[117032] in Cypherpunks
FBI Admits Tear Gas Use in Siege
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (lcs Mixmaster Remailer)
Wed Aug 25 14:37:32 1999
Date: 25 Aug 1999 18:20:06 -0000
Message-ID: <19990825182006.23778.qmail@nym.alias.net>
To: cypherpunks@cyberpass.net
From: lcs Mixmaster Remailer <mix@anon.lcs.mit.edu>
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AUGUST 25, 11:08 EDT
FBI Admits Tear Gas Use in Siege
By ALICE ANN LOVE
Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) — Taking back previous disavowals, the
FBI now admits that federal agents fired one or more
incendiary tear gas canisters during the 1993 standoff with
Branch Davidian cult members in Texas, a federal law
enforcement official says.
The agency, however, still maintains it did not start the fire
that consumed the Davidians' compound with leader David
Koresh and more than 80 followers inside. The April 19,
1993, inferno ended a 51-day siege by federal agents trying
to serve a warrant for Koresh's arrest on firearms and
explosive charges.
``The bottom line here continues to be that the Davidians
set that fire and that law enforcement did not set that fire,''
said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity
Tuesday.
Incendiary devices — believed to be two military tear gas
canisters — were fired not at buildings in the Branch
Davidian compound, but at a bunker nearby, the official said,
adding that they bounced off the bunker's concrete roof and
did not enter any structures.
The canisters were fired early in the morning, around 6
a.m., the official added. The fire that destroyed the
compound started around noon after federal agents used a
tank to punch holes in the compound before pumping in tear
gas.
Other tear gas canisters used by federal agents throughout
the day were not flammable or potentially explosive, the
official said.
Until now, the FBI had maintained it used only
nonflammable canisters to get tear gas into the compound
because of fears that pyrotechnic grenades might spark a
fire in the wooden structure.
The federal official said that circumstances under which the
two canisters were fired may explain why they were not
mentioned before. ``Maybe this didn't come up because it
was 6 in the morning — six hours before the compound
burned, and maybe it didn't come up because they were fired
away from the wooden main building which later burned,''
the official said today.
However, the FBI reconsidered its past assertions this week
after Danny Coulson, a former deputy director of the agency,
told The Dallas Morning News that potentially flammable tear
gas grenades were fired into an underground structure that
led to tunnels opening into the compound.
But Coulson, who also was founding commander of the FBI's
hostage rescue team, told the newspaper the incendiary
canisters were fired hours before the blaze began and played
no role in starting it.
``We're aware of the reports and we're trying to get to the
bottom of it as quickly as we can,'' Justice Department
spokesman Myron Marlin said Tuesday.
Justice Department officials, including Attorney General
Janet Reno, in the past have forcefully denied allegations
that flammable devices were used by the FBI during the final
standoff at Waco.
Marlin called such allegations ``nonsense'' when they were
raised by a documentary filmmaker in July.
``We know of no evidence to support that any incendiary
device was fired into the compound on April 19, 1993,''
Marlin said.
The issue of whether the FBI used pyrotechnic devices has
been a major focus of an ongoing inquiry by the Texas
Rangers and a key allegation in a pending wrongful-death
lawsuit against the government by surviving Davidians and
families of those who died.
The federal government consistently has disputed
accusations that the FBI started the fire. Independent
investigators concluded the fire began simultaneously in
three separate places.
FBI bugs recorded Davidians discussing spreading fuel and
planning a fire hours before the compound burned. Arson
investigators also found evidence that gasoline, charcoal
lighter fluid and camp stove fuel had been poured inside the
compound.
<http://wire.ap.org/?FRONTID=NATIONAL&STORYID=APIS6V2279O0>
