Waco and Ruby Ridge

Todd wasn't at these incidents.  However, he worked closely with the men and women that were.  He goes into great detail about the cases involving David Koresh and Randy Weaver, what went down, why and how.  Todd is the only man I know that has met actual Branch Davidians.  

If you're getting your hatred for a group of lawmen from Wikipedia / YouTube / TikTok or Netflix, I dare you to fact check your source.  If you were wrong, it's OK - you get duped by the media.  Just find the truth and spread that instead.

-LEO

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:06

All right, Todd, welcome back. Thank you. Thank you for bringing a career of both local and federal law enforcement and giving your opinions on everything from various agencies to leadership and the best way to do it. And the goal of this show is to hopefully change the face of law enforcement. That's a big goal, but change the face of it and kind of change the mindset behind it. And some of us older guys passing on our best practices and what worked for us to younger guys so they can steal it.

SPEAKER_00 0:46

Yeah, I before we jump off into the you know, some of the black eyes that the agencies have got, we you know, when you start to think about what what we can offer to local departments or even our federal agencies that we came from or a state department, regardless. I think guys who spend a lengthy career in this field have something to offer that they can help. One of those things is a much like a mentor or to help out with some type of whatever you a person wants to call it, but a pr some type of program that would help hone the skills of these guys, these new guys coming into law enforcement, because they're more or less you know there to roll the dice and see if if it works, then cool. If it doesn't, then don't do it. But why not use or utilize guys who have a a number of years of experience that can come in and say, hey, I'm not gonna tell you how to do your career and what to do. I'm just gonna give you some stuff, how what worked for me.

SPEAKER_01 1:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

Some guidance. And if you have any questions, by all means reach out. That I think that's where law enforcement is really kind of a disservice right now, because there is a number of good guys that are available to help mentor the young guys and to be there as a sounding board, say, hey, what would you recommend in this? Well, this is just a suggestion, but this is what I would do.

SPEAKER_01 2:29

Man, my experience supervising at at several places is most people just don't want to hear it. They they get hired, and we had in Savannah, we had a lot of military guys. I I can say what I want to say because you know, I did my deployments and my time in the sand. But soldiering is not policing. Being a Marine is not, but you can be a great Marine and a shit cop, or vice versa. And people come in and, you know, we had the Ranger Regiment, you've done 10 tours and you're 26, and that's badass. I'm glad you slept hanging by a carabiner on the side of a mountain. I bet that was crazy. I'd love to hear about it. You're still not good at this job. So you should still be picking the brain of your guys that are willing to be picked.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

Wow, that's a whole topic we can discuss for a very lengthy time. I've had that discussion many times with others, and even that leads into training where you've got law enforcement agencies that are seeking those from the military to come in and train them. And it's hold uh hold on a second. You're talking apples and oranges here because law enforcement, we have to abide by the Fourth Amendment. Use of force. I mean, we are we are bound, we are restricted by the by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, whereas the military is not. They don't have to abide by the Fourth Amendment when they're overseas. And so whenever there are there some things that bleed over from one another, absolutely. But to, I know for instance, there are companies or well, there's companies, there's businesses out there that their all their entire cadre is prior military from the soft community, and they go in and they want to train law enforcement. It's like, hold on a second. I had a conversation about this with one particular organization down in Florida when we lived there, and I even showed him, he said, Well, can I see your CV, your resume? I said, Yeah, I'll send it to you. And so we met, and he goes, Dude, I've got guys that are prior SOF, uh tier one operators that don't even compete with what your background is. But he says, I'm trying to keep my core group of instructors all military. And I'm like, but here's the problem with that. That's cool, but here's a problem. What do you know about the Fourth Amendment? Just a simple question. What do you know about the Fourth Amendment? And I and I kid you not, because I've had this response given back to me. Well, what does that have to do with anything? Dude, seriously? Everything.

SPEAKER_01 5:09

If you shoot somebody, you just seized them.

