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03/16/93
KEEPING WATCH: Gawkers, profit-seekers, proselytizers flock to hill near cult compound
By Bill Marvel / The Dallas Morning News
BELLMEAD, Texas-They come to see and to sell, to protest and to proselytize. They come so they can tell their friends they were here and because the Lord told them to come.
In the absence of dramatic new developments, television has turned its eye elsewhere. But that has not kept away the curious, who cruise the roads east of here, trying to get a view of the compound at Mount Carmel, where Branch Davidian sect members have been holed up for 17 days.
Disasters and tragedies have always drawn crowds of curiosity seekers.
On July 21, 1861, Washington, D.C., residents rode out into the countryside near Manassas, Va., to witness what they felt certain was going to be a Union victory over Confederate forces at the Battle of Bull Run. They spread picnic lunches on the grass only to watch a rout, as Gen. Irvin McDowell's Union forces were defeated and driven back to Washington.
And in 1925, thousands filled a hillside outside Kentucky's Crystal Cave to watch and pray and eat hot dogs while rescuers struggled in vain to free the cave's discoverer, Floyd Collins, from a rockfall deep inside.
Here, the crowds gather on a hill overlooking the intersection of State Highway 340 and FM2491, where ATF and FBI authorities have set up a roadblock. Despite 40-degree temperatures and biting wind, and even though this is not the best vantage point, dozens of cars stop during the day as crowds scan the horizon with binoculars, shop for T-shirts or read the leaflets handed out by protesters.
"I've seen a lot of amazing things,' says Sue Mole, on her way from Mesquite to visit her parents in Hearne. "And this is one of them.'
She pauses to check out the T-shirts being sold out of a white Chevy van by Georgia Jenkins and her granddaughter Rhiannon Gardner.
They have driven all the way from Tulsa, Okla., and plan to stay as long as the crowds keep coming. "I've been wanting to do this, and I did it,' says Mrs. Jenkins, who occasionally drives a semi-tractor truck and has worked in the construction business in California.
Fits her to a T
She had the first 30 shirts printed in Tulsa but has since found a Waco supplier. Her $12 shirts and $2 bumper stickers bear what has become the unofficial slogan for the Mount Carmel standoff: "WACO-We Ain't Coming Out.' Mrs. Jenkins also sells a "Wacko WACO Stand-off' T-shirt imprinted with a score card. She explains to buyers that they can use a laundry marker to keep track of casualties-Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents and Branch Davidians, men, women and children.
"It's an interesting hill,' Mrs. Jenkins says. "I sold my first shirt to an FBI agent. I've been here four days, and it's picking up. Hundreds have come by.
"If this gets bloody, I think this site will be good for 30 days.'
John Zizelmann and his two daughers pull up, snow skis strapped to
the top of their car. His daughters are on spring break from the University of Texas, and the trio is on its way to Breckenridge, Colo., says Mr. Zizelmann, who lives in Houston.
"We've been watching it on television,' he says, "so we decided to make a side trip.'
That there is little to be seen from the hill doesn't seem to bother the Zizelmanns. "We depend on CNN for the close views,' Mr. Zizelmann says. "We just wanted a shirt. My daughters plan to ski in it.'
Jim McBride, a New Jersey importer who has been in San Antonio on business, is also shopping for a shirt.
"I drove up because I just had to see this madness,' he says. "To be honest with you, it's insane. The more we perpetuate it, the longer he (sect leader David Koresh) stays.'
Peggy Lawlis and her mother, Edith Dulles Lawlis, were on their way from Dallas to visit relatives in the area when they came upon the scene. They had already been stopped at the checkpoint, where they talked somebody into snapping their picture with ATF agents. "Just to be somewhat silly,' explains Mrs. Lawlis.
"We were making jokes about selling T-shirts,' says her daughter, a student at The Hockaday School in Dallas. "And look, here we are.'
She selects a shirt, and her mother pays. "I want to be able to tell my friends I was in Waco,' Peggy says.
Sales opportunity
Meantime, a few yards away, rival T-shirt seller Bill Powers has arrived and is setting out boxes of shirts and gimme caps. Friends struggle in the wind to erect a tent and set up folding tables. At $12, Mr. Powers' shirts are competitively priced.
"I was out here last week, and there were people standing around, and I said to my sister, "Hey, Linda, this is a good place to sell T-shirts.' We went back that night and designed them.'
