Month: March 2023

‘Waco: American Apocalypse’ Review: A Calamity in Context

Article written by John Anderson for The Wall Street Journal

Punditry abounds regarding the polarization of the American political landscape right now, but what one might call the Big Bangs of government distrust—Ruby Ridge and Waco—are three decades old and continue to haunt a house divided. The federal government can be said to have misplayed its hand in both instances, to put it mildly. The events have been examined and re-examined, investigated and reinvestigated. But on the 30th anniversary of the Branch Davidian debacle, “Waco: American Apocalypse” attempts to put the Texas battle into a sensible context. And it’s a fascinating fool’s errand.

There’s a bit more narration than explanation in this three-part documentary series, though a deep dive into the personal enriches the storytelling. Heather Jones was 9 years old when she became the last child “freed” from the compound known as Mount Carmel Center during the 51-day standoff (she didn’t want to go). She breaks down several times in remembering her father, David, who was among the 76 Branch Davidians who died in the final conflagration on April 19, 1993 (a date commemorated two years later by Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City). Kathy Schroeder, a follower of the evidently delusional Branch Davidian “prophet” David Koresh, defends the sect’s beliefs and its leader’s dictates, including his sexual dominion over all women at the Mount Carmel compound. Chris Whitcomb, an FBI sniper who witnessed the entire siege, harbors such anger that one wonders if he should be handling a gun.

In the end, four federal agents and 82 Davidians would perish. What any student of Waco wants to know right away is who started it. Bill Buford and Jim Cavanaugh, former agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, deny up and down that their people opened fire first, though, as the series mentions, the fired-on front door of the compound and the videotapes of the initial encounter disappeared long ago. Among the critical points made by “American Apocalypse” is that congressional appropriations hearings were coming up and the ATF, which had image problems, needed a big win. There’s no debate about illegal firearms being on the premises, which is why the bureau was serving a warrant. There’s also little argument that Koresh was a familiar figure around the Mount Carmel community (about 13 miles from Waco itself) and could have been arrested at almost any time. Even Mr. Buford remembers advising against the raid on that day, because the agency had lost the element of surprise. (Reporters had stopped a postman for directions to the compound and the raid they’d caught wind of; the postman was Koresh’s brother-in-law.)

Instead, the ATF arrived in a convoy of agents, who lost the initial firefight. As TV reporter John McLemore said at the time, Koresh might have thought he was the second coming of Jesus Christ, “but the Messiah’s well-armed this time.”

“Waco: American Apocalypse” is less forensic in its approach than, say, “Waco: The Rules of Engagement,” the 1997 documentary by William Gazecki, which had the advantage of immediacy, but also had to fight its way through a fog generated by congressional hearings, widespread obfuscation and a public perception skewed by claims of child abuse at the compound and the many disturbing truths about Koresh. For all its occasionally awkward sentimentality, director Tiller Russell’s new Netflix series benefits from a long-range perspective that supports its central thesis—that the unnecessary calamity of Waco was due to the inability, or outright refusal, of one U.S. government entity to listen to another.

Or even to itself: Then-FBI hostage negotiator Gary Noesner fairly sputters over the actions of his own bureau’s Hostage Rescue Team, which undercut negotiations at several points and took actions seemingly aimed at provoking further gunfire from inside the Mount Carmel Center.

“We could expect that something stupid was going to happen,” Dallas Morning News reporter Lee Hancock says about something specific, though her sentiment becomes redundant: As comfortably as Waco fits into deep-state conspiracy theories, “American Apocalypse” makes a better case for errors of incompetence, ego and machismo.

“Waco” suffers from a few missing details. Who ordered the assault despite Mr. Buford’s warning? Who misinformed Attorney General Janet Reno about child abuse at the compound? What happened to Heather Jones’s mother, who left the Branch Davidians “family” when Koresh began breaking up marriages and sleeping with the wives? At the same time, it features people very close to the subject being very open about what happened, even if, when all is said and done, they don’t understand it now any better than they did in 1993.