SPEAKER_00 5:12

Everything. Yeah. So that is the problem, I think, in law enforcement, because you've got these agencies uh at all levels, federal down, that are bringing or going to companies that are pure military and they're training them. That can create some issues when you start dealing with use of force and whether you're shooting somebody or getting a gunfight or whether you're going hands-on with somebody trying to arrest them, take them into custody, you know, and which that's a whole other question, because does a point does a does an officer have the necessary training in combatives or defensive tactics? Typically not. I I train guys in that. In combatives and in firearms and in tactics or CQB, I train guys in that around the world. But you look at American law enforcement as a whole, once law enforcement goes through their basic training, they don't have any more training when in when you're talking about defensive tactics or arrest techniques or combatives. You're taught it in basic training through your basic police academy, and that's it. Most of them are not hitting jujitsu before the shift. Nope.

SPEAKER_01 6:31

I just did go ahead, sorry.

SPEAKER_00 6:32

Yeah, I know, and I agree with that. And that's a good another good point. I think I've made this point. Guys in law enforcement, go seek out some type of combat sport. Because, yeah, you get all this training with the firearms on the range. You don't get no training after basic training or police academy that deals with combatives or defensive tactics. So the the thing is, is go seek out some type of combat sport, whether it's jujitsu, karate, boxing, whatever. Um, because you're there to protect yourself and your partner in the in the end.

SPEAKER_01 7:08

I did an interview on here with a dude named Preston Russ, former Marine Corps officer. Now he teaches jujitsu full-time. Very humiliating at my skill level to roll with. And he said that when he gets a big guy that comes out to one of his jujitsu classes the first time, he'll put them against like a six-month small white belt. And the dude will just work them. And you know, you got a 160-pound white belt working a 210-pound non-experienced. And hopefully that sinks in like on both sides of the coin. If you're scuffling with people and it's taking you three minutes to get them in custody and now your back hurts because you bulged a disc rolling around, if you're trained, that doesn't happen. Yep. And God forbid they're trained and drunk and don't really care. And they're, you know, because they're intoxicated, they're not thinking about their strength, and they snap your freaking arm.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

Yeah. On the team, on SRT team, we were the very actually the very first federal law enforcement agency and the team, the tactical unit or special operations team in federal law enforcement that actually was trained in uh special operations combatives program or SOC P. Greg Thompson is the guy. He's the guru in that. Greg was heavily involved in Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu. He trained the soft, the army, the big army there at Fort Bragg. As a matter of fact, Rooster was one who set all that up. And so he selected guys in the team to be instructors. I was one of those guys who who was fortunate enough to be selected in that. So we we got to work with him with Greg and his his guys, his cadre of instructors, that was by far some of the best training that we got. But that was not the standard for the entire agency. That was only the team guys.

SPEAKER_01 8:59

So it's so funny you brought this up because I've been banging out episodes this week and then I schedule them out. Some are interviews, some are just me yakking. And I've done several on like fitness, fighting, shooting, you know, these things that will save your life should you get in that situation. And this week I was like, you know what? Most of the people I know aren't doing much of this. Like they might be lifting, but they're not dry firing, they're not going to any kind of martial art. So I did one on how can you survive if you're not gonna do shit? Like essentially, like if you're gonna be either either skinny or fat, you know, whatever your body type creates if you don't work out and you're not good at shooting, like how do you survive a career if you're just not gonna do this stuff? I'm saying, because I don't want to put a percent on it, but maybe like 85% of law enforcement are grossly neglecting at least one of, I mean, I bet you'd be hard pressed to find one cop out of 10, and I include feds in that too, that dry fires once a week.

SPEAKER_00 10:08

Oh, yeah, absolutely agreed completely. You know, one of the things, and and Rooster knew this, but I uh I took karate as a kid. My dad got me in involved in that. My dad was retired military, then he worked for a state agency, but he got me involved in in karate, and then from that into boxing. My dad was in the Navy and he used to he used to box in the Navy. So he taught me how to box, and then I got into it competitively, and I fought I fought you know several fights, had several tournaments I fought in, and then at the age of 40, I jumped back in in the amateur level and then started fighting again. And but the the reason for that, one, I wanted to see if I could still do it, and then two was to keep my body in shape. Uh at 40 years old, I was climbing back in the ring and ended up winning. I won two regional tournaments in Dallas Fort Worth, and then I won a state tournament, gold, a gold medal at 40.

