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Bill Buford — Surviving the Waco Raid as an ATF Agent | Part 1 · Heroes Behind the Badge

0:23
Bill Buford I'd been shot several times already, three times, and
0:27
Bill Buford I had gotten out of the arms room up there and fallen off of the
0:31
Bill Buford roof, and I was just laying on the ground.
0:37
Bill Buford Somebody started shooting at me from one of
0:39
Bill Buford the windows and creased me across the nose.
0:44
Bill Buford Rob raised up and fired at whoever it was that was shooting at me
0:48
Bill Buford and backed them out of the window.
0:50
Bill Buford But in doing so, he exposed himself and he was shot and killed
0:56
Bill Buford instantly.
0:58
Bill Buford He was about five feet from me.
1:00
Bill Buford He was such a good kid.
1:11
Dennis Collins What the heck were these guys getting ready for?
1:15
Dennis Collins 305 total firearms in their compound, semi-automatic AKs and ARs,
1:22
Dennis Collins 46 semi-automatic firearms modified to fully automatic, hand
1:28
Dennis Collins grenades, 16 AR-15 rifles, 2 AR-15 automatic rifles,
1:36
Dennis Collins 39 auto sear devices that convert receivers to fire automatically.
1:41
Dennis Collins I mean, this was a small army.
1:48
Paul Boomer Bill Buford's team had one day's notice that their raid on the
1:51
Paul Boomer Branch Davidians had been compromised.
1:54
Paul Boomer What happened next would change ATF forever.
1:57
Dennis Collins We sometimes get wrapped up in our guest stories.
2:02
Dennis Collins We don't want to tell the story.
2:04
Dennis Collins We want you to tell the story.
2:05
Dennis Collins You lived it.
2:06
Dennis Collins As I was preparing for this, we always start our podcast, Bill, by
2:11
Dennis Collins obviously welcoming our guest, Bill Buford.
2:14
Dennis Collins We are true.
2:15
Dennis Collins We're glad you're here.
2:17
Dennis Collins And then I looked into your resume.
2:22
Dennis Collins I was shot six times, stabbed once and blown up once.
2:27
Dennis Collins Wow.
2:27
Dennis Collins That's correct.
2:28
Dennis Collins So we are really glad you're here.
2:31
Dennis Collins You are.
2:32
Dennis Collins Oh my.
2:33
Dennis Collins I'm sure you are.
2:35
Dennis Collins And I saw your lovely wife before
2:38
Dennis Collins we started, and I'll bet she is too.
2:40
Dennis Collins You probably saw more in your career, both in the service and in
2:46
Dennis Collins ATF than most law enforcement
2:48
Dennis Collins officers ever see ever in their career.
2:51
Dennis Collins So we are particularly glad to have you here.
2:55
Dennis Collins You have an impressive record of service to your fellow Americans,
2:59
Dennis Collins to our country, and we'll get into all that.
3:02
Dennis Collins But first, we want to focus on something that maybe is one of the
3:07
Dennis Collins more notorious situations you were involved in.
3:11
Dennis Collins That fateful day, February 28th, 1993.
3:15
Dennis Collins Most Americans, most of us that were alive, and we realized some of
3:20
Dennis Collins our audience wasn't around in 1993.
3:23
Dennis Collins So most Americans watched the incident
3:26
Dennis Collins near Waco, Texas at Mount Carmel on TV.
3:30
Dennis Collins You, however, were part of a select team of ATF agents selected to
3:36
Dennis Collins serve search warrants and arrest warrants on
3:40
Dennis Collins the Branch Davidians headed by David Koresh.
3:43
Dennis Collins Let's say, Bill, that the warrant service went well.
3:49
Dennis Collins You had arrest warrants and search warrants.
3:51
Dennis Collins What would have been the outcome that you were planning for?
3:55
Dennis Collins Would all of the Branch Davidians
3:57
Dennis Collins be arrested, or just some of them?
3:59
Dennis Collins Or would the weapons all be seized?
4:02
Dennis Collins Or what was going to happen had that been successful?
4:06
Bill Buford Well, definitely the weapons would have been seized.
4:10
Bill Buford The hand grenades would have been seized.
4:12
Bill Buford They had a million rounds of ammunition.
4:16
Bill Buford And that all would have been seized.
4:18
Bill Buford Yeah, I heard it was two million.
4:20
Bill Buford Yeah.
4:21
Bill Buford What's a million or so?
4:24
Bill Buford Yeah, lots of million.
4:26
Bill Buford The Texas Rangers said that they
4:29
Bill Buford estimated they fired 11,000 rounds at us that day.
4:33
Bill Buford And we returned about 1,000 rounds.
4:37
Bill Buford I know why myself, while I was in the room upstairs, I fired nearly
4:42
Bill Buford 100 rounds, which is unbelievable in a police conflict.
4:45
Bill Buford Wow, it is.
4:48
Dennis Collins Anyway, it's...
4:50
Dennis Collins What about the arrests?
4:52
Dennis Collins Did you have arrest warrants for all of them or some of them?
4:56
Bill Buford Just for Koresh.
4:58
Bill Buford Oh, Koresh, okay.
4:59
Bill Buford My guess would be that most of the Davidians, the males, and some
5:04
Bill Buford of the females would have been charged under a conspiracy statute
5:09
Bill Buford with putting together the weapons.
5:11
Bill Buford There was one female
5:15
Bill Buford in the compound that had been a,
5:18
Bill Buford I think it was a Dade County, or at least a law enforcement
5:22
Bill Buford officer, a police officer in Florida somewhere.
5:25
Bill Buford And she was shooting, she was actually killed that day, but
5:30
Bill Buford she was firing an M16 out of the windows.
5:34
Dennis Collins And you guys went in there, and from
5:37
Dennis Collins what I'm told, you had to go a day early.
5:39
Dennis Collins Tell us about what happened and why you went in when you went in,
5:45
Dennis Collins even though they were tipped off.
5:47
Dennis Collins Tell us about that.
5:49
Bill Buford Well, we had planned to do the raid actually on the Monday after
5:55
Bill Buford the 28th, which would have been the first.
5:58
Bill Buford And the local newspaper was writing a bunch of articles on Koresh,
6:04
Bill Buford and we had asked them to not publish those until...
6:08
Bill Buford Because we had an investigation going, and they said, "We have our
6:13
Bill Buford First Amendment rights, and we'll publish whenever we want to."
6:17
Bill Buford They told us they would let us know 24 hours before they published.
6:22
Bill Buford They didn't.
6:23
Bill Buford The first article came out on Saturday evening, and the leaders of
6:32
Bill Buford ATF, the people who were big time in charge,
6:36
Bill Buford said, "Can you go a day early?"
6:39
Bill Buford And so we said, "Yeah, we can go on a day early."
6:42
Bill Buford We'd been training down at Fort Hood, Texas for a couple of days.
6:45
Bill Buford And we felt like we were ready to go,
6:47
Bill Buford so they moved it up to Sundays at 28th.
6:52
Dennis Collins The day was particularly poignant for you and for the ATF and
6:58
Dennis Collins really all of America, because on that
7:02
Dennis Collins day, four of your colleagues were lost.
7:07
Dennis Collins You were seriously injured.
7:10
Dennis Collins One of the events we referred to at the beginning of this podcast,
7:14
Dennis Collins and I'm sure that day will live forever in your mind.
7:19
Dennis Collins How do you...
7:20
Dennis Collins Looking back now, what, 33-some
7:22
Dennis Collins years, how do you feel about what happened?
7:25
Dennis Collins The deaths of your colleagues, your serious
7:27
Dennis Collins injuries, how does that all sit with you today?
7:31
Bill Buford Well, I think about it every day, even though it's been so long.
7:36
Bill Buford I think about the guys that I lost that day, Steve Willis,
7:43
Bill Buford Conway LeBleu, Todd McKeehan, and Rob Williams.
7:49
Bill Buford And I think about what maybe I could have done different that would
7:54
Bill Buford have maybe saved their lives, but I
7:58
Bill Buford haven't come up with anything yet.
8:00
Dennis Collins Yeah, that's got to be tough.
8:02
Dennis Collins I understand, and we'd love you to tell this
8:05
Dennis Collins story if I got it right, that Williams actually
8:09
Dennis Collins probably saved your life.
8:11
Dennis Collins Is that accurate?
8:12
Bill Buford That's accurate, yes.
8:15
Bill Buford I'd been shot several times already, three times, and I had gotten
8:20
Bill Buford out of the arms room up there and fallen off of
8:23
Bill Buford the roof, and I was just laying on the ground.
8:27
Bill Buford And somebody started shooting at me from one
8:30
Bill Buford of the windows and creased me across the nose,
8:35
Bill Buford and Rob raised up and fired at whoever it was that was shooting at
8:40
Bill Buford me and backed them out of the window, but in doing so, he exposed
8:43
Bill Buford himself, and he was shot and killed instantly.
8:50
Bill Buford He was about five feet from me.
8:51
Bill Buford He was such a good kid.
8:54
Bill Buford He was more like a son than another agent to me.
8:58
Bill Buford That had to be tough.
9:00
Dennis Collins I know there's a picture of you two that I've seen standing next to
9:05
Dennis Collins a monument, and do you recall what's inscribed on that monument?
9:11
Bill Buford Yes, I do.
9:12
Bill Buford It's great to love that no man that
9:15
Bill Buford he laid down his life for his friends.
9:17
Bill Buford Wow.
9:19
Bill Buford Yes, Rob did for me.
9:20
Bill Buford Okay.
9:22
Dennis Collins We've all heard that, but not too many of us
9:27
Dennis Collins have had to experience that, and that has to be
9:33
Dennis Collins unbelievable.
9:35
Bill Erfirth It really is.
9:36
Bill Erfirth Yeah.
9:37
Bill Erfirth So, Bill, Dennis brought up the really strong point about the
9:44
Bill Erfirth hundreds of weapons that they used,
9:47
Bill Erfirth and AK-47s, and all kinds of weaponry.
9:53
Bill Erfirth There's a story also that they were going to go into town to a
9:57
Bill Erfirth McDonald's and kill everybody at the McDonald's.
10:01
Bill Erfirth There's a lot of criminality involved in this cult, but
10:06
Bill Erfirth what was their intention?
10:08
Bill Erfirth That was Dennis's question earlier, and
10:10
Bill Erfirth that was something that I'm curious about.
10:12
Bill Erfirth I mean, why were they stockpiling all these weapons?
10:16
Bill Erfirth What was their intention?
10:18
Bill Buford Well, for the best I know, they had intended, or what David Koresh
10:24
Bill Buford thought he was Jesus Christ, or he
10:26
Bill Buford had them believing he was Jesus Christ.
10:29
Bill Buford Of course, he wasn't anywhere close to that, but
10:32
Bill Buford he had prophesied that they would all be killed.
10:36
Bill Buford All of the people in his community would be
10:39
Bill Buford killed, and then they would, by law enforcement.
10:44
Bill Buford And
10:45
Bill Buford that they, on the third day, they would all be resurrected, and
10:48
Bill Buford they'd live with him forever in the Garden of Eden.
