-Caveat Lector- ATF attempts to block search for siege evidence Judge acts to let Rangers look for tear-gas shell 09/04/99 http://www.dallasmorningnews.com/specials/waco/0904waco1evidence.htm By Lee Hancock / The Dallas Morning News A federal judge was forced to intervene Friday after the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms tried to block Texas Rangers from searching a Waco storage facility for evidence that pyrotechnic devices were fired at the Branch Davidian complex. The brief skirmish came as FBI officials in Washington released the second of two newly discovered aerial videotapes that include conversations between FBI commanders about the use of combustible tear-gas canisters. On the tape, which runs from 7:57 a.m. to just before 9:30 a.m. on the final day of the siege, agents report that "military gas" fired at an underground bunker adjacent to the compound had failed to penetrate its target. In other developments Friday, law enforcement officials provided The Dallas Morning News more details of what the FBI had denied for six years until recently - that military-issue tear-gas canisters were used in the April 19, 1993, assault near Waco. For instance: * FBI officials said last week they discovered a Feb. 15, 1996, internal memo acknowledging the use of "two or three military gas rounds" during the siege among files of the agency's general counsel's office. A federal official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Friday that the memo stated that no military tear gas was fired directly at the compound because of "the potential for causing a fire." The FBI had prepared the memo in response to questions raised by U.S. Justice Department lawyers defending a wrongful-death lawsuit filed by Branch Davidians and their families. * A General Accounting Office report on military assistance at the siege found that FBI agents had obtained 50 40 mm "illumination rounds," or flares, and 250 40 mm "high explosive" rounds from the U.S. Army for use during the standoff. All of the rounds can be fired with the hand-held M-79 grenade launchers that FBI agents used to send tear-gas rounds into the compound, according to the report, which was released last week. Illumination rounds were used by FBI teams to burn down the cabin hideout of white supremacist Robert Matthews after he shot and wounded one FBI agent and engaged in a gunbattle with others in 1984. Reason for rounds When asked Friday about the need for such devices during the Branch Davidian siege, an FBI official said the illumination rounds were probably sought from the military because "we had people sneaking in [to the compound] at night, and we had people trying to sneak out. "But why they had the H-E [high explosive] rounds, I don't know," said the official, who spoke on the condition he would not be named. Cult leader David Koresh and about 80 followers died during a fire that broke out after noon on April 19, 1993, at the end of a 51-day standoff with the FBI. The siege began Feb. 28, 1993, with a deadly shootout as federal agents tried to arrest Mr. Koresh on weapons charges. The government's admission that pyrotechnic devices were used came only after a former FBI official told The News that two military CS tear-gas grenades had been fired at the bunker. The FBI has said the canisters did not cause the blaze. Attorney General Janet Reno told reporters Friday that she had expressly ordered the FBI not to use pyrotechnic devices of any kind when she approved their plan to assault the Branch Davidian compound with tanks and tear gas. "What I asked for were assurances - and I received assurances - that we would not use incendiary devices or pyrotechnic means of delivering incendiary devices. And I made no distinction between any part of the compound," she said. Infrared tapes U.S. marshals dispatched by the Justice Department found aerial infrared videotapes spanning the first hours of the early-morning assault at the FBI offices in Quantico, Va. A tape released Thursday captured a radio transmission in which the FBI's Hostage Rescue Team commander, Richard M. Rogers, granted permission for an agent to fire military tear-gas rounds at the bunker. The tape released Friday includes transmissions of agents saying the military canisters fired from a Bradley fighting vehicle didn't get into the bunker. "The military gas did not penetrate that bunker. . . . It bounced off," a male voice says at 8:08 a.m. Texas Rangers began uncovering evidence that pyrotechnic tear-gas rounds were used by the FBI almost a month before the latest disclosures. The Rangers were brought in when the Branch Davidian standoff began, and they were asked by the Justice Department to keep all of the key evidence from the resulting criminal investigations and trials. This summer, the Rangers began an inquiry to try to resolve questions about unidentified shell casings and projectiles in their evidence lockers. They have identified one of the shell casings as part of an M-651 military CS tear-gas round fired by the FBI on April 19. They have not located a spent M-651 round that was photographed in 1993 by investigators at the Branch Davidian compound. Rangers' search On Friday, the Rangers traveled to Waco to try to find the device in a large storage locker containing evidence recovered from the compound that was not considered relevant to the criminal investigation or trial. Law-enforcement officials in Texas said the Rangers were allowed to search boxes of wreckage from the compound only after U.S. District Judge Walter Smith was called. Before that call, the officials said, agents from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms assigned to maintain custody of that evidence trove told the Rangers that their lawyers in Washington had ordered them to deny the Rangers entry. "We managed to resolve it by taking it to the judge, but this is just an indication of how strange things have gotten," said one official who spoke on condition of anonymity. An ATF spokesman in Washington declined to comment Friday. And Texas officials said they did not find the missing round at the storage locker. The dust-up came one day after Judge Smith denied a Justice Department motion to reconsider his demand that the government collect all evidence and documents relating to the standoff and deliver it to his district clerk's office. DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory', with its many half-truths, misdirections and outright frauds is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRL gives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credeence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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