The deadly Waco siege gripped the U.S. A documentary recounts the tale.

Article written by Marissa Iati for The Washington Post

By 12:25 p.m. on the 51st day of the Waco siege, the entire compound was engulfed in flames.

FBI agents had been trying unsuccessfully to negotiate for the surrender of dozens of members of a fringe religious movement — the Branch Davidians, an offshoot of Seventh-day Adventists. The group had been holed up in “Ranch Apocalypse” since Feb. 28, 1993, when a federal raid had led to a lethal gun battle.

In the end, 76 people died after the FBI pumped tear gas into the group’s building and the structure burned to the ground. The tragedy was unintentional, Attorney General Janet Reno insisted afterward.

“Today,” Reno said, “was not meant to be D-Day.”

Thirty years later, a three-part Netflix documentary slated for release Wednesday recounts the drama of the mass casualty event. “Waco: American Apocalypse” tells how self-proclaimed prophet David Koresh armed his compound, about 80 miles south of Dallas, and refused to submit to an arrest warrant for alleged weapons violations, resulting in the weeks-long standoff.

The saga gripped the nation during and after the siege. Americans kept abreast of updates through newspaper stories and TV news. Congress held hearings. The Justice Department compiled a report. Eventually, 11 Branch Davidians stood trial.

The group’s beliefs were centered on the idea that the apocalypse was imminent. As the Branch Davidians’ leader in the 1990s, Koresh preached about the Book of Revelation, claimed to be the messiah and engaged in multiple “marriages.” Some children in the community alleged sexual abuse by Koresh, whose birth name was Vernon Howell, but investigations into the matter were inconclusive.

Despite the Waco tragedy’s infamy, details of the siege’s origin remain contested. The two sides disagree on who fired first when Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents advanced on the compound to carry out the warrant against Koresh. The Feb. 28, 1993, gun battle left at least four ATF agents and five Branch Davidians dead.

The government responded with a tremendous show of military force, including tanks and hundreds of law enforcement agents. At first, the ensuing negotiations were successful. More than 20 children and two elderly adults left the compound in the initial six days in exchange for a message from Koresh being broadcast on a certain radio station.

Koresh eventually agreed to surrender himself — and then reneged on his promise. When he talked with FBI negotiators, it was mostly to proselytize.

The FBI also sought to aggravate members into leaving the house by aiming spotlights at it and blaring noise, including rabbits being killed, monks chanting and Nancy Sinatra singing “These Boots are Made for Walkin’,” Branch Davidian Clive Doyle recounts in his memoir, “A Journey to Waco.”

“I got to where I was only getting about an hour or two of sleep every twenty-four hours,” he writes, according to the New Yorker.

On April 19, 1993, FBI agents tried a new tactic: breaking holes in the building with Army vehicles and pumping tear gas inside to compel the group members to leave peacefully. FBI spokesman Bob Ricks said at the time that negotiators had called Steve Schneider, Koresh’s second-in-command, that morning and notified him about the plan. Schneider slammed the phone in response, Ricks said.

The gassing began about 6 a.m. Negotiators announced over a loudspeaker that the vapor was not lethal and that the group members should exit the compound and receive medical care. Instead, Branch Davidians fired on the Army vehicles as they approached, according to the government.

Federal agents and Branch Davidians each blamed the other side for the blaze that broke out shortly after noon. In 1999, the FBI acknowledged that its tear gas was potentially incendiary but said it was used long before the fire started. The agency maintained that the Branch Davidians intentionally torched the buildings.

Wind pushed the flames through the complex quickly that day, and plumes of black smoke filled the air.

The final moments of the standoff were chilling, Ricks told reporters. One woman left the building and then tried to run back in; an FBI agent grabbed her and brought her to safety. A person wearing a gas mask appeared on the second floor of the structure and, as flames broke out, signaled that he did not want help.

