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Friday, January 12, 2018 The Baylor Lariat

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FBI from Page A1 “There is contention as to who fired the first shot, but nonetheless a shootout ensued,” Noesner said. “Four ATF agents were killed, 17 wounded and a number of Davidians were killed as well ... and many wounded, including Koresh. It was quite a protracted, running gunbattle very, very serious in nature, obviously.”

ATF agents withdrew after a nearly hourlong battle and a ceasefire was negotiated.

According to History.com, the operation, which involved more than 100 ATF agents, was the one of the largest ever mounted by the bureau and resulted in the highest casualties of any ATF operation.

It was during this cease-fire that the FBI and Noesner’s negotiation team were brought to Waco in hopes of bringing about a resolution without further loss of life.

“The crime of assaulting and killing the federal agents falls under the jurisdiction of the FBI, so even though it was ATF agents, who were then part of the Department of Treasury, the fact they were assaulted and killed in carrying out their duties brought in the FBI to manage the incident and try to resolve it,” Noesner said. “I flew out right away, coordinating all the negotiation activities to try to bring about a peaceful resolution.”

Noesner and his team of negotiators began to attempt to achieve a peaceful resolution.

Difficulty arose in this case, Noesner said, because while a hostage situation will allow the negotiators to serve a purpose and work with the person making demands, the members at the compound that day were there of their own free will in what they considered their home, and the only thing they wanted was for the FBI to leave.

“The only demand that Koresh and his followers had on us was to go away and leave them alone, which in the aftermath of the loss of life and carnage, that was pretty much the one thing the government could not do,” Noesner said. “So it was a real predicament, because if people need you and they want something from you, like in the hostage scenario, then you’re able to exert some influence on their behavior and come up with a quid-pro-quo bargaining interaction. But, if the only thing they want you to do is go away and they don’t feel they need you for anything, it’s very hard to exert influence over their behavior.”

Aside from the Davidians wanting to be left alone, Noesner said there was also the added difficulty and frustration that came from dealing with a person like Koresh.

“Some people on the outside, from what they know about Koresh, might think he was almost a Charles Manson-like figure and out of touch with reality, and that certainly wasn’t our experience,” Noesner said. “He wasn’t a well-educated individual, but he was articulate, he was an all-powerful leader in his group, and I mean, despite his educational limitations and life experiences, he became quite adept at interpreting the Bible and passing a message to his followers that they embraced wholeheartedly, and so they looked at him as quite extraordinary and quite special.”

Koresh’s followers believed him to be so powerful, as Noesner said is often the case with unorthodox religious groups like this, that they allowed him to hold sway over them to the point that they surrendered their worldly possessions, husbands surrendered their wives to Koresh who then fathered children with them, and people generally were willing to believe anything and everything that he said.

“As most often is the case with these unorthodox religious groups, they revolve around a very strong self-serving leader and David Koresh was certainly that and more, but dealing with him on a day-to-day basis was really a mix,” Noesner said. “There were days where he was very comfortable and casual and even occasionally a bit of humor, and other times where his anger was strongly manifested into anger at the ATF and anger at the government ... He would show many demonstrations of his personality and as negotiators we had to adapt to that. We had some successes with him and we clearly had some failures.”

Despite Koresh’s controlling and manipulative nature and the strong loyalty of his followers, Noesner said he found success at the beginning in getting Davidians, mostly women and children, safely out of the compound through a trust-based relationship approach.

“While I was there for 26 days we were able to get 45 people out, and we did that through this patience and rapport building approach,” he said. “The problem we ran into was that there were others in the government, the FBI, that were very frustrated with this slow pace of these accomplishments and they wanted things to move in a more rapid way, so there were some actions that were taken to use tactical pressure to compel the Davidians to cooperate

Rod Aydelotte | Waco Tribune-Herald file photo

and this of course ran in direct contradiction to the approach we were taking as a negotiation team.”

Noesner said this internal conflict in the FBI began to dissolve the work he had done to build trust and continue to save lives. He said while everyone had the same end-goal –– to see everyone come out alive –– they had very different ideas on how to accomplish it and an appropriate timeline for achieving it.

“Law enforcement agencies are used to taking control and when they tell people to do things and comply, they expect to get that compliance,” Noesner said. “So it’s quite frustrating when people do not comply as instructed and offer resistance and often don’t follow through on their promises.”

Koresh could be a very challenging guy to deal with, Noesner said, and he would often change his mind or take opposite actions in regard to promises he made, and that began to feed the frustrations of the FBI decision makers.

“Oddly enough, as negotiators we are a bit more able to deal with these kind of manipulative efforts, because that’s what we train for as negotiators. We know that people will have ups and downs and periods of cooperation followed by periods of resistance and they will not always do what they say,” Noesner said. “We try to use that knowledge to prevent us from becoming frustrated and overreacting, and I think one of the shortcomings in Waco was that some of our decision makers out there, who were above me of course, didn’t have that same perspective, or that same knowledge and training experience that would enable them to stick it through that difficult interaction we had with Koresh.”

From the day ATF agents arrived at the Branch Davidian compound, to the time 51 days later when the compound went up in flames, Noesner said mistakes were made on both sides.

“Technically there were violations of the law. Now as a practical matter, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms at the time is a fairly small federal law enforcement agency and they were under serious threat of being disbanded,” Noesner said. “One political party didn’t want them functioning and fulfilling their role in investigating matters related to firearms, and was politically trying to, in essence, do away with that agency.”