SPEAKER_01 11:10

So in an over 39 tournament, right? Do what? In an over-39 tournament, you were in the 40 to 50 bracket. I'm just teasing. Yeah.

unknown 11:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:19

Yeah. And but that that is something that guys, I think, miss out on because I used to call it my mental cleansing. I'd loved going to the boxing gym. I'd still do it if I had one close to me. But but I I went there because one, it was a means to one, stay in shape. Even my doctor at 40 years old was like, I don't know what you're doing, but keep doing it because your numbers are perfect. The other thing is it kept my mind in check. It kept my body in check. Yeah. And so all of both of those were important. And then, you know, on top of that, so on the team or in operations, you get into a scuffle with some some turd on the street. What are you going to resort resort to? You're going to resort back to what you know.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

They don't stand a chance if you box consistently. With boxing.

SPEAKER_00 12:12

And, you know, I didn't have a problem. Guys knew that I'd step in a ring with anybody. But but anyway, that I think it's important to guys, especially in law enforcement, if they're going to do this career, find yourself a combat sport, stay active in it.

SPEAKER_01 12:28

Yeah, man, I I got to tell you a funny story you made me think of when I was in SABT, special agent basic training, for the listeners, not who you know. There was this dude in my class, he was 42, named Aaron Green. He's a, I think he was a golden glove boxer. He can fight.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

Do you know him? Yeah, no, but I I know, I don't know him, but I know boxers. Um I used to fight and then I used to coach it.

SPEAKER_01 12:55

So yeah, he's so he was he was transferring over from a different agency, as was I. So we like kind of got to know each other. Yeah. Super freak athlete. He got like the fitness award. He was the oldest guy in the class, and he got the fitness award. And so it was the end of SABT, and you know, you fight another student, you put the pad, you put the the helmet, the headgear, and the gloves on. I've never boxed at all. I've done Marine Corps martial arts, a little jujitsu, never boxed. A couple fights. That's not boxing, it turns out. So, and as you get to know me, I'm an idiot and I make bad choices at times. So I always talked trash to our guy that coordinated the class, the you know, the GS13 over the class. I'd tease him a little bit and clown him. I mean he was kind of short, so I'd make fun of him for being short or whatever, thinking we were having fun. So it's the end of defensive tactics week, control and arrest techniques, I think they called it. I don't know. They had like it was real dramatic. We were out in the facility, they had a camera set up, all this, you know, a bunch of the staff was there to watch us fight. Because if you don't go hard, they're they say you're gonna do it again. So it's like, all right, you have to fight, fight. So they pull the sheet off the board, and the last fight was Leo, as I call myself on here, versus Aaron. You know, I turned to the little guy and I'm like, that's messed up, sir. Like, we got real fighters in here. You could have put somebody out, he's gonna kill me. And he's like, Yeah, with that attitude, he is. It's like, man, that's a bullshit answer. Okay. So we everybody else fights, you know, they're dangerous, they do their thing. Some are terrible and sloppy, some are pretty good. Yeah. Me and Aaron's turn, he comes up, he kind of like fist bumps me. He's like, We good. I'm like, Yeah, we're good. Yeah. So we start down, which you know what that means. Like, he's not gonna kill me. So I'm happy. I know he can. I'm 90% sure he was golden gloves. So we start boxing, we're we're hitting each other, we're laying each other, we have headgear, you know, it makes a slap when you connect anyway. Yeah. So I get to I get in my head and I'm like, this fight's about to end. And this dude's not that good. Like, I think I got him. So I threw this pun, I threw this haymaker. Like, you know, he's just at this point, he's like hanging his hands, like, we're about done. We're very close. Yeah. And I stuck him, man, and I landed a good one. I squashed the bug with my back foot. I got my hips all in it. And this Joker has, I swear, I'm not a homosexual, but he has these gray eyes and they turned black. Like his eye color changed. And it turns out he'd been fighting me, I guess, with the wrong foot back. So he switched his feet. Yeah. And when I saw his eye color change and his feet switch, I was like, I had just enough time to be like, I'm gonna die. And then it was this three-piece combo that was the fastest punches I've ever taken. My headgear spun completely sideways. I went flying. And they like uh the dude that ran, he was this, he's a former Marine as well. He starts blowing the whistle. He's like, fight's over for safety's sake. We're done. We're done. And I like have this throbbing headache. And my buddy helps me up and he's helping me like untwist my headgear off my face. And he goes, dude, that was the three fastest punches I've ever seen. And you're he's a smart ass. He starts teasing me. He's like, You're so lucky you went flying out of the ring because there was a fourth and it was an uppercut. And if you were there, you'd be sleeping right now. Thank God I got wobbly in the legs and flew out of the ring. That's awesome. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 16:37

