Operation Showtime: Who Shot First?

## Episode Guide

**"Operation Showtime: Who Shot First?"** is the third episode of *Revelations of Waco*. It aired on February 7, 2018 alongside "Operation Showtime".

## Overview

The ATF investigated David Koresh and the Branch Davidians for more than one year prior to the siege, Operation Showtime. Former ATF and FBI agents, as well as Waco survivors, share their accounts.

## Appearances

* Larry Lynch, Lieutenant, McLennan County (1993)
* John Risenhoover, Former ATF Agent
* Dick DeGeurin, David Koresh's Defense Attorney
* Sheila Martin, Waco Survivor
* Gary Noesner, Former Chief of FBI's Crisis Negotiation Unit
* Clive Doyle, Waco Survivor
* David Thibodeau, Waco Survivor
* Dan Hartnett, Former Associate ATF Director

## Recap

*This section is a detailed recap of this episode. **There are major spoilers.** Click to expand.*

**Larry Lynch:** The sheriff's office was approached by a UPS driver who had been delivering packages to the compound. One of the packages broke open and hand grenades fell out. He approached the sheriff's office and then talked about a lot of gunpowder that he had delivered out there. Lieutenant Barber at that time contacted ATF, so that's what spurred the start of the investigation.

**John Risenhoover:** It was very much a longterm investigation. It went on for well over a year. The goal of the raid was to quickly secure the location before anybody could commit suicide, and secure the firearms, and secure evidence from the federal search warrant to prove a conviction on David Koresh and his accomplices.

**Dick DeGuerin:** It was a search and arrest warrant. What happened, though, is that it was used as an excuse to mount a military-style raid on a home that had men, women and children in it.

**Sheila Martin:** When we woke up that morning, the mailman told everybody that he heard that there was gonna be a raid. Then we were then prepared to just hopefully just have someone come and talk.

**John Risenhoover:** The morning of the raid, we were brought from Fort Hood to a location about 25 minutes away from the Branch Davidian compound. It was a high school. We were using the gymnasium. It was a Sunday. One of the team commanders comes in, and he says, "They know we're coming. If we hurry, we can still do it." Which put a bad feeling into everybody. Everybody's going, "Wow, this ... " Element of surprise is one of the most critical things. We had to have element of surprise, because we knew David Koresh left most of his firearms locked into a gun room basically that only he had access to.

**Gary Noesner:** With the element of surprise gone, and with the fact that the Davidians had been preparing for and training for the apocalypse, so people had positions they knew they were supposed to go to, firing position.

**John Risenhoover:** I think a total of 75 agents were brought in to handle this operation. It really wasn't enough. Normally you want a three-to-one ratio, We didn't have that in any means. In fact, there was more Davidians on the property than there were law enforcement. I'm supposed to be a hands-on guy. My gun shouldn't even be out of the holster
in this entire operation. One of my jobs was, once we got into the door, was to find David Koresh, subdue him and actually duct tape his mouth shut so he'd shut up and couldn't tell anybody to commit suicide.

**Gary Noesner:** So when the word came that ATF was on the way and that they had not aborted the mission, they walked into a very bad situation.

**Sheila Martin:** I saw two long trucks coming down the road, and one came in front and went past the front door, and the other one was right behind it, and I saw people getting out.

**Clive Doyle:** David walked in from the opposite side of the room, and he says, "I want you all to stay calm. Go back to your rooms, and just remain calm." He says, "I'll go down to the front door and see who it is."

**John Risenhoover:** The Davidians fired first, without a doubt.

**David Thibodeau:** We never went out gunning for anyone, okay? They came in and they shot at us.

**Dick DeGuerin:** Koresh came to the door, opened the door and held up his hand and said, "Please go back. There are women and children in here. Let's talk about this." A fusillade of bullets, as it was described to me, happened after that.

**Clive Doyle:** Almost instantly, all hell broke loose. I thought, "Oh my God, there's gonna be a bloodbath."

**John Risenhoover:** I put my foot out of that truck and I was immediately under fire. So their entire raid team was supposed to go into the front door. Nobody got to the front door. The gunfire was that intense from inside the compound from numerous points.

**David Thibodeau:** Some of the testimony in the trial indicated that some of the first shots were fired with the team of ATF agents who were to go to the penned up area and suppress the dogs, which "suppress" means shoot and kill. Another testimony at the trials indicated that some of the first shots could have been fired when one of the ATF agent's gun went off when he went to reach for his holster.

**Gary Noesner:** Regardless, it initiated, sparked, a massive shooting. Probably the largest gun battle on American soil since the Civil War. Literally thousands and thousands of rounds exchanged between both sides.

**John Risenhoover:** We should have been more concerned about the firearms used against us. But in reality, at that point in law enforcement history, no large scale group had ever resisted law enforcement like that. It really wasn't into the belief system that that could actually occur. Horrible decision. Once we lost the element of surprise we should have stopped. There's no way we should have moved forward at that point. So we said, "we've got got to stop this 'cause they'll just take their time and pick us off." And that's when we got hit with the .50 caliber round through the engine block and it just knocked the crap out of us, and the shrapnel hit both of us and shattered my leg and multiple places in my foot, and put a gaping hole through Larry. It was unreal. We were out there for two and a half hours after that. Basically all the agents who were shooting were out of ammo, hoping something would break.

**Clive Doyle:** Sheila Martin's husband, Wayne, dialed 9-1-1. He got a hold of Larry Lynch.

**Larry Lynch:** You know, I'm in the basement of a building that's 15 miles away. All I know is what I'm hearing on the phone. And one of the questions I ask him as things started calming down was, "Do you need some medical attention in there? No, no, don't need anything. Just need you to get off our property." He said, "Tell them to back off. Tell them there's women and children in here and get off our property."

**Clive Doyle:** He's trying to get Wayne to stop the shooting. We're going, "We're not the ones shooting, they are." Of course there were some inside that were shooting as well. It was only then as they got up to retreat that we realized just how many there were.

**John Risenhoover:** And we stood up and walked out. And it was probably one of the most horrific things you have to imagine. You had to stand up and think, "These guys have shooting at us for two and a half hours. And now we're gonna take them at their word that we can leave." Four ATF agents were killed in the raid, and 20 were badly wounded.

**David Thibodeau:** Six people in Mount Caramel died on the first day of the raid. God, it was a nightmare. Seeing Winston Blake's body laying in a pool of blood. Yeah, it wasn't real, man, it was like being in another ... It was almost like an out-of-body experience, really.

**Dick DeGuerin:** Certainly military tactics were used at Waco. With disastrous results, as we all know. I think the militarization of our civilian law enforcement agencies is a very disturbing trend.

**David Thibodeau:** That kind of force was shocking to me. I couldn't believe that that is how this was gonna go down. Yeah, I was quite surprised. I didn't think it would happen like that. You don't go in with that kind of force shooting into the second story area of a building where there's a bunch of kids if you really are there to save the children. That's ridiculous.

**Dan Hartnett:** I have, of course, heard "the element of surprise" since the day after the raid. Prior to that time, I never heard the term "element of surprise". Mr. Hanowski of course was the SAC in Houston, and I've asked him many times since the raid, "did you feel the raid was compromised when you went in?" And he has said no to this day, and I believe him.

**John Risenhoover:** Once you lie about one little thing, it ruins your credibility in everything else. That was a stupid lie, because we should not have gone forward with the operation. But it tainted everything and led to Oklahoma City.