Published 20:25 IST, April 24th 2020
Is 'Waco' series based on a true story? Get ready to know some chilling facts
Is Waco on Netflix based on a true story? Read to know whether the show Waco on the OTT platform Netflix is based on a true story or is it a fictional one.
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The show Waco was released in the year 2018 on the Paramount Network. The show traces the story of a showdown between the FBI and the ATF who tried to seize a religious leader named David Koresh. While many watch the show for its amazing cast and story, they wonder, "Is Waco based on a true story?"
Is Waco a true story?
Waco is based on the Waco siege that happened in the year 1993 on a ranch in Waco, Texas. The story is about religious freedom, federal government boundaries and how religion should or should not work in society. For this, one needs to first understand the meaning of Branch Davidians.
As per an entertainment portal, Victor Houteff was the name of the person who started the Branch Davidians, which was an offshoot of the Seventh Day Adventists. They believed that the messiah of Christianity was not Jesus and that the messiah is yet to come. He made a compound for his religious group in Waco.
Many leaders came and left after him until Vernon Howell, who took the name of David Koresh to commemorate biblical kings David and Cyrus, assumed leadership in 1990.
Koresh claimed himself to be the messiah and started practising polygamy, saying that all his children would be sacred. He married multiple women and fathered 13 children. Many children, in the later years, had revealed that Koresh had molested and even raped them. One of them was Kiri Jewell, who was just 10 years of age when Koresh raped her.
While all of these are chilling facts of the Waco real story, the government had other things in mind. They believed that the compound possessed a large number of illegal arms. Koresh had been piling up arms in the compound. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) had investigated them in 1993 after they were told how a grenade casing accidentally broke down while they were transported to the compound.
On February 28, 1993, the ATF came to the compound with 78 agents and 80 vehicles. The Branch Davidians opened fire at the agents, who also exchanged gunfire. The ATF staff had to stop because they ran out of ammunition. Four ATF agents were dead and 17 were wounded, and it was the longest gun battle in U.S. law enforcement history.
Koresh was wounded in the fire exchange and he asked his followers to kill and die for God as he will take them to Him since he was the Lamb of God, as claimed by the Dallas Morning News.
The next time, the FBI stood in front of the compound for 51 days and it cost them a million dollars a week. Finally, the combat vehicles attacked the compound on April 19, 1993, with tear gas. There were three fires in the building in no time. Koresh died along with 70 followers either from smoke inhalation, getting buried under rubble, or being shot. It is still unknown who started the fire.
20:35 IST, April 23rd 2020