‘Waco: American Apocalypse’: A Complex Truth
by Leslie Lytle, Messenger Staff Writer
Interrupted from reading the Sunday morning paper by her editor’s instruction to head for Waco, “These are your kind of people,” disaster-beat Dallas Morning News reporter Lee Hancock arrived just past noon midst an unfolding tragedy, with four federal agents and two Branch Davidian cult members dead in the worst gunfight on American soil since the Civil War. The religious cult holed up in the Mount Carmel compound had weapons that could penetrate body armor. The 51-day siege that followed ended in a fiery inferno fulfilling the prophecy of cult leader David Koresh, with over 70 Branch Davidians dying including 28 children. A Sewanee resident and University graduate (C’81), Hancock sums up the subsequent Hollywood film and conspiracy-theory documentaries recounting the story as “B.S.” She was there for the duration, in the early days sleeping in her car and breakfasting on Salvation Army coffee and donuts. Hancock’s terms for participating in the just released Netflix documentary “Waco: American Apocalypse”: “I said I was all in if they presented this in its true complexity and factually, and they did.”
“What we have here is a total failure to communicate,” Hancock said in one documentary interview. Footnoting scenes, Hancock explained the FBI Hostage Crisis Negotiators believed “the constant barrage of aggressive tactics by the Hostage Rescue Team” sullied negotiations and thwarted their efforts “to get people out.” The HRT disabled phone lines and lights, inflicted sleep deprivation with loud music and animal scream recordings and responded to seven Branch Davidians surrendering by bulldozing the cult’s cars with army tanks. The HRT complained the negotiators failed to keep them informed. “The HRT operatives are trained to do intense intervention,” Hancock stressed, “but they’re not heartless automatons.”
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (ATF) orchestrated the initial attack to arrest Koresh and search for illegal firearms. The ATF chose to ignore information the cult had been tipped off about the surprise attack and went in anyway, Hancock said, “knowing ‘these guys were armed to the teeth.’” Offering a possible rationale she observed, “Cops had been going in and doing paramilitary raids like this in the United States for years, but there had never been this kind of armed reaction to law enforcement.”
Hancock praised director Tiller Russell’s documentary not only for being “factual,” but for doing “the important job of portraying the complexity and humanity of everyone involved.” “This is not a binary good-guy/bad-guy story,” Hancock emphasized. Law enforcement agents and surviving cult members weep in recounting the Waco tragedy. Kathy Schroeder, a David Koresh true believer, talks about arming up for the siege and the honor of being selected to have sexual intercourse with Koresh who proclaimed himself the Messiah and the only male in the compound permitted to engage in intercourse, choosing child brides as young as 11. The documentary shows negotiators persuading Schroeder to leave the compound to be reunited with her toddler son.
Hancock would later cover Hurricane Katrina and stories in Baghdad and Kuwait, but she said of Waco, “The ability to listen to complex stories and not oversimplify them started here for me. When people trust you with their stories, you’re given a gift.” Today Hancock works with student journalists on The Purple staff, hoping to impart that skill. “The effects of Waco ripple out to this day,” she said, citing the current obsession with conspiracy theory and the deep state. The Oklahoma City bombing, and Columbine massacre have date-stamp links to the final day.
When the FBI began teargassing the building, there was almost a sense of relief, Hancock acknowledged. The prevailing sentiment was, “finally this will end. They’ll come out.” No one envisioned the cult setting the building on fire and the massive arsenal stored inside exploding, fulfilling Koresh’s prophecy.
The three-part Netflix series “Waco: American Apocalypse” began March 22, the day in 1993 FBI negotiators endorsed a teargas plan. At one point, Koresh promised to come out when he finished writing his “Seven Seals” message. Should the FBI have waited? How long?
NOTE: A four part special companion to the Netflix documentary series “Waco: American Apocalypse” is available on: