Bill Buford — Surviving the Waco Raid as an ATF Agent | Part 1

An ATF agent shot four times in the Waco ATF raid reveals what really happened inside that compound.

On February 28, 1993, Bill Buford was part of the ATF Special Response Team that served search warrants on the Branch Davidian compound at Mount Carmel near Waco, Texas, even after they lost the element of surprise. He was shot four times, watched a fellow agent die five feet from him, and spent six weeks in the hospital recovering.

Buford walks through the raid in vivid detail: the tip-off that compromised the mission, the firefight inside the compound's gun room, and the moment a fellow agent gave his life to save him. He also addresses the fire that ended the 51-day siege on April 19, and the independent arson investigation that found the fire had been set from within.

Buford also opens up about the criticism ATF agents faced afterward, including being called "jackbooted government thugs," and how the raid led to major reforms in how ATF plans and executes high-risk warrants nationwide.

In Part 2, Bill takes us back inside the gun room for a moment-by-moment account of the firefight, a near-death encounter in Vietnam, and the words he's never forgotten, the reason he went back to a job that nearly killed him.

Timestamps:

0:00 — Inside the Gun Room
0:35 — What ATF Found in the Compound
2:00 — Meeting the Man Who Lived It
5:30 — The Night the Warrant Was Compromised
9:30 — Four Agents Lost
16:00 — What Really Started the Fire
27:00 — Called "Jackbooted Government Thugs"
34:00 — A Career-Defining Honor

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Keywords:
Waco ATF raid, Bill Buford ATF, Branch Davidians raid, David Koresh compound, Mount Carmel Waco, ATF Special Response Team, Waco shootout survivor, ATF agent shot, Waco compound fire, law enforcement true crime, Waco siege 1993, ATF SWAT history, officer ambush survival, Rob Williams ATF, fallen ATF agents Waco