10:52
Bill Buford And so, we kind of played into his hand when we
10:57
Bill Buford raided the place,
10:59
Bill Buford because he said, "Here they come," just like I predicted, I guess.
11:03
Bill Buford Nobody knows what he actually said, but anyway,
11:08
Bill Buford he had predicted or had prophesied that they would all die at the
11:14
Bill Buford hands of law enforcement, and that they had to fight as much as
11:19
Bill Buford they could before they were all killed, and so that they could all
11:26
Bill Buford be resurrected and live in the Garden of Eden.
11:29
Bill Buford Wow.
11:30
Bill Erfirth So, Bill, what was the beginning?
11:31
Bill Erfirth What was the beginning of this story, long before the mission where
11:35
Bill Erfirth you guys went to the Waco location there and David Koresh and the
11:41
Bill Erfirth whole story that so many people know about?
11:44
Bill Erfirth What was the impetus of the investigation?
11:46
Bill Erfirth What was the very first thing that brought law
11:49
Bill Erfirth enforcement and the ATF's attention to these folks?
11:54
Bill Buford The sheriff in the county there had been getting complaints from
11:58
Bill Buford people in the neighborhood about explosions and automatic weapons
12:02
Bill Buford fire coming from the compound, and he went to, first went to the
12:07
Bill Buford FBI, and they said, "Look, we don't want anything to do with it, or
12:10
Bill Buford it's not our jurisdiction, something," and so they came to ATF and
12:15
Bill Buford talked to Dave Aguilera, who was an agent out of Austin, and Dave
12:20
Bill Buford Aguilera started investigating, and he was able to determine, get
12:25
Bill Buford enough probable cause on the weapons that they were putting
12:30
Bill Buford together, the fully automatic weapons and
12:33
Bill Buford the hand grenades to get the search work.
12:36
Bill Buford It took him about a year to do so.
12:39
Bill Erfirth And now, didn't he actually infiltrate the group?
12:43
Bill Erfirth No, that was Robert Rodriguez.
12:45
Bill Erfirth That was Robert, okay, got it.
12:47
Bill Buford Robert Rodriguez was part of a surveillance team that we had across
12:50
Bill Buford the road watching the compound, and Robert went over one day, and
12:56
Bill Buford they had a horse trainer running around, horse trainers out in
13:01
Bill Buford front, and he went over and acted like he was interested in that
13:05
Bill Buford horse trainer and got to Koresh, and Koresh invited him to come
13:09
Bill Buford in and attend worship services with him, and he was able to do so.
13:16
Bill Buford It took a lot of courage on his part.
13:18
Bill Buford He is really an unsung hero,
13:20
Bill Buford as far as I'm concerned, cause he was in amongst them, and on the
13:25
Bill Buford morning that we actually raided the place, he was lucky to have got
13:28
Bill Buford out of there alive because they realized the media, the television
13:33
Bill Buford crew tipped them off that we were on the way,
13:36
Bill Buford and so Robert had to get out of there in a hurry.
13:41
Bill Erfirth And so how long was Robert doing that?
13:44
Bill Buford For about
13:47
Bill Buford two to three weeks, he would go over there,
13:50
Bill Buford not every day I don't think, but he would go over there two or
13:53
Bill Buford three times a week and talk with Koresh,
13:59
Bill Buford and attended
14:01
Bill Buford some of his worship services.
14:04
Bill Erfirth So the investigation gets started, and you guys are looking into
14:08
Bill Erfirth the amount of guns, and as you had mentioned,
14:11
Bill Erfirth the sheriff's getting the complaints and whatnot.
14:14
Bill Erfirth There was one individual that was part of the group that was a
14:19
Bill Erfirth registered firearms dealer, I believe, and
14:25
Bill Erfirth was that how they were able to procure all these weapons, or was
14:30
Bill Erfirth there some other kind of criminal channel where law enforcement's
14:35
Bill Erfirth attention was focused on that as
14:36
Bill Erfirth to how these weapons were obtained?
14:39
Bill Buford They bought a lot of them, that's through the
14:41
Bill Buford mail, and obtained a lot of the stuff at gun shows.
14:46
Bill Buford They actually had the women were
14:50
Bill Buford making backpacks and camouflage stuff that they would sell at gun
14:54
Bill Buford shows, and so they got to know a lot of the people, and although
14:58
Bill Buford 99% of the people at gun shows are totally legitimate, there's
15:01
Bill Buford always a few there that will cross the line, and apparently they
15:07
Bill Buford got in contact with some of the people crossing the line, and they
15:09
Bill Buford provided them with the parts to convert the weapons from
15:15
Bill Buford semi-automatic to full automatic.
15:19
Bill Erfirth Like, I want to just make one statement, because there's a lot out
15:23
Bill Erfirth there in the media, there's a lot out there in the world about this
15:26
Bill Erfirth whole incident, but I'm just going to say my opinion.
15:30
Bill Erfirth My opinion is, if you've got a group of people that have hundreds
15:35
Bill Erfirth of weapons and hand grenades, and there's allegations of sexual
15:40
Bill Erfirth assault and drug trafficking and all these kind of things, and then
15:44
Bill Erfirth you've got a certain percentage of the population that wants to
15:48
Bill Erfirth discuss all these conspiracy theories, I don't know how you can
15:52
Bill Erfirth really wrap your head around the fact that all things and having
15:54
Bill Erfirth all those weapons, that there's not some wrongdoing to begin with.
15:58
Bill Erfirth You know, it's kind of the culture of not being able to take
16:02
Bill Erfirth responsibility, and clearly all of the investigations, the
16:08
Bill Erfirth complaints, whatever you want to call it, if they hadn't been doing
16:13
Bill Erfirth what they were doing, the end story never would have happened.
