Word: compounding
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Buzzards circled overhead and the wind blew hard on the day the Branch Davidians died. Before the sun came up, state troopers went door to door to the houses near the compound, telling people to stay inside, there might be some noise. Over their loudspeakers, the tired negotiators called one last time for David Koresh and his followers to surrender peacefully. Then they got on the phone and told him exactly where the tear gas was coming, so he could move the children away. The phone came sailing out the front door. They will make war on the Lamb...
...windows the moment agents began pumping in tear gas. A second CEV joined in, buckling walls, breaking windows, ! nudging, nudging, as though moving the building would move those inside. "This is not an assault!" agent Byron Sage cried over the loudspeakers. "Do not shoot. We are not entering your compound." Ambulances waited a mile back; the local hospital, Hillcrest Baptist Medical Center, was on alert. But no one was supposed to get hurt. "You are responsible for your own actions," agents called out. "Come out now and you will not be harmed." Do not fear what you are about...
...though lighting something. Sage grabbed the microphone. "Don't do this to those people," he pleaded over the loudspeaker. "This is not the way to end it." He called out to cult members: If you can't see, walk toward the loudspeaker, follow the voice. An explosion rocked the compound, then another and another as ammunition stores blew up. The building shuddered, like the earthquake Koresh had foretold...
...ensuing trials. They will probably claim the protection of the First and Second Amendments for the Davidians' rights to practice even a bizarre religion and to bear even an arsenal of arms. Defense lawyers will also claim the Davidians fired only in self-defense when federal authorities stormed the compound. Four feds and, by Koresh's count, six cultists died...
...have to be approved by the White House, which has let it be known that it is watching closely and hopes for a nonviolent solution. So the feds probably will continue waiting out the Davidians -- for how long, nobody knows. At Satellite City, the press encampment out near the compound, mailboxes have gone up, garbage is regularly collected, an Easter service was held, and there is an unelected mayor. The latest gag among a press corps going quietly mad with boredom is that Waco has become an acronym for We Ain't Coming...