WACO, Texas — It was the failure of federal agents to control or extinguish the conflagration that caused the destruction of the Mount Carmel religious compound seven years ago, and the government should be forced to pay for its negligence, a lawyer representing Branch Davidian survivors and relatives told jurors Tuesday.
Michael Caddell, opening the trial in a $675-million wrongful-death lawsuit, said the government is responsible for the deaths of about 80 people, including about 20 children, who died in the FBI's April 19, 1993, assault on the compound, 10 miles outside this city.
"This case is about truth and responsibility," Caddell said. "The truth about what happened at Mount Carmel and the responsibility for what happened."
The start of the trial opens a new and perhaps decisive phase in the long-simmering controversy over exactly what happened that day and who is to blame. The fiery, deadly ending of the 51-day standoff between federal agents and the Branch Davidians has inspired numerous conspiracy theories and anti-government militants, including Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh.
Anti-government sentiment related to the case was fanned last year when federal officials acknowledged that, despite previous denials, FBI agents had fired pyrotechnic munitions at a bunker near the compound on the final day of the siege.
A key issue of the trial will be whether that helped ignite the fire.
But the government's principal lawyer, U.S. Atty. Mike Bradford of Beaumont, Texas, told jurors that the pyrotechnic tear gas canisters had not come close to the compound's frame structures.
Bradford insisted in his opening statement that David Koresh, the messianic leader of the Branch Davidian cult, bore full responsibility for the destruction of his compound and the deaths of his followers.
"One thing is clear," Bradford said, "the Branch Davidians did set the fire that did burn the compound to the ground."
Government officials have said Koresh and his top aides deliberately set the fire and shot many Branch Davidians to fulfill Koresh's prediction of an apocalyptic confrontation with the government.
"Responsibility for that tragic event should not be placed on the shoulders of brave members of the FBI and ATF," Bradford told jurors, referring to the Treasury Department's Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms unit, which had sought, unsuccessfully, to serve a warrant on Koresh for firearms violations on Feb. 28, 1993.
