On the 25th anniversary of the end of a 51-day standoff near Waco, which left 76 people dead (including 25 children), survivors gathered at the scene to demand that the government apologize for the massacre.
On Thursday, survivors including Clive Doyle and David Thibodeau spoke at the annual memorial on Mt. Carmel that has been taking place every year on the anniversary.
The deadly assault on David Koresh’s Branch Davidian compound took place from February 28 through April 19 over suspected weapons violations. The ATF had attempted to raid the compound and a gun battle ensued, leaving four government agents and six Branch Davidians dead. For the next 50 days, the government would use psychological warfare, such as playing the sound of animals being slaughtered, until ultimately the compound was burned to the ground with nearly everyone still inside.
The nation watched in horror as weapons of war were used on American civilians and CS gas was lobbed into the compound before being set ablaze — though there is disagreement about who set the actual fire.
It is widely believed that the raid was being staged as a success story to make up for the FBI and ATF’s failings at Ruby Ridge, an eleven day stand-off in Idaho in the summer of 1992, where the agencies had botched an arrest and killed a 14-year-old child and his mother while she was holding her 10-month-old baby.
Speaking at the event on Thursday, Thibodeau called for the government to admit what they did and apologize. He vowed to never stop fighting for the truth. He also praised the Paramount Network for their recent six-part miniseries that sought to humanize the victims of the siege.
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Thibodeau also addressed a recurring statement being pushed by those involved. In a recent interview with The Gateway Pundit, Gary Noesner, the FBI negotiator during the siege, asserted that it has always bothered him that none of the adults who escaped brought children out with them.
“On the day of the fire nine people came out, not a single one of them brought a child. One of them brought a puppy out — but nobody brought a kid out,” Noesner told the Gateway Pundit. “I’m terribly sorry for what happened to everyone in there — but I can only tell you if I had been in there with my child… I would have either have brought them out or stayed in there and died with them. There is no way I would not have got my child out.”
This sentiment was also expressed by an agent in a recent A&E documentary about Waco.
Speaking in Mt. Caramel, Thibodeau said that this sentiment is “I would like to refute all of that. It makes me incredibly angry that you people have the gall to come to that conclusion and continue to taint history to your own skew of how you want Mt. Carmel to be viewed, History is going to speak for itself.”
“People will find out the truth even if it takes another hundred years,” Thibodeau asserted.
He further explained during a previous interview with TGP that this is the line that bothers him the most about the government spin on what happened. He maintains that the children were all in the back of the building — and that law enforcement had been shooting at those who attempted to escape from that side. Infrared footage from the assault appears to show gunshots, though the government has long maintained that it was solar reflections. Unfortunately, the government has not always been truthful about what happened at Waco and their credibility on the issue took a serious blow from their denial for many years that any pyrotechnic devices were even used. We now know that they were.
During the 25th anniversary event, Thibodeau asked “how can you save women and children if you are being shot when you are trying to exit the back of the building folks, how does that work?! It’s the ultimate slap in the face to say it was suicide when we know there were shooters out there. I would like to say publicly, any of the people involved in that firefight, I would like to talk to you. I would like you to give me a call and tell me what really happened, without judgement. I want someone to confront me and tell me why they were there and why they shot people who tried to exit that building, what was their justification?”
“I would like an apology from the government, it’s been 25 years, it’s about time. These people have been covering history and covering their butts for the last 25 years,” Thibodeau said. “I don’t care about money — just acknowledge you did it!”
Thibodeau also promised, “I’m not going to stop talking about it until they take me out.” He added, “I’m a very big target, FBI, come and get me because I’m not going to shut up.”
Another survivor, Clive Doyle, also spoke at the memorial and asserted that the fake news is still not covering the truth about Waco after all these years.
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“They go along with the government coverup and present the story as ‘the good guys came and the bad guys shot at them — and people got killed,’” Doyle began. “What most people don’t know is all the opportunities they had to do it right.”
David Koresh would frequently go into town on his own and could have been picked up by law enforcement at any time without the conflict of a raid.
It is important to note that if this gas had been used on terrorists it would have been considered a war crime. When used on innocent American men, women and children under Janet Reno’s lead, it was perfectly acceptable. No one was ever held accountable.
For more information about the incident from a survivor’s perspective, you can check out Waco: A Survivor’s Story by David Thibodeau.