Among the 76 dead that day were roughly 25 children, two pregnant women and Koresh. Nine people survived.

In a retrospective review, Edward S.G. Dennis, an assistant attorney general at the Justice Department, wrote that it was unclear whether those killed stayed in the building voluntarily, were held against their will or were shot to prevent their departure.

Koresh, Schneider and some others had succumbed to gunshot wounds, either from themselves or from others, Dennis concluded. Those shots may have been part of a plan to prevent Koresh’s multiple “wives” from being taken away, he said, among other possibilities.

“We may never know what really happened,” Dennis wrote.

Texas state officials had the site bulldozed two weeks after the siege’s deadly conclusion. Dennis Perrotta, director of the Texas Health Department’s epidemiology division, told the Associated Press at the time that the area was “basically an unlicensed solid waste landfill.” More than 100 ATF agents also got to tour the land as part of the process of grieving the loss of their colleagues in the Feb. 28 violence.

Eleven Branch Davidians — a mix of survivors and group members who left the compound before the day of the fire — later stood trial on conspiracy murder charges for the deaths of the agents, but all were acquitted. Seven of the defendants were convicted on lesser charges, and the other four were found not guilty of all charges.

Defense attorneys had painted the siege as an overzealous attack by the federal government on the group members in their own home.

“This jury has slowed down the runaway horse,” defense attorney Tim Evans said after the verdict. “If you don’t say ‘Whoa’ every now and then, we would end up with a paramilitary police state.”

Years later, the site of the standoff is mostly bare, with few signs of the blazing spectacle that once played out there. Just a memorial plaque and one-room chapel stand on the site, welcoming those who want to remember.

Reginald Hudlin & Byron Phillips Strike First-Look Non-Scripted Deal With Fremantle’s Original Productions

Written by Peter White for deadline.com

EXCLUSIVE: Reginald Hudlin and Byron Phillips have struck a first-look deal with Original Productions after teaming up on Amazon documentary series Phat Tuesdays: The Era of Hip Hop Comedy.

The Fremantle-backed production company has signed the deal with Hudlin Entertainment and Phillips with plans to expand on the comedy docuseries.

The pair will develop and exec produce non-scripted shows with the Deadliest Catch producer. It follows the launch of Phat Tuesdays, which told the story of Black comedians at The Comedy Store in ‘90s Los Angeles.

Hudlin and Phillips have produced the Primetime Emmys together since 2020 as well as documentaries such as The Black Godfather. Hudlin has also directed documentaries such as Apple’s Sidney and comedy feature House Party. He has a scripted first-look deal with UCP. Phillips is the producer of a number of live events including the Oscars and NAACP Image Awards.

Original Productions is behind the upcoming Dan Rather documentary, Netflix’s Waco: American Apocalypse in addition to Deadliest Catch and Bering Sea Gold.

“When we began our collaboration on Phat Tuesdays, it was exciting to see that Reggie and Byron shared a sensibility for the kind of big, bold storytelling that has been the hallmark of our evolution at OP,” said Jeff Hasler, President of Original Productions. “The deeper we got into our collaboration and discussing new ideas, the more motivated we all became about finding a way to let our partnership flourish. Continuing to support Reggie and Byron’s unique voice and perspective on the kind of stories we all want to tell is a dream come true for us at OP.”

“We had a great experience making Phat Tuesdays with Fremantle and it felt like a no brainer to expand our relationship,” added Reggie Hudlin.  “While we were finishing that project, we kept coming up with new ideas that we were excited to collaborate on. I’m looking forward to what’s next.”

“We are thrilled to enter into a partnership with Fremantle/OP. Jennifer Mullin and Jeff Hasler have been so supportive of our creative vision and the range of content we look forward to producing.  It is rare to find executives that do everything in their power to clear the obstacles that get in the way of the creative process. Jen and Jeff are both unique executives and extraordinary human beings,” said Byron Phillips.