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PRELIMINARY STATEMENT
CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS ON WACO
Bruce Duncan Perry, M.D., Ph.D.
The Child Trauma Academy
www.childtrauma.org
*This is an Academy version of testimony of Dr. B.D. Perry, before the Subcommitee on National Security, International Affairs, and Criminal Justice of the Committee on Government Reform and Oversight and the Subcommittee on Crime of the Committee on the Judiciary at the Oversight Hearings on Federal Law Enforcement Conduct in Relation to the Branch Davidian Compound near Waco, Texas, and appended documents, Congressional Record, July, 1995.
Official citation: Perry, BD Preliminary Statement: Congressional Hearings on Waco: Attachments: including 1) Biographical Sketch; 2) Curriculum Vitae; 3)
Appendix 1: Comments on the Social, Religious and Educational Experiences of the Children Living at Ranch Apocalypse (v2: March 25, 1993); 4)
Appendix 2: The Effects of Traumatic Events on Children(v1: April 20, 1993); 5)
Appendix 7: The Child’s Loss -- Death, Grief and Mourning: General Guidelines for Caretakers of Children Experiencing Traumatic Family Death (v1: April 20, 193); 6) memo to FBI (March 11, 1993); 7)
Appendix 8: Issues Related to the Physical, Sexual and Emotional Abuse an Neglect in the Koreshian Children (April 26, 1993)., Congressional Record, 1995
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Childrearing | Impact of the ATF Assault | Communication with the FBI | Summary | Attachments ]
My name is Bruce Duncan Perry. I am a physician at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston, Texas where I specialize in child and adolescent psychiatry (see Attachment 1 and 2). My area of clinical and research expertise is in the emotional, behavioral, cognitive, social and physical effects of traumatic events on children.
In early 1993, we had developed a 'rapid response' Trauma Assessment Team at Baylor College of Medicine specializing in early assessment, intervention and treatment of children following an acute traumatic event -- such as a shooting. The specific goals of this team were to utilize proactive, preventative interventions to decrease the well-known, long-term problems associated with childhood exposure to severe trauma.
Following the original ATF raid (February 28, 1993), where approximately fifty children were present during the 'shoot-out', our team offered assistance to the Texas Child Protective Services (CPS). Within a few days after the initial raid, our team began an active leadership role and ultimately organized and led the multi-disciplinary, inter-agency treatment team which worked with the 21 children released from the Branch Davidian Compound following the ATF assault.
This treatment coalition was comprised of the Trauma Assessment Team (volunteers from Texas Children's Hospital, the Houston Veterans Affairs Medical Center and Baylor College of Medicine , all in Houston), the Methodist Home in Waco, the San Antonio Baptist Home for Children and staff members of CPS. All of the time of the Trauma Assessment Team from Baylor College of Medicine was generously donated by the individual members of the team and by the parent institutions at which these volunteers worked (Baylor College of Medicine, Texas Children's Hospital and the Houston VAMC). Our clinical and administrative activities were all focused on directly helping these 21 children, planning for the release of the remaining children and, to the degree possible, influencing the actions of other agencies and adults interacting with these children to be as sensitive and respectful of the children's needs as possible.
In this capacity I worked directly with these children for hundreds of hours over a two month period. Members of our treatment team spent, collectively, thousands of hours in direct contact with these children. Indeed members of our team were with these children during all of their waking hours, providing primary caretaking needs for the children.
Utilizing a variety of evaluation and assessment techniques (described in the Attachments) we came to learn a great deal about these children and about their lives in the compound. In addition to the extensive contact with these children, we had the opportunity to interview many members of the Branch Davidian Community and family members of Branch Davidians in the compound (see Attachment 3).
Based upon this extensive and prolonged clinical contact and upon significant collateral corroboration, our treatment team concluded that these children were being raised in an abusive setting. Ranch Apocalypse, by 1992 and through 1993, was clearly a psychologically destructive environment for children (see Attachment 3).
It was also clear that these children were profoundly traumatized by the original shoot-out and the fire which destroyed their friends, families and the world as they knew it (see Attachments 4 and 5).