In addition to the popular "WACO-We Ain't Coming Out' shirts, Mr. Powers is selling a T-shirt that says, "My parents went to Mount Carmel and all I got was this lousy AK-47.'
Nearby, Mr. Powers' partner in this business venture, David Mevis, has set up a booth and is firing up a charcoal grill to sell Koresh Burgers and Koresh Dogs for $2.
"I got a friend in there,' he says, indicating the distant compound, "and he wants to come out.'
By early afternoon, it's dueling T-shirts as Rosaline Eastepp starts selling shirts out of the back of her car. The employee of Rockwell International in Greenville designed the shirts and had 1,000 printed in Fort Worth.
"God is telling you to buy this shirt,' she calls to passers-by.
But T-shirts and gimme caps and hot dogs are not the only things
being sold on this hillside. Picketers have gathered at the roadside, waving signs at passing motorists: "ATF Kills Babies,' they proclaim, "David vs. Goliath.'
Larry Dodge, a postcard photographer from Helmsville, Mont., is handing out copies of something called the Jury Information Kit.
"These people are going to need a well-informed jury when they get out,' he says.
"Here the whole thing is based upon the premise that they were violating some kind of gun law. I'm not even sure there should be such a gun law. I see it as an infringement on the Second Amendment. I see the government as wrong, here.'
`A lot of hearsay'l
Debbie Freidell, a Bedford homemaker and mother of four, might agree. "A lot of what's been said (about the cult) has been hearsay,' she says, as she gazes in the direction of the compound. "A lot of it has been what the government wants us to believe.
"I'm not here to gawk. I've been reading the Bible the last 13 days since this happened. I felt the Lord wanted me to be here.
"I think the T-shirt sellers are sick. It's the sickest thing.'
Mrs. Freidell says she is not a member of the sect. "I'm just a
Christian. I talked with my minister, but he didn't feel the importance that I did. If these are the End Times, and these are the children of God, he may very well take his children up into heaven.'
If he does, the best public view will not be from this distant hilltop, but from Old Mexia Road, just off U.S. Highway 84 several miles to the northeast.
There, a smaller crowd has gathered a few hundred yards from another ATF checkpoint, hoping to catch a glimpse of one of the big Abrams tanks as it moves around the compound, which is in plain view a mile and a half away.
There are students from nearby McLennan Community College in Bellmead, and reporters from Reuters and The Associated Press, and two nuns who have come out from Providence Hospital, where some of the wounded ATF officers were treated two weeks ago.
Not all the cars belong to curiosity seekers. Leaning against a car with Maine license plates, Alisa Shaw reads a well-thumbed copy of the Bible. Her father sits in the front seat reading a paperback book. "Leave me out of this,' he snaps at a reporter.
She, too, is reluctant to talk. She has friends inside the compound, she says. She was inside as recently as two months ago, when Mr. Koresh told her to leave. But she still believes.
Why? "It's all in this book,' she says.
Late afternoon, A.L. Dreyer, who owns the farm south of the road,
drives out his long driveway to pick up his mail. Mr. Dreyer and his wife, who have farmed this ground since 1939, have ringside seats:
Their farmhouse is a mile and a half from the compound. The view is so good, they have leased space in their tractor shed to NBC and Fox television crews. But that's enough, Mr. Dreyer says.
"Three people came down my driveway the other day, and I asked them where they were going. They said they were going to take some pictures.
I said, "Oh no, you're not.' '
The protesters have shown up here, too. One of two lawyers who have been handing out anti-ATF literature ("ATF-American Gestapo') put up an "ATF GO HOME' sign. But Sue Richardson, who lives just down the road from the Dreyers, tells them to remove it, and they do.
"I don't want that on my road,' she says. "It's disrespectful to the officers who were killed.'
A neighbor, Alton Boyett, and his daughter, Candice, have bicycled over to watch the watchers. He can't wait until everybody goes home, the Branch Davidians, the government, the sellers, the gawkers.
The other day he stopped after a haircut to check out the We-Ain't-Coming-Out gimme caps being sold down the road. But he skipped buying one, he says, because they struck him as being supportive of those in the compound.
Those are not his sentiments.
"I'm for the ATF and FBI getting this over with as soon as
possible,' he says.
"It's encroaching too much on our leisure activity,' he says, leaning on his bicycle. "We used to ride our motorbikes here. We used to fire guns on the weekends, target practicing.
"No one around here wants to fire a gun now.'
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