The ATF had planned a sudden daylight raid of the ranch in order to serve these warrants, intending to quickly control the situation and reduce the risk to all parties that was associated with the large cache of modified weapons and explosive devices the Davidians had available. Any advantage of surprise was lost when a KWTX-TV reporter who had been tipped off about the raid asked for directions from a U.S. Postal Service mail carrier who was coincidentally Koresh's brother-in-law. Thus, the group's members were fully armed and prepared; an intense gunfight erupted, resulting in the deaths of four ATF agents and six Branch Davidians. Upon the ATF's entering of the property and failure to execute the search warrant, a siege was initiated by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), during which negotiations between the parties attempted to reach a compromise. After 51 days, on April 19, 1993, the FBI launched a tear gas attack in an attempt to force the Branch Davidians out of the compound's buildings. Shortly thereafter, the Mount Carmel Center became engulfed in flames. The fire and the reaction to the final attack within the group resulted in the deaths of 76 Branch Davidians, including 25 children, two pregnant women, and David Koresh.Dick J. Reavis, The Ashes of Waco: An Investigation (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1995), p. 13 . Gennaro Vito, Jeffrey Maahs,Criminology: Theory, Research, and Policy, Edition 3, revised, Jones & Bartlett Publishers, 2011, , p. 340 In total, the 51-day siege resulted in the deaths of four federal agents and 82 Branch Davidians, 28 of whom were children.
