studying the FLIR tape was flawed.
Allard said you can measure the flashes shown on the FLIR tape in 60ths of a second. Some of the flashes last 3/60ths of a second, which he said corresponds to automatic weapons fire.
"No technical person I know of that's looked at the tapes said it's anything but gunfire," Allard said.
The FLIR tape also picked up an image of Davidians on rooftops shooting at targets away from their residence, according to Allard, who said the gunfire took place before the fire.
"All we saw were two gun positions on the roof," Allard said. "We couldn't see the men at all. They had warmed up. They were the same temperature as the roof. The FLIR, which sees changes in temperature, couldn't see them. We saw flashes, three of them. They appeared to be firing into the field around them."
Also Monday, the government filed a motion asking for two more weeks to produce its list of expert witnesses.
According to the motion, the Department of Justice can't meet this week's deadline to produce the list because its attorneys must review all records in their possession pursuant to a subpoena from the Government Reform Committee of the House of Representatives, which is reinvestigating what happened at Mount Carmel.
Mark England can be reached at mengland@wacotrib.com or 757-5744.
-- Nabi (nabi7@yahoo.com), September 14, 1999.
Updated: Monday, Sep. 13, 1999 at 00:58 CDT
Agent told of hearing FBI shotsBy Gabrielle Crist
Star-Telegram Staff WriterAmong the evidence that may get a second look amid the latest uproar over the FBI's conduct at Mount Carmel is a two-page document detailing an FBI sniper's suggestion that an agent fired at Branch Davidians.
Government officials deny that agents fired shots on April 19, 1993, the final day of the 51-day standoff, which ended when the Davidians' compound burst into flames. Leader David Koresh and about 80 of his followers were later found dead inside, some with burns and others with gunshot wounds.
But FBI agent Charles Riley said in June 1993 that he heard shots fired from a sniper post occupied by agent Lon Horiuchi, according to court documents filed in Waco as part of a wrongful death suit scheduled to go to trial next month. The suit was filed by Branch Davidians and their relatives.
Riley's statement is among 25 volumes of motions, rulings and exhibit lists filed in the multimillion-dollar lawsuit. An attorney for the 100 or so plaintiffs said he is convinced that gunfire was exchanged on the final day.
James B. Francis, commissioner of the Texas Department of Public Safety, said there is some indication that "gunfire took place there by government police officers." Francis would not say when he believes those shots were fired and declined to elaborate.
"It is a subject matter that needs to be investigated," he said.
Horiuchi could not be reached to comment for this report. He told investigators in April 1993 that "none of the snipers under his control at Sierra-1 (a sniper post) fired any rounds from their weapons."
Government officials have said that Riley retracted his initial statement, according to Houston attorney Michael Caddell, who represents the Branch Davidians in the lawsuit.
FBI officials in Washington declined to confirm that Riley issued a retraction and would not comment because of an independent investigation launched last week.
Attorney General Janet Reno ordered the investigation after FBI officials acknowledged using as many as three pyrotechnic tear gas grenades on the last day of the standoff. The admission is an about-face from the adamant denials issued by the government for the past six years.
Former GOP Sen. John Danforth, who is heading the investigation, said it will focus on whether there was a cover-up, how the fire started and whether government officials fired shots.
Agents were authorized to use deadly force on April 19, according to a 1993 internal FBI document detailing an investigative interview with agent Richard Rogers, an FBI supervisor.
Rogers told investigators that members of the Hostage Rescue Team were told to provide cover for the armored vehicles that were launching tear gas into the compound.
As the vehicles punched holes in the walls, FBI officials announced over loudspeakers that they were delivering tear gas. They told the Branch Davidians not to shoot and warned that FBI agents would return fire.
Although several FBI agents saw and heard Davidians firing at the vehicles and toward the sniper positions, agents did not fire "a single shot," Rogers said, because they "did not acquire clear and identifiable targets."
But two experts in thermal imaging will contend at the trial that images on an infrared video show shots being fired toward the compound.
Their opinions, coupled with Riley's initial statement, "provide at least some evidence" to support the plaintiffs' claims that Davidians were afraid they would be shot if they tried to escape from the burning compound, U.S. District Judge Walter Smith Jr. said in a July ruling.
Because of that evidence, Smith said in his ruling, Horiuchi should be named as an individual defendant in the lawsuit. Smith dismissed all other individual defendants, including numerous officials of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and the FBI. Horiuchi and the United States are the sole defendants.
A jury will decide whether Horiuchi fired at Davidians without provocation. Smith will then decide the other issues in the case: whether the ATF used excessive force during an aborted Feb. 28, 1993, raid and whether the FBI started the fire and is negligent for not extinguishing it.