16:17
Bill Erfirth You never would have been shot, you
16:18
Bill Erfirth never would have had to been there.
16:20
Bill Erfirth Law enforcement wouldn't have had to intervene.
16:23
Bill Erfirth So I just want to put blame where
16:25
Bill Erfirth blame belongs, and Craig, it's all yours.
16:30
Craig Floyd Bill and I have known each other for many years now, and I'm so
16:34
Craig Floyd thankful that he's our guest here today.
16:37
Craig Floyd He was part of a panel discussion we had at the National Law
16:40
Craig Floyd Enforcement Museum called Witness to History, and we talked about
16:44
Craig Floyd what happened at Waco and the agents who died there.
16:47
Craig Floyd We've mentioned them before, I'm going to say their names again,
16:50
Craig Floyd Steve Willis, Conway LeBleu, Todd McKeehan, and Rob Williams.
16:56
Craig Floyd I mean, these are heroes, law enforcement heroes who died in the
17:01
Craig Floyd line of duty doing a job that they didn't make the decision to go
17:06
Craig Floyd in themselves, but they were willing and they were very able to
17:10
Craig Floyd carry out a difficult and very dangerous job.
17:13
Craig Floyd Bill, what I want you to talk about is, so you made the decision,
17:19
Craig Floyd somebody did, the higher ups, I suppose, to go
17:22
Craig Floyd in a day early, all right, on February 28, 1993.
17:27
Craig Floyd And obviously, you had put together quite a team.
17:31
Craig Floyd So you knew that trouble was possible.
17:34
Craig Floyd You knew that you might meet with resistance.
17:38
Craig Floyd And the element of surprise was obviously
17:41
Craig Floyd important to carry out this mission as safe
17:45
Craig Floyd agents and for the Branch Davidians themselves.
17:49
Craig Floyd You lost that element of surprise.
17:51
Craig Floyd As you alluded to earlier,
17:54
Craig Floyd Koresh and his followers were tipped off that ATF agents were
17:58
Craig Floyd coming, that a group of law enforcement agents were going to be
18:02
Craig Floyd coming to their doorstep serving warrants, and they decided they
18:08
Craig Floyd were ready to resist and confront those agents.
18:14
Craig Floyd Once you lost that element of surprise, the decision was still to
18:18
Craig Floyd go in, and all hell broke loose, as we know,
18:22
Craig Floyd and agents were killed. 28 agents were wounded.
18:26
Craig Floyd Why was the decision to go in when you knew
18:30
Craig Floyd that Koresh and his followers were waiting for you?
18:34
Bill Buford That's a question I've asked for 30-some years.
18:39
Bill Buford We needed the element of surprise.
18:42
Bill Buford And at one point,
18:44
Bill Buford Robert Rodriguez came out and said, "Hey, they know we're coming."
18:49
Bill Buford Actually, a television crew had
18:52
Bill Buford talked to a mailman, a local mailman.
18:56
Bill Buford Only the mailman was a rural mail carrier, and he was the son of
19:00
Bill Buford the number two man inside the compound.
19:03
Bill Buford And he immediately drove to the compound and informed Koresh
19:08
Bill Buford that ATF was coming, according to these television reporters.
19:14
Bill Buford And
19:17
Bill Buford I know when one of the assistant tactical
19:24
Bill Buford came over to where we were staging
19:27
Bill Buford and said, "They know we're coming.
19:28
Bill Buford We got to go right now."
19:31
Bill Buford So everybody get loaded up.
19:33
Bill Buford And to this day, I wish I had said, "No, we can't go."
19:37
Bill Buford But I didn't.
19:38
Bill Buford I was a good soldier.
19:39
Bill Buford I put on my gear, and we loaded up and started going.
19:42
Bill Buford But that's something that bothers me all the time.
19:45
Bill Buford Why didn't I just try to stop it right there?
19:48
Bill Buford I don't know if you would have listened to
19:50
Bill Buford me, but once I was ordered to go, I went.
19:53
Craig Floyd But I was a lawyer.
19:54
Craig Floyd You were a good soldier.
19:55
Craig Floyd You did what you were told to do.
19:56
Craig Floyd Yeah.
19:58
Bill Buford Yeah.
19:59
Craig Floyd One of the things that's confusing to me, and I probably knew this
20:03
Craig Floyd many years ago, but helped me understand why you as the resident
20:07
Craig Floyd agent in charge of Little Rock,
20:09
Craig Floyd Arkansas, were brought into this Waco, Texas.
20:14
Craig Floyd Let's serve the warrants in Waco, Texas.
20:16
Craig Floyd Why did they reach you in Little
20:19
Craig Floyd Rock, Arkansas to be a part of this?
20:21
Bill Buford Well, at that time, ATF, each field division
20:26
Bill Buford had a special response team or a SWAT team.
20:31
Bill Buford And the Houston office, which covered Waco,
20:39
Bill Buford felt like they needed additional help.
20:41
Bill Buford So they brought in contiguous states.
20:44
Bill Buford They brought in Dallas, the Dallas SRT, and the New Orleans SRT.
20:49
Bill Buford We were the closest ones to them.
20:51
Bill Buford And so that's the reason we were brought down there.
20:55
Bill Buford We didn't have anything to do with the investigation, actually.
20:58
Bill Buford Dave Aguilera did a great job on it.
21:01
Bill Buford And we were just brought in.
21:05
Bill Buford I think we first were notified in late November or early December,
21:10
Bill Buford and we started trying to plan how we
21:12
Bill Buford would try to execute the warrant at that time.