When the information came to the ATF that the Branch Davidians were converting weapons illegally, Noesner said the bureau saw an opportunity to make headlines in terms of their utility as an organization.

“That, I think, compelled them to move forward with what turned out to be a pretty risky operation, and even when it became known right before the raid that it had been compromised, rather than call off the raid they went ahead with it anyway and of course the consequences were pretty tragic,” Nosener said. “So I think you know some years later the FBI dealt with a group in Montana and we decided to arrest the leader when he was away from the others, and I think that would have been a better approach. I know one of the things we would have looked at then, that we do now, is ‘are there other ways to accomplish the goal other than a direct assault on the building? Which even under the best of circumstances comes with great complications and challenges.”

With Noesner’s success in releasing members from the building, he still today has frustrations when he imagines a different ending that may have very well been possible.

“I think what could have been done differently was, at the expense of sounding selfserving here, was to do what we were doing as negotiators. I’m quite confident that had our

Rod Aydelotte | Waco Tribune-Herald file photo

Paramount Network

WACO Top: Branch Davidian Compound with a sheet asking for the press hung outside a window during the seize. Middle: Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms agents walk past the front of the Branch Davidian compound on Feb. 28, 1993, following a botched raid that resulted in the death of four agents and six Davidians. The standoff concluded with the death of more than 70 followers of David Koresh after the compound was set on fire. Bottom: Taylor Kitsch stars as David Koresh in Paramount Network’s series “Waco,” which premieres Jan. 24.

actions not been unwittingly compromised by some of the more aggressive tactical moves, we may have had a very different ending and probably would have succeeded in securing the safe release of a great many more individuals,” Noesner said. “If you’re inside the compound and you hear the nice negotiator talking about cooperation and respect and dignity, and then you see a guy in a tank crush your car, are you going to believe what you hear or what you see? I think some of the leadership in the FBI at the time didn’t fully appreciate or absorb the problems that these mixed signals caused us and that certainly didn’t help our cause in trying to create a relationship of trust with the Davidians that would have led to everyone coming out alive.”

Following the interactions between the Branch Davidians and the government that year, questions began to arise nationwide as to who the “bad guy” really was. There were people who used the incidents as a symbol of government overreach and to validate their concerns that the government was looking to take their guns and power, while the opposite side argued the Davidians and those like them were dangerous and the government was doing the job they were meant to do.

“There’s a good debate that should take place about ‘What’s the line between individual freedoms and organizational freedoms and complying with government laws?’” Noesner said. “These are serious matters to discuss, but I think people want to simply state that one side or the other was all good or bad.”

For Noesner, he realizes that the world isn’t so simple. While he said he believed David Koresh alone held the keys to resolving the situation peacefully the entire time, and blames him ultimately for the end result, he also said that notion does not then translate into the acknowledgement that the government responded the best way they could have.

“FBI agents tend to think Koresh was all bad, therefore we did nothing wrong. Some people say Koresh was good and the government was wrong. But, It’s far more complex and nuanced than that,” Noesner said. “Some people like to look at the world in black and white ... Koresh was all good and the FBI was all bad or vice versa. But, the fact is, there were a lot of mistakes made on both sides. It isn’t simple ...

The world is a complicated place and It was a tragedy for everybody involved.”

“We do pretty well,” Stern said. “But if you look at it — If we’re giving 1,500 flu shots a year and we have 17,000 students plus a couple of thousand faculty and staff, then you can see that’s less than ten percent. I’d like to see that get a lot higher.”

Craine said she often comes across individuals who say the flu shot does not work and her response is “It’s absolutely not going to work if you don’t use it. If it stays in the vial, it will not help you.”

Craine said that although the flu shot is not 100 percent effective, it does create a stronger immune response and lessens symptoms.

Stern said that from a public health standpoint, it is very important for Baylor to

offer a convenient way for students, faculty and staff to receive the flu shot.

Getting the flu shot is protective for the entire community, Stern said. Some individuals who are not able to receive the vaccine themselves rely on others to protect them from the flu.

“The most important thing is that students, faculty and staff are welcome to come over and get their flu shots,” Stern said. “It is best if they can make an appointment, but they can try walking over and usually we can get them in pretty quickly but it’s just a nurse visit to get the flu vaccine.”

FLU from Page A1 “We are hopeful that our peak is slowing down, but at any point, it could pop up again,” Craine said. “A lot of times you will see a bit of a drop when the holidays have come along because [for] one thing, school is out and so that slows down the process a lot. Now school is back in so we’ll have to see if there is a rise again.”

Craine said people need to be aware that there are many cases of the flu virus in the community, which increases one’s opportunity to be exposed to it.

The City of Waco’s main aspect and message is that preventing the flu is key, Craine said. Prevention methods include receiving the flu shot, washing hands frequently and covering

coughs and sneezes.

According to the Medical Director of Baylor Health Services Dr. Sharon Stern, students, faculty and staff can receive the flu shot anytime between 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. at the health center, located on the second floor of the McLane Student Life Center (SLC).

During the Fall 2017 semester, Baylor Health Services also offered several flu shot clinics in various locations around campus.

“We just want to be available for everybody who wants to get the flu vaccine,” Stern said.

Baylor Health Services typically orders 1,500 flu vaccines every year and by this January, they only had around 300 doses left, Stern said.