User:Mdchavez02/Waco siege

The Aguilera Affidavit
The ATF used an affidavit filed by Davy Aguilera to obtain the warrant that lead to the Waco Siege. The official filing date of this Affidavit was 25th of February 1993. Allegedly the initial investigation began in June of 1992 when a postal worker informed a Sheriff of McClennan County that he believed he had been delivering explosives to the ammo and gun store owned and operated by the Branch Davidians. This store, named the "Mag-Bag" had been identified by said postal worker as suspicious in deliveries. The postal worker continued deliveries to the Mt. Carmel Center and reported seeing manned observation posts, in the affidavit it states he believed they were armed personnel at these observations posts.

The McClennan county sheriff was notified in May and June of that year of two cases of inert grenades, black gunpowder, 90 pounds of powdered aluminum metal, and 30-40 cardboard tubes. The cherry on top that seemed to have set off the Sheriff was another shipment of sixty AR-15/M-16 magazines, to which Davy Aguilera made the statement, "I have been involved in many cases where defendants, following a relatively simple process, convert AR-15 semi-automatic rifles to fully automatic rifles of the nature of the M-16" to justify the ATF's involvement in the case.

Another report was made to the Sheriff in November of 1992 by a local farmer who believed he heard machine gun fire. By the sound of it he said it was likely a .50 caliber machine gun and multiple M-16's. This farmer claimed he was very familiar with machineguns having done a tour overseas in the U.S Army.

The affidavit closes with Aguilera verifying the story via interviews made with associated parties and gun shops which the Mag-Bag purchased items from. Amongst these items were over forty-five AR-15 upper receivers, and five M-16 upper receivers, which Aguilera clearly annotates, "These kits contain all the parts of an M-16 machinegun except for the lower receiver unit which is the "firearm" by lawful definition." Admitting that neither the noise complaints, nor the items ordered were necessarily illegal.

Department of Human Services is noted in the affidavit as well. BATF happened to get statements from a department worker who managed to investigate a case on the Carmel site. This agent, Joyce Sparks, had two separate visits to the grounds where she questioned members of the Branch Davidians and toured the compound. The first visit involved interviewing a young boy of the compound who was in a rush to grow up so he can have a long gun. This issue was not looked into until Ms. Joyce’s second visit when she was able to speak to David Koresh himself. He nonchalantly mentioned there were only a few guns but when Ms. Joyce asked if it is ok to tour the compound he requested she wait for thirty minutes so he can hide any guns from members not shown the guns. During this tour was when Ms. Joyce looked inside a trap door she noticed a buried bus with a refrigerator at the end. It was obvious the refrigerator was used as target practice by the Davidians with the bullet holes in it and the guns strewn along the floor of this makeshift basement.