Day 24 of the Waco Standoff

March 23, 1993
At 2:55 a.m., Koresh spoke to the negotiators, rejected the offer, and claimed that he had thrown away SAC Jamar's letter.
The next morning at 8:20 a.m., the letter was read to those inside the compound over the loudspeaker system.
Livingstone Fagan, age 34, came out of the compound at 10:05 a.m., after discussions between the negotiators and Schneider.
Conversations with Schneider continued throughout the day with the focus on attempting to get additional people to leave the compound. However, the negotiators noted at 1:30 p.m. that the conversations with Schneider had become very combative and argumentative.
AUSA William Johnston in Waco wrote a letter directly to Attorney General Janet Reno. In the letter, Johnston complained about the FBI's handling of the crime scene, and about U.S. Attorney Ederer's handling of the situation. The Attorney General directed Mark Richard, a Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Justice Department's Criminal Division, to look into the matter and make recommendations for a solution.
At 4:45 p.m., the FBI was notified that the news media might be bringing in a special parabolic microphone to attempt to hear what was being said over the P.A. system at the compound. In response, the FBI gave orders to all agents to say nothing through the bullhorn or loudspeakers that they didn't want to hear on television or read in the newspaper.
Conversations with Schneider and others continued until 7:56 p.m. with no results.
At 10:00 p.m., the FBI decided to direct exterior floodlights at the compound all night and, instead of music, play tapes of previous negotiations, and messages from those who had exited the compound.
The negotiators called into the compound at 11:34 p.m. asking for Koresh; however, Schneider claimed he was asleep and refused to wake him.

(The Myth: The FBI didn’t want any of them to come out because they planned to kill every single one of them for defying gun laws!)

[The Truth: Actually, the FBI planned to arrest every single one of them for shooting the cops when they came to arrest Vernon but held off because Vernon and the Davidians kept threatening to murder the kids and then commit suicide, which they ended up doing. Gerald Newton of North Pole, Alaska, the TB-ridden Wife-Beater of the North, has been VERY, VERY quiet on this subject.]

S. Olson