These views were clearly articulated to the press in a one hour press conference televised by CNN and attended by dozens of national press. At the time of the press conference (May 4, 1993), copies of the attached appendices were made available to the press. It has been unfortunate that the work of our team and the impressions we made have been dramatically distorted by various media or popular accounts where the authors have had a political agenda.
As the issues of 'life in the compound', 'child abuse', and the FBI's use of 'experts' in this tragic event have been actively debated, and as our work with these children had direct bearing on facts related to all of these issues, I feel it is important that this committee have the opportunity to hear about our experiences with these children, with the FBI and our impressions based upon these experiences.
ABUSIVE CHILDREARING PRACTICES AT RANCH APOCALYPSE
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Destructive characteristics of this setting included undermining traditional parent-child relationships by David Koresh. Attachments to parent figures were continually undermined and replaced with inappropriate dependence upon a central figure, David Koresh. Continuous undermining of other relationships, including sibling relationships, husband and wife relationships, and friendships was pervasive. Any attachment judged to be more important to an individual than the attachment to God or David was undermined. By 1992, these children were taught to view David Koresh as their father, and later, these children were taught to consider David as God (see slides). In the context of this evolving theology, Koresh's views became increasingly restrictive, unpredictable and harsh for the children living at Ranch Apocalypse (see Attachment 7).
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These children had a set of inappropriate and age-inappropriate behaviors and significant gaps in general understanding, reflecting the idiosyncratic teaching practices present in the compound. For example, very young children, including a six year old girl, knew an incredible amount about weapons, while they knew almost nothing about other common age-appropriate concepts. In one example, we had a room with a variety of toys, including a small bolt action toy rifle. Invariably, in the first visit to the room, each child first went over and picked up the rifle. In one interview, a young girl went over, picked up the rifle, pulled the bolt back, looked down the barrel and said with disgust, "This isn't a real gun."
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It is clear that these children were significantly traumatized by previous harsh and inappropriate disciplinary techniques including severe corporal punishment, extended isolation (overnight), severe food restrictions and separation from primary caretakers. These children were continually exposed to harsh, capricious, and humiliating disciplinary techniques. Children expected to be beaten for events such as spilling milk. Infants were severely spanked for 'misbehaving'. In addition, these children were threatened with death if they revealed aspects of life inside the compound to the 'non-believers'. As is typical when an abusive adult threatens a child, they were told that 'they will not understand our special ways'. These children were convinced that David Koresh would return from the grave and punish them if they betrayed the Davidians by interacting with, or disclosing to, the 'bad guys' (law enforcement, non-believers, 'Babylonians').
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Koresh was exploitive and manipulative of these children and exposing them to a variety of inappropriate sexual content -- such as graphically describing intercourse and sexual 'technique' in his hours-long sermons where children were present. Furthermore, the girls were socialized to believe that sex with Koresh, by age 12 (and earlier), was normative, appropriate, and, indeed, desirable -- being part of God's plan as revealed to David. All of the young girls were being prepared to be David's wives and that was a healthy and desired position to be in. One of the older girls expressed distress, now that she had been released from the compound, that she would not be able to be picked by David as one of his brides. Clear and compelling disclosure of sexual abuse of a 10 year old child by David Koresh was obtained during this time. This child had left the compound in the year prior to assault. The nature of the disclosure, the content and detail of the abuse all were very consistent with the content of sexual beliefs which were shared with our team by many of the 21 released children.
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These children were significantly exploited, manipulated and exposed to a variety of inappropriate experiences and deprived of other normative experiences. These children were very rarely given the opportunity to be independent and when they did make any independent decisions about any aspect of their lives, including things as small as choosing what they would eat, who they would sit next to at dinner or choosing what clothes they would wear, David Koresh would periodically challenge, provoke and demand that they change what they were doing -- for example, he would demand that someone eat only potatoes for the next three days. Because of the lack of opportunity to make independent decisions about even minor aspects of their lives, these children experienced significant abnormalities in areas of functioning which are globally called ego function. This includes things such as sense of self, self-esteem, dependence/independence and abstract thinking. This was illustrated by a poignant series of drawings by one child (see slides).
