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- KILLEEN, Texas - A federal
judge unexpectedly banned both sides in the Branch Davidian case from releasing
footage from a Sunday field test aimed at determining whether government
agents fired at the sect's compound at the end of the 1993 siege.
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- His decision did not stop attorneys for the government
and the sect from predicting that the experiment at a remote Fort Hood
firing range Sunday will support their sharply opposing views of what happened
near Waco on April 19, 1993.
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- U.S. Attorney Mike Bradford, one of the lead lawyers
on the government's Waco trial team, said after the test that government
officials were confident it would disprove "baseless allegations with
no foundation that the FBI was out at the back of that compound shooting."
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- But Mike Caddell of Houston, lead lawyer in the Branch
Davidians' wrongful death lawsuit, voiced equal certainty that the results
would show gunfire muzzle blasts similar to repeated flashes recorded by
the FBI in 1993 with an airborne forward-looking-infrared (FLIR) camera.
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- "We're likely to get flashes today that will look
like the flashes from the April 19 FLIR that will be generated by gunfire,"
he said.
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- While video from Sunday's test will not be made public
immediately, both sides promised to discuss their initial assessments of
test data by Monday morning. The supervisors of the test, British infrared
experts chosen by Waco special counsel John C. Danforth and the federal
court in Waco, were expected to release the raw data to both sides late
Sunday after certifying its accuracy.
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- FBI officials have long maintained that their agents
fired no shots on April 19 as they bashed tanks into the sect's home and
injected tear gas to force an end to a 51-day standoff. But lawyers for
the sect say that repeated government gunshots in the last hour of the
assault kept women and children from fleeing when a fire engulfed their
building.
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- Their federal wrongful death lawsuit against the government
alleges that repeated rhythmic flashes recorded by the FBI's infrared camera
on April 19 were caused by government gunfire. While some independent experts
have offered similar assessments of the video, experts for the government
have said that the flashes on the tape lasted too long to be muzzle flashes.
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- Two hour test
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- So both sides took their argument to Fort Hood, gathering
on a breezy, cool and cloudless morning along with their scientists and
a contingent of state, federal and congressional investigators. Also present
were Mr. Danforth and the federal judge hearing the Branch Davidians' case,
U.S. District Judge Walter Smith.
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- For two hours, they watched gunmen armed with weapons
matching those carried by both sides in Waco as they fired repeated volleys.
Armored vehicles like those used by the FBI in Waco also lumbered across
a debris-strewn field as a British Royal Navy helicopter and an FBI aircraft
took turns filming with infrared cameras.
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- In addition to blocking release of the film, Judge Smith
surprised both sides with the announcement that the British experts overseeing
Sunday's operation, Vector Data Systems Ltd., would give the court their
own written analysis of the test within 30 days.
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- Mr. Bradford and Mr. Caddell said they believe the judge
decided to seal the test data to give Vector Data time to prepare a formal
report before the Fort Hood footage becomes public.
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- Both he and Mr. Caddell acknowledged that the court's
request for a full report could mean that Vector Data scientists will be
deposed before the trial. That could mean the court will have to extend
depositions and possibly delay the May 15 trial.
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- Even before the test, some government officials were
cautioning that its results could fuel rather than resolve public debate
over the flashes on the infrared video from the last day of the siege.
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- Arguing begins
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- Minutes after the test ended, the arguing began. A handful
of protesters who attended a joint post-test news conference berated lawyers
for both sides, accusing them of covering up a mass government murder.
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- Branch Davidian fire survivor Clive Doyle also came from
Waco to complain after learning that Mr. Caddell had publicly criticized
Mr. Koresh, the sect's messianic leader.
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- Mr. Bradford told reporters that any gunflashes that
appeared on the test recordings "are going to have to be analyzed.
We're going to have to see how that compares to the April 19 video."
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- While Mr. Caddell predicted that evaluating the data
would be relatively "easy," he reminded reporters that it would
address only a portion of the allegations leveled against the government.
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- Also at issue, he said, is whether the FBI's commanders
exceeded their authority in ordering tanks to begin driving deep into the
building and demolishing its rear on April 19.
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- Mr. Caddell said he also expects to be able to prove
government negligence in the FBI's decision not to try to fight a fire
if one broke out at the compound. He said he also believes that he can
convince a federal judge that the government's agents and tanks contributed
to the fire in which Branch Davidian leader David Koresh and more than
80 followers died.
