Customer Reviews

No More Wacos: What's Wrong with Federal Law Enforcement and How to Fix It

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A very impressive accomplishment. There is a tremendous amount of detail here -- right down to how the ATF's name evolved from BATF -- but presented in a compelling and readable way.

This book is unusual in that it does not slant everything in one direction; it refuses to classify those involved as unambiguous good guys or bad guys.

The scope of the book goes beyond what's implied by the title. There is plenty of fascinating history here, many references to other law enforcement debacles. A compelling case is made that law enforcement has become too militarized and too federalized. The discussion of how "groupthink" on both sides (the government and the Davidians) leads to this kind of tragedy is especially excellent.

I've long wondered why liberals and conservatives seem inverted on Waco. Liberals are thought to be strong on civil rights, including religious freedom, and anti-military. Conservatives are thought to favor strong law-and-order. The authors explain this puzzle: the Congressional hearings quickly degenerated into an attempt to embarrass political opponents rather than a dispassionate search for the truth. The American public and the media took their orientation from Congress to a large extent. If a Republican had been president at the time of Waco, it's very possible the sides would have been reversed.

The authors show very clearly that the real problems with law enforcement have been building regardless of which party controls the White House or the Congress. I hope some legislators read this book and take the excellent reform suggestions to heart.

Once again David Kopel (and Paul Blackman) gets to the bottom of things and shows what the Waco disaster was all about. If you only read one section of this book, read the part detailing the search warrant. It appears that all the death and destruction (on the part of both the Branch Davidians and the BATF agents who were killed) was brought on because of a failure to pay a several hundred dollar tax on a firearm.

This book focuses on Waco but also delves into the expansion of federal law enforcement and the effect it has on civil liberties in this country.

As per the United States Constitution, the federal government should have law enforcement jurisdiction over the following acts: piracies and felonies committed on the high seas, offences against the law of nations, and counterfeiting the securities and current coin of the United States.

Something has gone terribly wrong.

Read this book. Then read anything else that David Kopel has written. It will be well worth your time, and you will be well educated about the erosion of our rights as citizens.

This is not simply a study of the Waco tragedy, but a indictment of current lawless Federal "law enforcement," along with constructive suggestions for its reform. It is well-written, thorough, thoughtful, and very well documented. And its credibility has been given a boost by the recently acknowledged lies and coverup of the FBI about Waco. Let the FBI shill rant all she/he/it wants, every American should buy and read this book.

I'm a former police detective from a high crime area. I'd always felt that Waco was a federal law enforcement screw-up of unprecedented proportions and that almost any competent local police agency could have, and would have, handled the situation without ANY loss of life. I still feel that way.

The problem was that I didn't understand the extent of the federal corruption involved. By the time I'd read a quarter of this book I was literally sick, since by then it was clear that the "America" I'd loved and defended for years on the mean streets of S. Florida was dead. As dead as the dreams of the children gased (and probably murdered) by "our" government at Waco.

The fictional government lies and cover-ups in "Wag the Dog" were but a pale imitation of the reality of Waco. The ATF has had a well deserved bad rep with local police for years. Read this exceptionally well documented book and you will understand why.

Will you be able to sleep well afterwards? Probably not.

Will you ever be able to trust "our" Government again? Never!

Not since my college days have I read a book so well documented. It's obvious the author is an attorney since the book reads like a legal review, including massive amounts of footnotes, perhaps more footnotes than in any other book I've ever read.

The only book I can recall that is similar is "Evidence That Demands A verdict", also written by an attorney. Both books look deeply into the subject matter and cite actual evidence for each point. So if one cares to go further and research the evidence, it is footnoted and readily available.

The motive behind this book is not only to expose what went wrong at Waco, and identify who's fault it was, but further than that, the authors clearly state what changes need to be made in the criminal justice system so there won't be any more Wacos. Hence the title, "No More Wacos".