I love stories like that, but I love the sport. I think it's it's worthwhile.

SPEAKER_01 16:41

Yeah, well, find him sometime and square up, see where he's where he's standing if he's a real boxer, because that shit hurt. Yeah. So you want to talk some of these high-profile black guys and tell us what you think?

SPEAKER_00 16:53

Yeah, you know, you know, I I know the two that really stand out. There, I mean, there's a few, obviously. But the two that stand out the most, obviously, is the the Weaver incident in Idaho, and then obviously the Waco thing. You know, the Weaver thing. I was actually with the Marshall Service when that happened. That was in '93, if I remember correctly, or ninety two. And I actually was in the office. The marshal's office at the time. One of the guys in the office was a SOG deputy. And then we were we were in there kind of finishing up the day, and then all of a sudden, you know, at that time frame, we that was the tele days of teletype. Instead of computers back then, it was the days of the teletype. So this teletype starts coming into the marshal's office. And at that time there was a deputy marshal, Bill Deegan, who was shot and killed up there in in Idaho. And that's what got the marshal spun up and got SOG sent up there. And SOG had been involved up there for a long time before then. Sog was involved in doing surveillance on Weaver and trying to figure out the best time to take him into custody. So anyway, after that incident occurred and, you know, everybody came in there to to deal with that situation. I don't there there's not a whole lot that I can say because that was really that was my early days of uh the Marshall Service and predated my time with ATF. So I know there was supposed to have been a short-barreled shotgun involved in it. There were some questions dealing with entrapment. I don't I don't know. But the the one issue, I think the one thing that most people will stand up and point fingers at when he's you mentioned ATF, kind of synonymous with with Waco.

SPEAKER_01 18:55

Hold on, can we pause a hot second? Sure. I think at Ruby Ridge, the Randy Weaver thing, his dog and his wife got shot. Yeah, that was by FBI. Exact. And that's, man, if you ever look at the poor ATF social media pages, I mean, every comment is just like glad his dog wasn't there.

SPEAKER_00 19:17

They they blame that on ATF. I mean, the original case, the shotgun case was an ATF case, yes, but the marshals were there. The uh the very initial gunfight where Bill Deegan, the deputy marshal, that was shot and killed. Bill Deegan was killed, and then the dog, and if I remember right, Randy's son's name was Sam or Sammy, they were killed. But that was a gunfight between the Weavers and the Marshalls.

SPEAKER_01 19:47

Yeah, that's that's kind of what I wanted to get out and make sure it wasn't just me thinking and saying that is that no ATF agent shot a dog, or I don't even think a person. I don't think they were involved in the shootout.

SPEAKER_00 20:00

That was that was U.S. Marshals. And then the other thing is what followed on from that, after after Billy Deegan got killed, the marshal, then the FBI came came in there, HRT, and then the FBI is the one who killed Weaver's wife. So in both of the shooting of the trade of gunfire, ATF was not involved. It was the Marshal Service first and followed up with FBI. Then end up Yeah, they end up the sniper, FBI sniper's name was Lon Horiochi, if I remember correctly, and he put Weaver's wife down. And she was she was holding a door open, and they their sniper ended up putting her down. So I don't I mean, I've read stories about that, how there's there was the rules of engagement were changed and all this. I don't know.

unknown 20:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:53

I don't know. But it's just that misconception. But it wasn't ATF that put that was involved in either one of those. That was the Marshalls again and the first time, and then it was FBI in the second.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

Yeah. That's kind of what I wanted to get to. And I'm sure ATF will get lots of apologies in the comments now that people listen to this and realize they were just objectively wrong to say, like, oh, you're gonna kill my dog? Like, no, I've never killed a dog.

unknown 21:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:18

That was not ATF.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

All right. So sorry to interrupt you, just wanted to go down that rabbit hole.

