Government Stories That Are Super Shady

May 2024 · 2 minute read

In 1993, federal agents descended on a remote compound in Waco, Texas (yep — of recent Netflix fame), home to a religious community known as the Branch Davidians. The sect was run by an enigmatic and curly-mulleted individual who went by the self-given name David Koresh. Operation Trojan Horse was a bloodbath. The first gun battle was frantic and chaotic, leaving six Branch Davidians and four federal agents dead and many more wounded. 

However, as the Statesman relates, that was only the beginning of this unmitigated barefoot Lego stomp of violence, mayhem, and generally bad karma. On the orders of Koresh, the sect members holed up in their compound, clearly ready to defend their way of life, and their leader, to the last. A full 51 days later, the siege reached its hideous conclusion, with the compound erupting into a massive inferno. Seventy-six people, 21 of them children, were dead. 

An official investigation found that the fire was an act of mass suicide, directed by Koresh. Then-President Bill Clinton said of the incident, "I do not think the United States government is responsible for the fact that a bunch of fanatics decided to kill themselves." Over five years later, tapes revealed that agents were given the authorization to fire military tear gas grenades at the shelter. This directly led to the compound going up in flames and was a detail that had been systematically covered up by the FBI in the wake of the tragedy.

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