Sacrificing: A Case Study

The year is 1993, and there had been a deadly fire that consumed the lives of eighty individuals. The fire erupted in Waco, Texas on a compound called Mt. Carmel. There had been a 51 day siege where the ATF and the FBI tried to gain control of the compound and capture the leader, David Koresh. David Koresh was a self-proclaimed prophet and preached a version of Christianity called the Branch Davidians. They were very primitive, in almost all aspects. They had no electronic devices, no plumbing and followed a very strict regime instructed by David Koresh himself. To put it plainly, they were a part of a religious cult. Whether this cult was a suicide cult or not was a hot topic of debate when regarding the Waco Siege. According to the court, and despite the majority of sources, it was concluded that the fire was self-inflicted by an arsonists, stripping the government of responsibility and ruling the deaths as murder-suicides.

On April 19th, 1995 a homemade bomb made of a concoction of agricultural fertilizer, fuel, and other dangerous chemicals was left in a truck parked outside the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building in Oklahoma City. At 9:02 in the morning, it’s blast damaged over 300 buildings surrounding the vehicle and even flattened a third of the federal building. (Strom, 2015) The bomb took the lives of 168 people, including 19 children. It was found that two men, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Lynn Nichols were the ones who planted the device. Both men were found to be associated with a radical militia movement that sought revenge for a siege in Waco, Texas two years prior. The siege killed 82 Branch Davidians, of whom, multiple were related to the militia movement.

As Gunn says, there was little shooting between the two sides after the first couple of days and the majority of the standoff was spent negotiating (650). Marcovitz states, after not much other progress the federal agents decided to flush out the compound with tear gas; it forced a few people out but a majority of them stayed in the compound, setting fires and even shooting themselves (70). Marcovitz also states, on April 19, 1993 the siege was concluded and the body count reached eighty-five, including Koresh who was shot (70). This event, especially so close to the Ruby Ridge incident, sparked even more outrage among white supremacists and they called for retaliation against all the agents and anyone else involved in the siege. As Gunn says, McVeigh who was freshly out of the army and who was slowly spiraling decided to throw himself into the passion he felt towards the anti-government groups (647). If the federal government hadn’t used such excessive force than the public backlash would have been less severe and would possibly have stopped radicals like McVeigh from seeking revenge. The author states, “Investigators later learned that McVeigh hated the government for its raid on the Branch Davidian Compound on April 19, 1993 in Waco, Texas, as well as the incident at Ruby Ridge, Idaho in 1992” (Gephardt

In the spring of 1993, the Branch Davidian Christian gained global infamy from this siege on its compound that laid a few miles just outside of Waco. On Sunday, February 28, a violent two hour gun battle took place leaving six Davidians and four ATF agents dead. A 51-day standoff ensued. Amid the siege, the Branch Davidians’ charismatic leader, Vernon Howell, a 33-year-old musician who believed himself to be the final prophet in Christian end-times

Carringer, one of the gunmen involved, was believed to be a suspect in a fatal bombing at a Birmingham Ala. abortion clinic (APB news). I believe that although he was only a suspect in the bombing, his weapon should have been repossessed before he could have done harm to anyone, such as the FBI agent.

Just because one, one person messing around caused a horrible accident, this wasn’t supposed to happen, at all. At 9:02 a.m., “rental truck packed with explosives, front of the nine-story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City.” He decided to set it off. We don’t know if he was upset with someone in the building or if he was even upset but if he was there was no reason for everyone that died to die.

Twenty years ago, federal agents clashed with David Koresh's Branch Davidian community near Waco, Texas. The standoff ended with a raid and fire that killed some 80 people. It's remembered as one of the darkest chapters in American law enforcement history.