21:17
Craig Floyd You're lying in the hospital, I suppose, for quite a while, shot
21:22
Craig Floyd four times with semi-automatic weaponry.
21:28
Craig Floyd And then the siege lasted until April 19th.
21:33
Craig Floyd All right.
21:33
Craig Floyd So you went in to serve the warrants on
21:35
Craig Floyd February 28th, you and your team of ATF agents.
21:39
Craig Floyd And then after the shootout had quieted down, then the FBI, I
21:45
Craig Floyd believe, took over the circumstances.
21:49
Craig Floyd They were in charge of what was
21:51
Craig Floyd happening at Mount Carmel after that point.
21:54
Craig Floyd And that lasted until April 19th.
21:57
Craig Floyd And a lot of us saw it live on television, Mount Carmel, Koresh
22:02
Craig Floyd and his followers, their campus there in flames.
22:08
Craig Floyd And we're still, I guess, not 100% sure how that fire started.
22:12
Craig Floyd Many people believe, as I do, that
22:14
Craig Floyd they started those fires themselves.
22:17
Craig Floyd But maybe we'll never get to the final answer on that.
22:20
Craig Floyd I'd like your thoughts.
22:21
Craig Floyd But what are you thinking?
22:25
Craig Floyd I don't know if you were still in the hospital at this point, but
22:28
Craig Floyd here we are on April 19th,
22:30
Craig Floyd Koresh's followers, Mount Carmel is in flames.
22:34
Craig Floyd And four of your colleagues died, 28 agents wounded.
22:39
Craig Floyd What's going through your head at that point?
22:41
Craig Floyd And as Dennis talked about earlier,
22:44
Craig Floyd what are you thinking about those days?
22:47
Craig Floyd Here we are 33 years later.
22:50
Bill Buford Well,
22:52
Bill Buford it's still difficult to think about.
22:56
Bill Buford But
22:57
Bill Buford as far as the fire is concerned, there's no doubt in my mind, I've
23:01
Bill Buford heard some of the tapes that the FBI had of the Davidians inside,
23:07
Bill Buford yelling, David said, like the fires, like the fires.
23:10
Bill Buford And four independent arson investigators, not ATF, not FBI, did an
23:17
Bill Buford investigation into the origin of fires.
23:19
Bill Buford And they found four separate points of origin inside the building
23:24
Bill Buford that indicated that the fires had to be set because you couldn't
23:28
Bill Buford have had spontaneous fire startup in four places all at once.
23:33
Bill Buford And one of the things that a lot of people claimed was that the FBI
23:36
Bill Buford must have started it when they put in
23:39
Bill Buford the gas to try to get them to come out.
23:41
Bill Buford And that is absolutely false.
23:43
Bill Buford The gas they put in there was not flammable.
23:46
Bill Buford And so I
23:50
Bill Buford remember watching it, I was out of the hospital at the time.
23:54
Bill Buford And I remember watching the fire.
23:57
Bill Buford And thinking, my God, what's happening to those children?
24:01
Bill Buford That was the thing that bothered me the most.
24:04
Bill Buford We got some of the children out of there, but the children that
24:07
Bill Buford that died that day, I think there was over 20.
24:10
Bill Buford And
24:12
Bill Buford later, the autopsies on a lot of the children showed that most of
24:17
Bill Buford them were either shot, stabbed or
24:18
Bill Buford bludgeoned to death before the fire.
24:20
Bill Buford They had no smoke in their lungs.
24:22
Bill Buford Their parents killed them before the fire got to them.
24:25
Craig Floyd Unbelievable. 76 people, branch Davidians died
24:30
Craig Floyd at that time on April 19th.
24:34
Craig Floyd And then four ATF agents had died on February 28th.
24:37
Craig Floyd So we lost 80 people as a result of what happened at Waco.
24:43
Craig Floyd One of the things that really bothered me after that, and I was at
24:47
Craig Floyd the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund, we had a
24:50
Craig Floyd memorial service for the four ATF agents who died at the National
24:55
Craig Floyd Law Enforcement Officers Memorial.
24:57
Craig Floyd It was one of the most moving, most
25:00
Craig Floyd powerful ceremonies I've ever been a part of.
25:04
Craig Floyd But it really bothered me at that point in time.
25:06
Craig Floyd This was probably 30 days later after things had settled down.
25:11
Craig Floyd And there were still ATF agents that were
25:13
Craig Floyd coming to that ceremony on crutches and bandages.
25:17
Craig Floyd You were probably one of them, frankly.
25:19
Craig Floyd I didn't know you at the time.
25:21
Craig Floyd But you know what really bothered me was
25:24
Craig Floyd the NRA, a lot of people in this country were
25:28
Craig Floyd calling ATF agents jackbooted government thugs.
25:32
Craig Floyd You were being criticized for overstepping your bounds.
25:37
Craig Floyd Everybody thought Koresh's followers or a lot of people
25:40
Craig Floyd thought maybe they didn't need to be bothered by the federal
25:44
Craig Floyd government, but they were not bothered by ATF agents.
25:46
Craig Floyd And I think we've explained why it was so
25:48
Craig Floyd important for those warrants to be served.
25:51
Craig Floyd ATF agents didn't make that decision.
25:54
Craig Floyd All right.
25:54
Craig Floyd The men and women who went in there that day to serve those
25:58
Craig Floyd warrants, that wasn't your decision to go in there.
26:00
Craig Floyd But you were told to do a job and you were willing to do it.
26:06
Craig Floyd And I just have to believe that you, after almost dying as a result
26:11
Craig Floyd of serving those warrants, you knew that
26:13
Craig Floyd four of your colleagues did die in service.