Caddell said he is convinced that at least some of the FBI agents fired at the Branch Davidians, perhaps justifiably. Riley's "unpressured recollection is a lot more believable than any of the recanting" he did five years later, he said.
A few of the Branch Davidians probably did shoot at FBI agents and FBI agents probably fired back, Caddell contends.
Caddell said investigators failed to collect and test all the weapons used during the siege to determine whether FBI officials fired.
"This whole thing has been an exercise in, `Don't ask, don't tell,' " he said.
Gabrielle Crist, (817) 390-7662
-- Nabi (nabi7@yahoo.com), September 14, 1999.
Repor t: Pyrotechnics found after siege
Rangers say evidence collected soon after fire included spent military explosive shells
By Mike Ward and Laylan Copelin
American-Statesman StaffPosted: Sept. 13, 1999
On the first day evidence was gathered at the burned Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas Rangers discovered a detonated military shell capable of starting a fire.
That piece of evidence, long ignored, now promises to become a centerpiece in a renewed federal inquiry into whether it started the fire.
That detail is part of a new Texas Rangers review of 12 tons of evidence from the Davidian siege, made public Sunday as a result of a lawsuit filed by the Austin American-Statesman. The report seems to answer some questions and pose new ones about the April 19, 1993, debacle.
Among them:
• Military tear gas grenades capable of starting the fire were used by federal agents on the final day of the siege at the Davidian compound, as federal officials had originally denied but recently confirmed.
• Sound-and-flash shells -- used to create a diversion in hostage rescues -- also were used that day but may not have been altered, as critics have claimed.
• Three rifle shells commonly used by sniper teams were found just outside the compound near two houses occupied by FBI agents, who have insisted they fired no shots into the compound in the final days of the siege. Even so, those same houses were occupied earlier in the siege by agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms who have admitting firing into the compound the day the standoff began.
On April 23, 1993, just four days after federal authorities ended the 51-day standoff with David Koresh and his followers in a fiery assault, Rangers Sgt. George L. Turner found the spent 40 mm cartridge. He was leading a team of investigators, including FBI agents, who were scouring the crime scene for evidence.
Turner said he told his superiors and FBI Agent Rick Crum, who was in charge of FBI agents |investigating the Davidian crime scene, about the unidentified round, which was unlike the plastic tear gas canisters it was found with. Nine months later, as Turner was about to testify in the trial of the surviving Davidians, he said Crum confirmed to him that the 40 mm cartridge belonged to the FBI and had been fired "in an attempt to knock a door down."
Until last month, the federal government had adamantly denied that the FBI used any devices capable of igniting a fire at the Davidian compound. Attorney General Janet Reno has ordered an independent investigation into what happened at the siege after questions were raised about a possible cover-up of FBI tactics, including allegations that explosive or flammable devices were used.
The new Rangers report, dated Thursday, summarizes efforts to catalog evidence taken from the Davidian compound. The report has been subpoenaed by a congressional committee investigating FBI conduct during and after the siege. In doing the inventory, Rangers "were determined to be particularly attentive to controverted evidence . . . meaningful to some alleged misconduct or misrepresentation," according to the report.
While the report identifies the 40 mm cartridge and a Whitestar parachute flare as projectiles that could have started fires, as critics of the federal operation have alleged happened, it also casts doubts on some of the theories advanced by those critics.
Chief among them is Michael McNulty, a documentary filmmaker. McNulty viewed the evidence several times in late 1998 and early this year after William Johnston, an assistant U.S. attorney based in Waco, decided that allowing him access would blunt charges that the federal government was trying to hide what really happened at the siege.
Much of the 13-page Rangers report recounts work by Sgt. Joey D. Gordon of Llano to test McNulty's allegations.
McNulty has said he believes that federal agents may have started the fire using pyrotechnic tear gas grenades and sound-and-flash shells and that agents fired shots into the compound during the final assault. He suggests that some of the sound-and-flash shells may have been altered to ensure that they started a fire.
In the report, Gordon describes the 40 mm cartridge as the remains of a military M651 round. The cartridge was manufactured 30 years ago and delivered a projectile that carried CS, a type of tear gas. A pyrotechnic charge capable of starting a fire activated the CS gas, according to the report.
Among the evidence was a single photo of a spent projectile of the type contained in an M651 round, Gordon found, but he could notneither locate the projectile itself nor determine where it was found in the Davidian compound. The projectile was not burned, the report says. Gordon said he could not match the projectile definitively with the 40 mm cartridge.
While the manual for the M651 cartridge claims the round is not normally explosive, a malfunctioning projectile may explode upon impact, the report says. The Rangers also quoted a military munitions expert from the Rock Island Arsenal in Illinois, Ray Johnson, as saying the M651 can start a fire.