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- "There is shared responsibility for what happened,"
he said. "David Koresh bears part of that responsibility. And what
our lawsuit is about, I think, is that the government needs to accept its
share of responsibility as well."
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- Looking for gunmen
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- In arguing against the idea of government gunfire, FBI
officials point out that no gunmen are visible anywhere near the repeated
flashes on the April 19 infrared video. In contrast, they predicted that
shooters would clearly be visible in the tapes of the test conducted Sunday.
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- But Mr. Caddell said gunmen would be more likely to show
up in Sunday's test because Sunday's weather was between 15 and 20 degrees
colder than in 1993. Temperatures reached 85 in Waco on April 19 in the
final hour before the compound burned.
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- "If there's a match between the gunfire on April
19 and gunfire at Fort Hood, people are going to overcome questions about
seeing bodies," he said. "I think the bodies are a secondary
issue."
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- He noted that an FBI still camera in another bureau plane
captured a photo of agents standing outside their tanks several hundred
feet away from the rear of the compound on April 19. In a motion last week
in federal court, Mr. Caddell stated that his comparison of FBI still and
infrared photos pegged that image as having been taken at 11:35 a.m.
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- Mr. Caddell said those elongated dark shapes of men on
the ground look remarkably similar to shapes that appeared in a courtyard
at the rear of the compound at 11:43 a.m. on the infrared video.
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- The April 19 video shows repeated white flashes emanating
just after 11:43 a.m. from the same area of the courtyard where the dark
shapes appeared on the still picture, Mr. Caddell.
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- "We're really focusing on this because of their
effort to prove their argument by saying you can't see bodies on the April
19 tape," Mr. Caddell said. "There are times when you can see
bodies. . . . The bodies are hard to find. They clearly are taking cover.
But if you look, you can see see bodies."
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- Asked about the 11:43 a.m. photograph, FBI officials
repeated their long-held position that no agents left protection of their
armored vehicles anywhere near the compound until after it caught fire.
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- "Why would they go there? Why would they do that?
What would they accomplish? They would be completely open to Davidian gunfire,"
one official said of the shapes in the courtyard picture. "There's
just no common-sense explanation of why anyone would go right into the
open fully exposed to Davidian gunfire."
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- FBI officials added that determining what the shapes
might be would require far more sophisticated analysis, noting that they
appear to the naked eye to be shorter than the black shapes of men photographed
earlier near the FBI tanks.
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- Test conditions
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- Media organizations had sought access to the test. But
Judge Smith barred reporters at Mr. Danforth's request.
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- The lawyers, their scientists and other observers gathered
just before 9 a.m. at the U.S. Army's III Corps headquarters building and
were driven by bus to a remote, heavily guarded firing range.
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- The test got under way about 11 a.m, after temperatures
rose to 59 degrees. By the time it ended at 2 p.m., the temperature was
about 69.
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- The British helicopter and the FBI plane recorded the
test gun shots and other ground maneuvers from an altitude of 4,000 feet
and then filmed again at 6,000 feet. The Waco infrared footage was shot
at roughly 4,500 feet.
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- In addition to the gunshots, the cameras took footage
of men maneuvering in different types of camouflage gear. At issue is how
the heat-sensing camera's ability to detect body heat from humans might
be diminished by different kinds of camouflage clothing or body armor.
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- Armored vehicles matching those used by the FBI in Waco
were filmed driving over fields of aluminum, glass and other debris, and
the cameras also shot footage of pools of standing water and a family-sized
dome tent specially rigged with reflective aluminum coated "space"
blankets.
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- Government officials requested that the aluminum-covered
tent be included in the test to guarantee that at least some flashes on
the test recordings would be generated from sunlight reflections.
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- The British aircraft was borrowed and flown in from England
late last week because its infrared camera, a GEC-Marconi Sea Owl, is near-identical
to the FBI's Waco camera.
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- Both sides agreed that camera would provide official
test results, because the FBI's camera from 1993 has been upgraded. That
camera, mounted in the same "Nightstalker" aircraft used at Waco,
was to provide backup test data at Fort Hood.
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- Representatives from Mr. Danforth's office flew in both
aircraft to observe the operation of the infrared cameras. Under previously
agreed protocols, each camera was set to specific NATO infrared standards
used by U.S. and European military forces.
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