26:17
Craig Floyd And then to be called jackbooted government thugs, to be
26:20
Craig Floyd criticized, vilified by the media and others, that bothered me.
26:26
Craig Floyd And I'm just curious, how did that affect you and your colleagues
26:31
Craig Floyd as a result of all that criticism?
26:35
Bill Buford Criticism was terrible.
26:37
Bill Buford I know 99.9% of it was totally false.
26:42
Bill Buford I know I was accused of being, well, I
26:45
Bill Buford was a friend of Bill Clinton's at the time.
26:48
Bill Buford Bill Clinton was the, of course, the
26:52
Bill Buford governor of Arkansas before he became president.
26:55
Bill Buford He was also the attorney general.
26:58
Bill Buford And in my law enforcement activities in Arkansas prior to him
27:04
Bill Buford becoming president, he and I were acquainted.
27:07
Bill Buford And I wouldn't say we were really close
27:08
Bill Buford friends, but we were certainly acquaintances.
27:12
Bill Buford And I was accused of, at one point, one of the magazines came out
27:17
Bill Buford and said that I killed all four guys, four of our guys at Waco
27:21
Bill Buford because they had been Bill Clinton's bodyguards.
27:24
Bill Buford Well, none of them had been on a secret
27:26
Bill Buford service detail and worked for Clinton at all.
27:29
Bill Buford That was totally false.
27:30
Bill Buford But there were so many things like that
27:33
Bill Buford that came out that were just ridiculous.
27:36
Bill Buford And it hurt.
27:38
Bill Buford It hurt really bad to see all that and not be able to respond.
27:43
Bill Buford There was one particular magazine
27:45
Bill Buford that had some articles about me that were
27:49
Bill Buford pretty bad.
27:50
Bill Buford And I asked a lawyer friend of mine,
27:53
Bill Buford you know, can I sue that son of a gun?
27:56
Bill Buford And they know you're considered a public
27:58
Bill Buford figure and therefore you wouldn't be able to sue.
28:01
Bill Buford So we wasn't able to, but I didn't want any money.
28:04
Bill Buford I just wanted them to eat their words because it was just so false.
28:10
Bill Buford And most of the stuff was ridiculous that
28:13
Bill Buford they were saying just absolutely ridiculous.
28:16
Bill Buford You know, nobody wanted it.
28:20
Craig Floyd And how about the families of, you know, Steve Willis, Conway Le
28:24
Craig Floyd Blue, Todd McKeehan and Rob Williams, you know, they're listening to
28:27
Craig Floyd all of this and their loved ones were gone.
28:32
Craig Floyd This is just so upsetting to me.
28:35
Craig Floyd Let's change the tone a bit.
28:38
Craig Floyd Reforms that came out of Waco.
28:40
Craig Floyd Obviously there were mistakes made, decisions
28:44
Craig Floyd that went awry and a lot of second guessing occurred.
28:47
Craig Floyd But help me understand what happened at ATF after Waco to maybe
28:53
Craig Floyd prevent something like that from ever happening again.
28:56
Craig Floyd Such a tragedy.
28:58
Bill Buford Well, they formalized the raid plans that we had to submit before
29:02
Bill Buford you could get an arrest warrant or a search warrant.
29:06
Bill Buford And you had to lay out exactly what you had, how you had planned to
29:11
Bill Buford execute the warrant, why, when and where.
29:15
Bill Buford And before that, we, I had a written raid plan, it was handwritten
29:23
Bill Buford and I testified before Congress and
29:25
Bill Buford they said you had no written raid plan.
29:27
Bill Buford I told them, yes, we did have a written raid plan.
29:30
Bill Buford I wrote it.
29:32
Bill Buford They said, well, we'd like to see a copy of it.
29:33
Bill Buford And I left them a copy of it, but they never said anything more
29:37
Bill Buford about it after they saw that we did have one.
29:39
Bill Buford But anyway, I think the fact that they really, ATF really
29:45
Bill Buford emphasized the fact that you really got to have a solid plan
29:49
Bill Buford approved by higher-ups, you know, by at
29:52
Bill Buford least by the special agent in charge.
29:55
Bill Buford And sometimes on up to people in headquarters, the
30:00
Bill Buford Department of the Treasury had approved our
30:03
Bill Buford raid plan for the Branch Davidian compound.
30:08
Bill Buford But many people didn't realize that.
30:11
Bill Buford The Undersecretary of the Treasury for law enforcement
30:15
Bill Buford was aware of what we were doing and had approved the plan.
30:19
Bill Buford But not only that, because each division had their own special
30:24
Bill Buford response team, they revised that and they had teams, five teams set
30:30
Bill Buford up throughout the United States with different people, specially
30:34
Bill Buford trained on these teams to respond to significant warrant executions
30:40
Bill Buford such as the Branch Davidian compound.
30:44
Bill Buford And they really improved the training and the equipment and
30:49
Bill Buford everything and spent a lot of time emphasizing surround and call
30:55
Bill Buford out or not necessarily doing everything as a dynamic entry.
31:00
Bill Buford The reason we went to a dynamic entry was the fact that we had been
31:05
Bill Buford told by people who had been former members of the Branch Davidians
31:10
Bill Buford that I would ask them, what will they
31:13
Bill Buford do if we try to execute the warrant?
31:15
Bill Buford He says they'll all kill themselves.
31:18
Bill Buford And so we decided maybe we could take
31:20
Bill Buford them by surprise and keep them from,
31:23
Bill Buford you know, all shooting each other and killing each other.