"Johnson advised that they (the military) had not explored the fire hazard of the M651 because it is known to cause fires," the report says. "The projectile burns at 500 to 700 degrees Fahrenheit and is capable of igniting flammable items."
While the military has no official definition of a pyrotechnic round, Johnson said the military considers the M651 a pyrotechnic round. In authorizing the assault on the barricaded Davidians, Reno ordered that no pyrotechnics be used.
Almost half the report concerns two other 40 mm projectiles that McNulty performed chemical tests on during one of his four visits to view evidence in storage lockers in Austin.
Gordon's report said the possibility of either of those projectiles being connected with the shell casing is "very unlikely."
But McNulty said, "The Rangers and I have a difference of opinion on which projectile goes with which shell casing. Time will tell. You do not rush this kind of thing."
Gordon concludes that the two projectiles are German-made "sound-and-flash" devices used to divert attention during hostage situations. The projectiles appear to have been used as designed and do not appear to have been altered, Gordon said.
His report says McNulty told him chemical tests he had done on the 40 mm projectiles indicated they had been altered. But McNulty said Sunday that his tests are preliminary and further testing is being done on material in the noses of the two projectiles.
David Hardy, a Tucson, Ariz., attorney who has extensively researched the Davidian debacle with McNulty, said Sunday night that the Rangers report "seems to back up what (McNulty) has been talking about for years.
"Projectiles were used that were capable of causing a fire," he said. "The Rangers may have turned up a smoking gun."
Hardy disputed an assertion in the report that the sound-and-flash shells were unlikely to start a fire.
"They explode and create this large of a flash of blinding light, but they won't start a fire?" Hardy said. "I sure wouldn't want to try it in my house."
In the report, Turner, the Ranger who found the M651 shell casing, said lawyers at the 1994 Branch Davidian trial never asked him about the round.
Other than telling his superiors and the FBI, Turner said, he was never asked about it.
"If I had been, I would naturally have responded with the truth."
Although Turner was ill during part of the congressional hearings regarding the Davidian siege, Turner said Rangers superiors were reminded before they testified before a Senate subcommittee "of the possibility of an explosive round having been fired."
In recent weeks, James B. Francis Jr., chairman of the Texas Department of Public Safety Commission, has discussed disclosures in the ongoing Rangers investigation, urging a full public accounting. But after the report was completed Thursday, the agency declined to make it public immediately instead seeking to delay its release until noon today so federal officials and Congress could review it and decide whether they wanted it made public.
The American-Statesman filed a lawsuit Friday to force its immediate release, and state District Judge Paul Davis ordered it released later in the day. The 3rd Court of Appeals upheld that decision in a rare Saturday ruling, but the Texas Supreme Court subsequently blocked its release.
On Sunday, DPS released the report to the American-Statesman to settle the pending lawsuit.
Ultimately, McNulty said, the 40 mm shell may be only one possible source of the fire. The flames melted some aluminum projectiles into puddles found in the burnedcompound "I have one in my hand right now," McNulty said Sunday so some evidence may never be discovered. And Gordon's report mentions McNulty's contention that sound-and-flash devices found inside and outside the compound were misidentified as firearm silencers, but he says those devices are still being investigated.
In McNulty's upcoming documentary, "Waco: A New Revelation," scheduled to be released next month, "You'll see we do not discount the Davidians' potential involvement in the fire," McNulty said. "The question is, who started the fire first? ... And I believe we'll find out through proper investigation."
-- Nabi (nabi7@yahoo.com), September 14, 1999.
The FBI's favorite hitman
Was the FBI really at Waco to contain a siege or were trigger-happy agents purposely brought to the Davidian church to finish off the job the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms botched?Yesterday, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported that FBI agent Charles Riley said all the way back in June 1993 that he heard shots fired from a sniper post occupied by agent Lon Horiuchi, according to court documents filed by Branch Davidians and relatives as part of a wrongful-death suit scheduled to go to trial next month.
If this fact is true, and if the sniper fire occurred, as Davidians charge, on the final day of the siege, this is a very interesting development, indeed.
Why?
Think about it. The final Waco conflagration occurred April 19, 1993. But this was hardly the first time Lon Horiuchi had found himself in a position to shoot innocent civilians.
You see, Horiuchi was the paid assassin the FBI used Aug. 22, 1992 -- eight months earlier -- to plug a fatal hole in the head of Vickie Weaver, an unarmed mother clutching her 10-month-old baby during a similar siege at Ruby Ridge, Idaho. It seems Lon Horiuchi is something of a specialist -- the FBI's go-to guy when it's open season on women and children.