Waco Branch conflict between the U.S. government and the branch davidians was took place on April 19, 1993. It was continued for fifty-one days in Waco Texas. Davidians are the members of the branch davidian and the lender was David Koresh. He was born in Houston, Texas in 1959. According to me the conflict between U.S government and branch davidians was handled appropriately. The tragic fire that took place was because of the weapons and other gun material. In some articles it is said that he was running a religious group but, it was just for show off. What the followers and David were doing behind this curtain of lye and false was discovered by the ATF agents when they raid the compound they were having the search warrant for investigation

The Branch Davidians also known as “The Branch” are a religious group that formed from a schism in the Davidian Seventh-day Adventists originating in the 1950s. The Branch is most widely known for the siege of its Mount Carmel Center compound near Waco, Texas in 1993. Since the siege there has been mass speculation on the final outcome of the conflict and the actions of Federal Agencies responding to the incident to include the ATF, FBI, and Texas National Guard. The siege lasted fifty one days and resulted in the death of the Branch Davidian’s leader, David Koresh, along with eighty two Branch Davidian men, women, and children. Four ATF agents were also killed during the siege in exchanges of gun fire with Branch Davidian members. This paper examines just who the Branch Davidians are and their beliefs, Agencies that reported to the siege and their side of the story with what happened at Waco, and finally the outcome and factors leading up to the end of the siege. I will also try and shed light on how the federal agencies may have gone about the situation differently in hind sight along with any policy changes that the event may have brought about.

Once the stuff of movies or perhaps newscasts covering a conflict in some third world backwater country, large scale terrorist operations are now a deadly reality in America. Few will ever forget the images of the Afred P. Murrah Federal Building: its remaining floors held up in a precarious cantilever; bloody, dust-covered survivors struggling to escape through the smoke and flames. These images will be repeated over and over again as our nation moves into the

The intervention of federal government and other law enforcement officers with disastrous fires in the Davidian compound at Waco, and the law enforcement agents who contributed to the death of Randy Weaver's family (both wife and son) at Ruby Ridge led to the deaths of innocent people who had no association with the crimes and who did not deserve to die. In both cases, the decisions by the federal government were based on exaggerated data that was absolutely wrong. The FBI acted brutally not because they had not gathered enough evidence but they acted hastily in order to prove their relevance to the public against terror attacks (Vohryzek, Olson-Raymer & Whamond, 2001).

Hunter. “Meet the Jade Helm Conspiracy Theory: the federal governments pot to invade Texas.” 2015.Web.

The bureaucratic era has been the traditional form of organization for more than a century, in simple terms described as hybridity, standardized operations and none flexibility inside the organization. The change to the post-bureaucratic is shown through personal influence, high trust relationships and the importance of the individuality of everyone (McKenna, Garcia-Lorenzo & Bridgeman, 2010). According to Kernaghan (2000) the characteristic of the bureaucratic era is “position power” and of the post bureaucratic “participate leadership”.

These groups had a great deal of influence over public administrators for a number of reasons. One reason is that this event had national attention and the hearts of all Americans went out to all of those who lost loved ones. Because public administrators were in the spotlight, they had to consider the needs of those involved. Also, because these groups were very well organized, they not only demanded attention, they commanded it. And how could any public administrator simply ignore them or turn their backs on them? The main source of disagreement was whether or not to focus on quickly unbuilding the site or to tediously search for the bodies of each firefighter that was lost in this tragedy in an effort to provide their families with closure. This case centered around the firefighters because they were involved in the daily search missions, received consistent media attention, and ultimately organized a huge protest consisting of “nearly a thousand” members which ultimately turned violent (Stillman, 2010). Although their desire to find their comrades was understandable, it was also a bit selfish because they only seemed genuinely concerned about their own even though the biggest loss of all were the innocent citizens in both of the buildings. The loss of the firefighters only amounted to a small percentage compared to the total loss of life.

Bureaucracy was one of the most popular theories developed and is used in some modern organisations such as the NHS and the Police. Through the years bureaucracy has developed a bad reputation for de-humanizing jobs (Grey, 30) “In the ideal-type, people are no more than parts in a well-oiled machine –devoid of passion, prejudice and personality”, although some people prefer this structure (Handy, 22) “No one, it seems, approves of bureaucracy except, interestingly, lots of people in organisations who like to know where they stand.”