31:26
Bill Buford But
31:27
Bill Buford as it turned out, we weren't able to actually, there's only three
31:32
Bill Buford of us that actually ever made it inside the building.
31:34
Bill Buford And that was the three of us that went in
31:35
Bill Buford the window up on the on the roof, off the roof.
31:39
Bill Buford The rest of the people never made it.
31:41
Bill Buford Roland Ballesteros, an agent out of Houston, was running toward the
31:45
Bill Buford front door yelling "Police with a search
31:48
Bill Buford warrant, police with a search warrant."
31:49
Bill Buford David Koresh stepped outside
31:52
Bill Buford and heard what he said and then stepped back inside.
31:55
Bill Buford And then they started shooting
31:56
Bill Buford through and Roland got his thumb shot off
32:00
Bill Buford as he was trying to approach the door.
32:04
Bill Buford But
32:06
Bill Buford it was, I think, the fact that
32:10
Bill Buford people were, you know, concerned about
32:14
Bill Buford maybe a lack of training for small SRTs in each division, which
32:20
Bill Buford were fine for execution, normal executions, you know, a house with
32:25
Bill Buford two people inside, something like that.
32:27
Bill Buford Those teams were great.
32:29
Bill Buford But for a major operation, you needed people similar to what the
32:34
Bill Buford FBI's hostage rescue team is, people that
32:37
Bill Buford trained constantly for such a situation.
32:41
Bill Erfirth You know, I want to go back, Bill.
32:43
Bill Erfirth Craig asked you a question
32:45
Bill Erfirth earlier, and it was, how long were you in the hospital?
32:51
Bill Buford I, a little over six weeks,
32:54
Bill Erfirth so most people envision being in a hospital and you're laying in
32:58
Bill Erfirth the hospital bed and there's always that
33:00
Bill Erfirth television that's on a bracket up on the wall there.
33:04
Bill Erfirth So while you're in the hospital for six weeks, are you watching the
33:09
Bill Erfirth news coverage and all the media about this?
33:12
Bill Buford I was until they started going, you know, when they started just
33:15
Bill Buford trashing ATF, I didn't watch it anymore.
33:20
Bill Erfirth So how did that affect you personally?
33:22
Bill Erfirth Not only physically are you trying to recover
33:26
Bill Erfirth from gunshot wounds, but now mentally as well.
33:29
Bill Erfirth And you're pretty much confined in a hospital bed and watching the
33:36
Bill Erfirth trash that the media is putting out.
33:39
Bill Buford It was, it was terrible.
33:41
Bill Buford I just, like
33:43
Bill Buford I say, after a while I just quit watching it.
33:46
Bill Buford I couldn't stand it.
33:48
Bill Buford I just,
33:50
Bill Buford I felt guilty immediately
33:54
Bill Buford after this, after I got out of there and was in the hospital, I'm
33:58
Bill Buford thinking, my God, what did I do today?
34:00
Bill Buford Did I cause all this?
34:01
Bill Buford Because I was one of the people that planned the raid.
34:04
Bill Buford And of course, my 12 man SRT, there were three of my guys on my SRT
34:11
Bill Buford were killed and five of us wounded out of 12.
34:14
Bill Buford That's not a very good box score.
34:18
Bill Erfirth But did you feel, did you feel that you ever had the opportunity to
34:23
Bill Erfirth really speak your mind and tell your side of the story?
34:26
Bill Buford No, never did.
34:27
Bill Buford I, I was hoping we would be able to do that when I was called up to
34:31
Bill Buford testify before Congress, but they
34:34
Bill Buford didn't want to hear what we had to say.
34:35
Bill Buford They'd ask a question and then they'd open up a bag of McDonald's
34:38
Bill Buford hamburgers and sit there and eat and carry on.
34:42
Bill Buford And they, I don't think they ever heard
34:44
Bill Buford a word we said, or at least what I said.
34:46
Bill Erfirth That's a waste of time.
34:48
Bill Erfirth Yeah.
34:48
Bill Erfirth You know, and, and since we're on this topic about how you felt and
34:53
Bill Erfirth did you ever get an opportunity to speak your mind and, and it did
34:59
Bill Erfirth finally come full circle for you though.
35:02
Bill Erfirth And you were acknowledged and
35:05
Bill Erfirth awarded the lifetime achievement award.
35:08
Bill Erfirth And how did that for you become a full circle moment?
35:14
Bill Buford Well, that was one of the greatest things that's ever happened to
35:16
Bill Buford me in my life was receiving that lifetime achievement award.
35:20
Bill Buford It was primarily because I was the one
35:23
Bill Buford who started the SRT program within ATF.
35:28
Bill Buford We had, I decided I had worked with local police departments and
35:34
Bill Buford counties and state police on executing warrants.
35:37
Bill Buford And sometimes we would have to ask them to help us.
35:40
Bill Buford At one time, I only had three agents and
35:42
Bill Buford myself for the whole state of Arkansas.
35:45
Bill Buford And so there's no way we could execute warrants without their help.
35:49
Bill Buford And I thought, you know, we need to get our own team together.
35:52
Bill Buford And my boss down in New Orleans said, okay, we'll do that.
35:58
Bill Buford And I said, well, we'll call up SWAT team.
36:01
Bill Buford And people in headquarters heard SWAT.
36:04
Bill Buford They said, no, we can't call them SWAT teams.
36:06
Bill Buford SWAT teams kill people.
36:08
Bill Buford So our first name was entry control teams, ECTs.
36:15
Bill Buford But then it grew from to what it is today.
36:19
Bill Buford I didn't have much to do with
36:23
Bill Buford what they're doing today.
36:25
Bill Buford I've been gone for a long time, but they've done an excellent job.