SPEAKER_00 21:23

No, I'm glad you did. You corrected that. And that or you know, that needed to be that needs to be corrected because people have all this misinformation. And again, it goes back to where are you getting your news from, your information from. There's a lot of on both sides of the aisle, there's a lot of misinformation that's been provided that's kind of like I I would go back and do your research because that's not accurate.

SPEAKER_01 21:48

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 21:49

So, and that that's definitely one of them. But uh you know, as far as the the Waco thing, you know, people want to hold up this dude, David Caresh, as some good dude. That guy's a he was. A pedophile. He was a freak. I mean, he was he was molesting children.

SPEAKER_01 22:11

He had didn't he have multiple wives there and have kids with them, and like some of the kids were pregnant as well by him. Yes. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:21

You know, I sat there, we got activated when I was on the team. We got activated and we were on standby. So everybody, we were in the office on standby for days. I think we were getting spun up to go down to I want to say it was the coast after a hurricane. And anyway, the tactical response to that, because there's always idiots that want to take advantage of people and steal and rob and kill and all that other stuff. But anyway, when I was in the office, the team office, I'm looking over in this one particular bookshelf, and there's a three-ring binder in there, and it says Waco. And I'm like, huh. I pulled the thing off. I sat down at the table and I read through every report. And I'm like, man, you don't hear about some of this stuff in the media. And, you know, again, it's a lot of misinformation that's being put out there where people are, it's like, you know what, why don't you go back and do your research before you start running your pie hole?

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Not on Wikipedia or Facebook or TikTok, preference. Yeah, I mean, because or a Netflix documentary.

SPEAKER_00 23:30

Don't use those as sources. Exactly. Because it's all wrong. Right. Matter of fact, and I I was going to share this with you before and I didn't. During that same time frame, remember me telling you about the director, B. Todd Jones, being there at the 20-year anniversary. One one of the evenings during our, it was during our quarterly training, and we sat down and had a complete debrief for all just the team guys on what really what happened. Because we had guys that were still on the team. I think we had two guys, remember right, that were still on the team from 20 years ago that were there. Then we had guys that were retired and came there just to, you know, to have that camaraderie with the other team guys. And so we were there and we went and sat and listened to a six-hour debrief. Six hours. That was one of the most in a I heard stuff in that six-hour debrief that I have never heard, read, or anything. Some of the things, one of them in particular, one of the guys, love him to death. He was he was also a fellow sniper with me. And he never spoke about it until that one particular debrief. And all of us on, you know, on the team, we were kind of you know encouraging him, hey, come on, we we really want to hear about this. And so he got up and he said, you know what? I haven't talked about this in 20 years. And after I talk about this tonight, he said, I'm not, I'm never talking about this again. But he started going through all the details because he was there. And all of the things that he saw, he encountered, he heard, and some of the things that he was telling us, he said, some of the children that were there, I'm talking the early to mid-teens, you know, though they were trained to shoot guns. And I'm like, you know, I train my kids to shoot. But the issue here was now you're shooting guns at federal agents. And one of the comments that this particular one of the operators, one of our teammates, had said, he said, you know, I still have nightmares about that because this kid, he said, I remember this one particular kid screaming at me or yelling at me. And he starts yelling, come on, you bunch of blankety blank MFers. He said, Come on, I'm gonna shoot every one of you. And there was a bunch of other expletives that were mentioned there. But he said, you know what? I wasn't, I never expected kids. He said, This is the problem with it. They were so brainwashed that they engaged us and they they were just as arrogant about their attitude as some of their parents.

