On Friday, February 27th, 1998, an intrepid band of freedom lovers marked the fifth anniversary of the BATF raid on Mt. Carmel by demonstrating in Washington, DC. The organizer of the demonstration, Carol Moore of the Committee for Waco Justice (third from the left in the above photo), chose to hold the event one day ahead of the actual anniversary in the belief that her planned itinerary would be more effective on a weekday than a Saturday.
The protest began at noon, first at the Washington Post, for spiking a story by a reporter who had become convinced that the ATF did fire from helicopters. Ten people attended, exceeding Moore's expectations that "seven or eight" would come. The demonstrators chanted sappy slogans ("Hey hey! Ho ho! Janet Reno has got to go!" "ATF helicopters killed four, ATF shot first at the front door!" "Two, four, six, eight, why won't the Post investigate?") and Moore offered leaflets, while almost all passersby ignored them.
The band then headed for BATF headquarters. Two protesters who apparently had used their lunch hour to attend took their leave at this time, while the rest piled into two taxis to go across town. The ATF building was even drearier than the Post. At the Post there were no armed guards, and every now and then someone would come out of the building and pick up a CWJ handout. In contrast, in front of the BATF entrance, they deployed five uniformed officers and two or three in suits. Thus, against eight unarmed, peaceful protesters, they arrayed a roughly equal number of armed agents! The Washington Post did without such a crude display, and it clearly reflected not genuine security concerns, but a desire to make the experience as intimidating as possible.
Chanting here made little sense: those inside probably couldn't hear them, the guards were hostile and obviously weren't going to be converted by hearing simplistic slogans, and unlike the heavy sidewalk traffic outside the Post, in this part of town there was not even a pedestrian in sight while the protest went on. But there was chanting anyway, though slogans specific to the Washington Post were dropped and slogans tooled for the ATF appeared ("Hey, hey! Ho, ho! [ATF director] John Magaw has got to go!")
One of the protesters decided to circle the building, like Joshua at Jericho, to see what would happen. When he returned, he related to the others his experience. He was tailed by one of the suits, who finally snarled, "Get back with the others!"
Thus, the protest did little, except to illustrate firsthand the arrogant,
heavy-handed mentality of federal agents for the demonstrators, and provide
the opportunity to meet others fighting for Waco justice. From this description
of the event you might conclude that I consider these ATF anniversary demonstrations
pointless and think people might as well stay home. NO!!! That's exactly
the opposite of what I think people ought to do! MORE citizens need to
come, not less. It is a disgrace that in the midst of a major metropolitan
area of millions, only a handful troubled themselves to demonstrate against
the beginning of the worst abuse of power against Americans in recent history.
If the protest did not have much of an impact, the blame lies partly with
those who stayed home.
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