I suspect this book will someday be a college text book, and required reading, for criminal justice college students. It is written like a college text book, and presents a scholarly case for needed change in federal police operations, which the authors obviously feel have gone beyond legitimate law enforcement purposes, with the result that the agencies themselves have become a serious threat to American freedom.

Having read this book a while ago, it is only now, months later, that the massive evidence suggesting that ALL the Waco deaths were unnecessary has has hit home. Why the delayed reaction? I'm not sure, but it's clear that Koresh could have been easily arrested away from his compound if the ATF had wanted to do so. That in itself would have probably prevented all the deaths. But beyond the initial mistake of staging a military-like raid of a compound occupied by almost 100 innocents, there were many other mistakes made. All of which led directly, or indirectly, to the final fire that needlessly killed many.

Perhaps the worst initial mistake was allowing the raiding party to be trained by the military, who's job is to "destroy the enemy", rather than to serve, protect and arrest. And isn't that why the military is usually banned from performing domestic law enforcement duties?

This book is a good, if disturbing read. Buy it, you won't be able to put it down and you'll probably never forget it.

This work is not only an outstanding explanation of the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents, but a critical review of modern federal law enforcement. The book goes beyond sorting out -- in meticulous detail -- what really happened in these debacles. Even more valuable is the objective analysis of the abuses and excesses of federal law enforcement, along with suggested remedies.

This book is a "must read" for anyone concerned with civil liberties or law enforcement.

Kopel and Blackman have succeeded in producing a tome which is both accessible to the average reader and meticulously documented to aid those who would take an active stand to reverse the tide of tyranny. Make no mistake--the systematic growth of federal law enforcement and its destruction of the Tenth Amendment (among others) outlined in this book constitutes tyranny.

Waco provides the initial focus and springboard, but the authors are able to bring in a great deal of detail regarding Federal law enforcement abuses that go well beyond that single, horrible incident that still cries out for justice.

No More Wacos provides, in the end, some very common sense approaches to halting this oppression. Alas, decisions like the recent Horiuchi whitewash declaring federal officials exempt from state criminal sanctions, seem to moving us in the other direction.

Every person who cares about liberty owes it to himself to read--NO--to study this book.

Those of you who have seen the documentary _Waco: The Rules of Engagement_ already have a pretty clear picture that something went terribly, terribly wrong. This book contains most of what is in that documentary, and quite a bit that isn't. It provides a frightening portrait of government agencies that were incompetent, and willing to risk the lives of their agents and of children in the pursuit of publicity, but something a lot darker -- a willingness to cover up criminal actions by the FBI.

I've read quite a bit about this horrifying affair over the last few years; my wife and I stayed up night after night watching the Congressional hearings on C-SPAN -- and yet I found that there was much more to learn from this book. For example, the Branch Davidians had a reason for staying at the property that was firmly of this world, and not tied to their religious beliefs. As part of a dispute over ownership, they were required to occupy the land continuously for at lea! ! st five years to cure their title. Guess when that five years ended? During the siege.

As Kopel and Blackman's collection of facts makes clear, there are problems in federal law enforcement that are much larger than just this one raid -- there are problems of accountability and integrity in our judicial system as well.

There are Stephen King books that spook you so badly that it's hard to go to sleep afterwards. This book is about that scary, because what happened at Waco could happen again, and unlike Stephen King's novels, you can't close the book and say, "That can't happen in the real world."

Were the horrible burning deaths of so many children really the result of a mass suicide? Or was something far more sinister the root cause?

Was incriminating evidence intentionally destroyed by the government? Or was the destruction of evidence just a series of unintentional mistakes?

Do you know?

Read this book and you will be able to answer these kinds of questions for yourself.

It's a fine book, easy to read and well documented.

A sobering assessment of what's wrong with federal law enforcement, with a strong emphasis on the evils of the paramilitary culture that has grown up in the wake of the drug war. Should be required reading for every member of Congress.