36:29
Bill Buford And I'd compare our ATF SRTs today to the best in the country.
36:36
Bill Erfirth So SRT, meaning special response
36:40
Bill Erfirth team for those people that don't know.
36:43
Bill Erfirth You said the best moment, the highlight of
36:46
Bill Erfirth your life, getting the Lifetime Achievement Award.
36:50
Bill Erfirth Just drill down on that a little bit more.
36:52
Bill Erfirth Did you feel vindicated?
36:54
Bill Erfirth Was that an opportunity to say,
36:57
Bill Erfirth screw you to all the critics and whatnot?
37:01
Bill Erfirth What was really going on in your head then?
37:06
Bill Buford Well, I was just amazed because there's so many people in ATF that
37:09
Bill Buford have done so much more than I did.
37:12
Bill Buford And I was just shocked when they
37:15
Bill Buford awarded that to me.
37:17
Bill Buford I couldn't believe it.
37:18
Bill Buford And I'm still kind of in disbelief.
37:21
Bill Buford But
37:23
Bill Buford it was a little bit of a vindication because of what happened at
37:28
Bill Buford Mount Carmel on the 28th of February in 93.
37:33
Bill Buford Of course, we had the bombing of the Murrah
37:36
Bill Buford Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
37:39
Bill Buford And
37:41
Bill Buford McVeigh said that he did that because
37:43
Bill Buford of the assault on the Branch Davidians.
37:46
Bill Buford So that added another load on my shoulders.
37:50
Bill Buford I thought, God, not only did I get my guys killed down there, I've
37:53
Bill Buford killed all these people in Oklahoma City.
37:56
Bill Buford And it was kind of hard to, it's
37:59
Bill Buford really hard to put your head around that.
38:02
Bill Erfirth So do you feel that that was a defining moment in how your life
38:08
Bill Erfirth changed and how you are today sitting here talking with us, that
38:12
Bill Erfirth that award maybe brought you to the realization that,
38:18
Bill Erfirth no, this wasn't my fault.
38:20
Bill Erfirth I was doing my job.
38:22
Bill Erfirth It was those people that created the situation by the criminality
38:27
Bill Erfirth that they were perpetrating and their actions.
38:31
Bill Erfirth And I hear you so many times here
38:35
Bill Erfirth saying that I did this or I caused that.
38:39
Bill Erfirth You didn't cause any of that shit.
38:42
Bill Erfirth You're doing your job.
38:44
Bill Erfirth You're a cop.
38:45
Bill Erfirth You're responding to the criminality and the unlawful
38:49
Bill Erfirth actions of others.
38:52
Bill Erfirth And it seems to me that, thank God they gave you that award,
38:56
Bill Erfirth because I'm hoping that you're in your happy place now, that you're
38:59
Bill Erfirth sitting there and you feel vindicated and
39:03
Bill Erfirth you feel your life was really worthwhile.
39:08
Bill Erfirth Your service in the military being shot and injured was worthwhile.
39:12
Bill Erfirth Your ATF service was worthwhile.
39:15
Bill Erfirth And you're a fucking hero.
39:17
Bill Buford Well, I'm not that I've worked with some
39:19
Bill Buford heroes, but I don't consider myself one.
39:22
Bill Buford Now, we think you're a hero.
39:24
Bill Buford We believe you're a hero.
39:25
Bill Buford I just did what I was told.
39:28
Bill Erfirth No, you're a hero.
39:30
Bill Erfirth Don't let anybody else say you're not a hero.
39:32
Bill Erfirth Come on.
39:33
Craig Floyd I agree.
39:34
Craig Floyd And you're a hero on this show for sure.
39:36
Craig Floyd We're not going to let anybody say
39:38
Craig Floyd anything different, including you.
39:39
Craig Floyd That's
39:41
Craig Floyd it.
39:41
Dennis Collins We can say it here and we'll continue to say it.
39:45
Craig Floyd You know, and you touched on it just a moment ago.
39:48
Craig Floyd You said, you know, I did a job and you did what you were told.
39:52
Craig Floyd Right.
39:53
Craig Floyd And this is what bugs me so much about the criticism that the
39:57
Craig Floyd officers on the front lines have to deal with in law enforcement.
40:01
Craig Floyd They're told what to do.
40:03
Craig Floyd It's not their decision.
40:04
Craig Floyd They didn't make that decision to serve those warrants.
40:07
Craig Floyd Right.
40:08
Craig Floyd You were told you're going to serve these warrants at Mount Carmel
40:13
Craig Floyd and you had to come up with the plan to do it and do it as best you
40:16
Craig Floyd could and as safely as you could.
40:18
Craig Floyd And there were a lot of things that went wrong
40:20
Craig Floyd out of your control that ended up in tragedy.
40:24
Craig Floyd One question I have, and I don't remember you're telling me this.
40:28
Craig Floyd So you're six weeks in the hospital after
40:32
Craig Floyd being shot four times on February 28, 1993.
40:37
Craig Floyd Did you ever go back in service at ATF?
40:40
Craig Floyd I don't remember that part of the story.
40:43
Bill Buford No, I went back and I retired in 2001.
40:49
Paul Boomer Bill Buford walked away from Waco.
40:52
Paul Boomer He never really left it behind.
40:54
Paul Boomer In part two, the moment by moment
40:55
Paul Boomer accounts of what happened inside that gun room.
40:58
Paul Boomer A near death encounter half a world away in Vietnam.
41:01
Paul Boomer And the words Bill has never forgotten.
41:04
Paul Boomer The reason.
41:04
Paul Boomer He went back to a job that nearly killed him.