Imagine that. Eight months earlier, Horiuchi had blown Vickie Weaver's head off while she stood in a doorway in an isolated rural area. She was no threat to anyone, not wanted on any charges and, of course, unarmed -- unless the FBI now considers infants dangerous weapons.
Horiuchi was indicted for manslaughter by Idaho authorities for the shooting, but the charges were thrown out. The federal government only made excuses for him. And now we have reason to believe that eight months after the incident at Ruby Ridge, one that ultimately cost U.S. taxpayers $3.1 million in a civil settlement with Randy Weaver, Horiuchi was assigned to another volatile siege with civilians -- including women and children.
Did he show any restraint? Did he learn a lesson from his earlier shoot-first-and-ask-questions-later approach at Ruby Ridge? Apparently not, if we are to believe one of his colleagues.
Horiuchi was firing away from a sniper's perch again at Waco.
The FBI spent two years investigating Horiuchi's actions at Ruby Ridge, ultimately giving him a clean bill of health.
But, in light of the latest Waco revelations, let's review those actions. On Aug. 21, the government killed Weaver's son, Sammy. The next day, overcome with grief, Weaver, his 16-year-old daughter, Sara, and a friend, Kevin Harris, ventured out of their cabin to see Sammy and bury him.
As Weaver reached the shed where his son's body rested, Lon Horiuchi opened fire on him. One round struck Weaver's underam.
"I'm hit," Weaver hollered.
Daughter Sara tried desperately to push her father back to the safety of the cabin. Harris ran, his back to the snipers.
"I'm hit, Momma," Randy had cried to Vicki as he ran toward the door that Vicki had been holding open for them. "I'm hit."
"Get in here!" Vicki shouted.
Those were her last words. Horiuchi's bullet smashed into her head and blew off the side of her face. And after she fell, her husband pried the baby from her arms. Weaver and his daughter dragged Vickie's body through the kitchen, her blood flooding the floor.
Horiuchi told investigators he had been trying to kill Harris when he hit Vickie. But Horiuchi is a professional sharpshooter. Are we to believe he is an incompetent -- a lousy shot? Why does the FBI keep sending him out on these assignments if he can't distinguish between an armed man and an unarmed woman? And even if his story is true, why was he trying to shoot a man in the back?
Nevetheless, despite all the obvious questions, there was Horiuchi again, eight months later -- on the firing line, in the sniper's post -- when the FBI's targets included women and kids in a church compound in Texas. Once again, the FBI's favorite hitman had an itchy trigger finger. One of his own colleagues reports he heard rounds firing from his perch on the last tragic day of the Waco siege.
This story is getting stranger all the time. Just when you thought you had heard the worst about your government, it surprises you with new lows of murderous contempt for human decency.
But, remember, Horiuchi is only a trigger man. Like he told investigators in a plea reminiscent of the Nazi war criminals: 'I was only following orders.' Indeed, he was.
Let's not allow Horiuchi to be the scapegoat for Waco. It's time to pursue those who issued the orders that led to the staging of the Waco holocaust -- those who framed the 'rules of engagement.'
-- Nabi (nabi7@yahoo.com), September 14, 1999.
Have any of you ever played Steve Perry's game of fugue??
Mr. Horiuchi, a 15-year FBI veteran and graduate of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, N.Y., has not been available for comment. He told Justice investigators shortly after the Waco raid that "none of the snipers under his control at Sierra-1 fired any rounds from their weapons."
This guy can say this under oath and on a polygraph and not even break a sweat. "NONE of the SNIPERS UNDER his CONTROL at Sierra-1 fired any rounds from THEIR WEAPONS".
Let's parse this one. Is HE under his own administrative control?? Not EXACTLY, as he is under another person's ADMINISTRATIVE control. [yes that one isn't the strongest, but it gets better].
How about the personnel who are NOT considered SNIPERS but ARE crack shots.
Using weapons supplied from, say Delta Force?
I SO love fugue. Chuck
-- Chuck, a night driver (rienzoo@en.com), September 14, 1999.
Nabi: Judging from what has happened to other witnesses that could embarrass the Administration, if I were Mr. Horiuchi I think I would hide or get protection. It is the height of arrogance to get rid of the US Attorney at this particular point in time. However, the sheeple will probably not even put any significance to it. We got what we deserved.
-- Neil G.Lewis (pnglewis1@yahoo.com), September 15, 1999.
We got what we deserved.Unfortunately, Neil, you are right. As a nation, we do deserve this lying bunch of "public servants" that populate government at all levels.
Yet the sheeple sleep on. Zzzzzzzzzzzzz........
-- Nabi (nabi7@yahoo.com), September 15, 1999.
Thank you, Nabi, for publishing this.
-- Rick (rick7@postmark.net), September 15, 1999.