SPEAKER_02 26:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:39

And calling names and shooting their guns at them and all kinds of stuff. And I'm going, man, you don't hear about that. The other thing is, is we had guys, we had guys, and this is something that's not really, it's out in the media, but again, people don't read it. We had guys on the team that that took shrapnel wounds from hand grenades. Well, you don't hear that about that in the media.

SPEAKER_01 27:05

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_00 27:06

We had team operators, this is probably one of the only times in law enforcement history that came under, it was really almost almost like a military action because these guys were having 50 caliber shot at them. These guys were having hand grenades thrown at them, guys with shrapnel wounds from hand grenades, I mean, all kinds of stuff. Matter of fact, one of the guys, he's uh, I think he passed away recently, but just a he was a legend on the team. And uh won't mention his name, but good, good dude, good guy. But I remember him showing me one time, he was showing me down on his shoulder in his trap area where he had shroud move wounds. He said, This is from getting hand grenades thrown at us. Goodness. Holy mackerel, are you kidding me? He goes, No.

SPEAKER_01 28:01

And people want to act like the ATF were the bad guys in that breaking up.

SPEAKER_00 28:06

Yeah, I mean, you had one of the guys I know had his leg almost blown off by a 50 cal. I mean, it was just barely hanging from talking to him, because I talked to him. So, I mean, you these guys, the team came up against odds that you don't hear in the media and that law and f local law enforcement and even other federal agencies have never gone up against. And when you start dealing with guys with 50 cal and hand grenades and machine guns and stuff like that, I mean that's like a that's like a military action almost.

SPEAKER_01 28:46

And the mind game of kids being on the receiving, you know, on the other end of the trigger.

SPEAKER_00 28:52

Yeah. You know, and then of course, after the first initial gunfight took place, you know, they were there were you know, I've read this. There were some people who made the comment, well, they should have just waited, waited until they left the property. And it's like, hold on a second. Do you know even know what's going on there? They were executing a search warrant, not an arrest warrant. Because the search warrant affidavit said that there was machine, full automatic machine guns there, explosive devices, and and all these other things. These are things that, again, the media doesn't put out there. You know, do I do I have a problem with somebody who wants to own a machine gun or an SBR or a suppressor? I don't care.

SPEAKER_01 29:44

Just don't molest kids while you do it. Don't teach kids to kill government agents.

SPEAKER_00 29:49

Yeah, but the thing is, is do it in a legal manner. And then the other thing is, what was your plan? So this is another point that a lot of people miss out. You go back and look and you read these reports. I was reading through these reports. The whole concept was that there was going to be some of the information was that there was going to be some type of uh encounter in the city of Waco done by them, by the Davidians. And so, you know, all that stuff, there's a lot of misinformation out there that people really don't have a clue as to what what these guys came up against.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

And the way they planned the meticulousness with how they planned the defense of that compound. Imagine putting that same effort into an offensive action outside the compound. Yeah. There'd be no way to defend against. I mean, any local PD is getting run over by that if there's grenades and 50s being fired. That's SRT outside. That's a significant higher level than most.

SPEAKER_00 30:53

Yeah. And we, you know, and we trained, you know, one of the things I will say as far as, and I'm I made the comment that I did about the military and law enforcement. Now, are were there are there areas where I think military can help law enforcement? Yes. But when you start dealing with use of force and stuff like that, no. And I I think that's where, as you were saying, the meticulous efforts that were taken in even the operational planning for that particular incident that took place in Waco, I mean, that that wasn't just chalkboard stuff and say you go here, you go there, and that's right, let's go. No, this was weeks and weeks in advance that was done. Yeah. And these are some of the things that, you know, when before we do any type of operation, especially whenever you're talking about a large area, our operational planning, again, even for the team, was far more detailed than than your other teams out there. That would put ours up against anybody. And that was kind of my forte was the mission planning, operational planning. And I and I I loved doing that. But in order to do that in some areas, you had to, you had to do a lot of surveillance. There's a lot of surveillance and different types of surveillance that was that's typically conducted before that.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

