Now Streaming - Waco: American Apocalypse
/Waco: An American Apocalypse, tells the story of the 51-day standoff in Waco, Texas between cult leader David Koresh and a small army of federal law enforcement officers. Timed to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the siege, which ended in a deadly fire on April 19, 1993, the three-part series combines “exclusive access to recently unearthed videotapes filmed inside the FBI Crisis Negotiation Unit, as well as raw news footage never released to the American public, and FBI recordings,” with interviews with both law enforcement officials who participated in the siege and surviving members of the Branch Davidian cult.
Directed by Tiller Russell, the series pulls viewers along on a harrowing odyssey, beginning with the failed attempt by ATF agents to extract and arrest David Koresh, which resulted in the death of four agents, and ends 51 days later with the Mt. Carmel complex engulfed in a fire that took the lives of 76 Branch Davidians. And while the siege at Waco was almost immediately taken on by the far-right extremists as evidence of an oppressive “deep state,” in reality, as the series makes clear, events on the ground were driven more by incompetence, adrenalin, impatience and the failure of law enforcement agencies to fully cooperate.