So and you know, another uh something when you keep bringing up the military versus law enforcement, the difference is you know, as someone that was in a Marine Corps rifle squad, our goal in every any contact is develop fire superiority through suppressing fire. Basically get them ducking behind stuff so that the riflemen and other people can do their job. Yeah. But that's something you can't teach law enforcement. That's like a central base tenet of military action. And we can't do that, but the branch Davidians could. They don't care where their bullets go. You guys couldn't spray in that compound.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

Yes. And there's a difference between suppressive fire, which we don't do in law enforcement. There is a term directed fire. If if I, as long as I know who my target is and where my target is, if I have to engage that target, then it's directed fire towards that. It's not just spray and prey. Right. You know, but I I shared with you before, in again in 2013, we we went actually went back out there to the property. Some people will will look at that or hear this and go, you've got to be kidding me. No, we in 2013, 20-year anniversary, the director wanted to see the property. Never been there. And he comes over to our team commander, he's like, I want to go out to the to the location. And we're all like, he he wants to go where? And of course, our team commander is like, get up, boys, we're going.

SPEAKER_02 33:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:01

Okay. And so we did, and we had a whole string of black suburbans going out there.

SPEAKER_01 34:09

To the Dividian compound. Do what out? To their compound where the gunfight happened.

SPEAKER_00 34:14

Yeah, out to that location where the the Davidian compound was. We went out there. We were met by a man who lives on the property. He was actually a member of the Davinians prior to the big gunfight. We pulled up, and you know, you're thinking the worst, and you're trying to, you're you're you're planning, your, your operational planning in your head, and what this is what we're gonna do, is what we need to do. And this, if this case, we're gonna do this, that all this stuff. And so we're pulled up, and this man comes out of one of the buildings, and I remember him coming out, and he greeted us, and he goes, Can I help you? And then our director was there, and he said, I'm B. Todd Jones, I'm the director of ATF. I wanted to see the location where this took place 20 years ago. And we're sitting there thinking the worst. And you know what? The the man was very nice. And he said, You know what? I have no beef with y'all. None. He said, Matter of fact, he said, if you would like to put a memorial on this property for your fallen agents, I would welcome it.

SPEAKER_01 35:26

You heard this with your ears.

SPEAKER_00 35:28

I heard this with my own two ears. I'm standing around listener going, I I can't believe what I'm hearing. Yeah. But he welcomed it. And the director looked to one of the assistant directors or deputy directors and says, We need to get on this. And to this day, I don't think it ever happened. But, you know, the thing is, is that he even went on to tell us, he said, you know, I tried to tell the people that this guy, Caresh, was an absolute nut job. He was crazy. He was talking about things that that made no sense whatsoever. He was doing things that was wrong. And he said, I tried to correct the people here. And again, I'm sitting there listening to this, and I'm sitting there going, wow. But anyway, he made the comment. He said, I tried to make the changes here, they wouldn't listen, and I left. And so this man ended up leaving the property. And he left, and then what happened happened. And then years, years later, he came back to take over the property. And apparently, you know, I guess they're, you know, it's a it's a it's its own religion or whatever it is.

SPEAKER_01 36:46

So they're still out there. Do I? They're still out there. The branch Davidians are still there.

SPEAKER_00 36:51

They are still there. And that that guy was there. And but like he told us, he says, I have no problem with y'all. I've never had a beef with y'all. He said, but I knew what was going on here, and I knew what was going on here was wrong.

SPEAKER_02 37:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 37:03

So but yeah, that's that's some interesting things that the public doesn't hear. They don't know. And you're not going to hear this in the mainstream media either.

SPEAKER_01 37:13

Well, I hope some people that hate ATF for their mission, what they do day-to-day, and what has happened in the past, at the very least educate themselves instead of listening to the misinformed. Yeah. Even if even if you don't believe an ATF agent or two, uh do your own independent digging and figure it out.

SPEAKER_00 37:37

Yeah, and I'll say we're not we're never perfect, but it's not what people think it is. There was some good work done.

SPEAKER_01 37:45

Thank you so much. I appreciate your time and hope to have you back down the road to talk about more stuff. I think this has been great.

SPEAKER_00 37:51

Anytime. Anytime, brother. Thank you. Have a great one. You too.