IMPACT OF THE ATF ASSAULT ON THE CHILDREN
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The 21 children released from Ranch Apocalypse were significantly traumatized by the assault. They demonstrated this in a variety of re-enactment behaviors in the presence of cues associated with the assault, including white vans or a helicopter. This was most dramatically illustrated by the profound increases in resting heartrate observed in all of the children throughout the six weeks of the standoff (see Figure 1). Five days after the original raid, the group average resting heartrate was 134 (the group average should have been approximately 80). In the middle of the stand-off, many of these children visited with a parent released from the compound. These visits resulted in dramatic changes in the children's behavior (e.g., return of bed-wetting, hiding under beds, aggressive behavior) and in their resting heartrates, indicating that these visits were, in some regard, distressing to the children. Based upon how the children acted and upon what they told us, we interpreted this distress as being due to a reminder that the children were 'in the hands of the Babylonians', inducing fear and confusion. When these visits stopped, the children improved. When they were told about the fire, as one would expect, their distress increased dramatically. It should be noted that the normal resting heartrate for a group of comparison children is approximately 90 beats per minute -- the Davidian children for the entire period of the stand off and beyond never had resting heartrates below 100.
Figure 1
Because of their experiences in the compound and because of the assault on the compound and the ensuing separation from, and death of, all their loved ones, these children are indelibly changed. Their lives have forever been altered and while they may have many areas of normal functioning, certain areas of potential have been lost.
COMMUNICATION WITH THE FBI
From the beginning of our work, a liaison relationship with the FBI was established. Initially this was a series of meetings, by March 14, however, one specific agent was assigned as a liaison to the treatment group. During this liaison relationship a number of relevant opinions were communicated.
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The view that there was a group consensus regarding a final apocalyptic end was shared with the FBI both at a meeting and in the form of a memo which was dictated and given to the FBI on March 11, 1993 (I did not see the transcribed copy of this memo until after the fire: Attachment 6). Opinions regarding the care of these 21 children as well as other aspects of our work which impacted the FBI were communicated to the liaison FBI agent from this point on. After the FBI began playing 'music' all night, I expressed to our liaison agent, that I felt this action was counter-productive and reflected a profound misunderstanding of David Koresh and the current 'state of threat' that this community was operating in. A meeting with the Behavioral Science/Hostage Negotiation Team was arranged.
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At this point in the crisis (approximately the end of March/early April) I met with the FBI's Hostage Negotiation Team and gave my opinions regarding aspects of David Koresh's belief system and mental state, and that of the Branch Davidian group. Among the impressions I shared with the FBI was the opinion that Koresh and some of the Davidians were capable of an 'abstract' suicide by precipitating a final confrontation. It was my view that while many of the Davidians might leave the compound should the situation become de-escalated, it was my opinion that a core of the strongest believers (including the Mighty Men) would be much less likely to leave.
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At the time, I was unsure of exactly how the FBI was viewing Koresh, although I assumed by their actions that they were discounting the opinions that I was providing. It was only after the fire that I began to learn some of the internal debates regarding the psychological profile of Koresh and the approach to this crisis that was taking place between the FBI's Behavioral Science team and the Tactical team members.
SUMMARY
In summary, our work demonstrated 1) an abusive and psychologically-destructive living situation for children at Ranch Apocalypse, 2) a pervasive belief by the Davidians that this was the final battle long predicted by Koresh, 3) a belief system capable of an 'abstract' suicide and 4) a 'negotiation' process which resulted in Koresh and the Davidians feeling increasingly under threat -- under siege, thereby making rational decision-making on the part of Koresh or the Davidians increasingly difficult.
All of these opinions were shared with the FBI in either written form or face to face meetings with members of the FBI Hostage Negotiation team. While I am unsure of how this information was used (or misused), the complexity of this event and the tragic loss of human life require that we do more than the usual political posturing when we examine all of our actions at Waco.
In this regard, let me emphasize that, despite what religious and social apologists say, any adult who grooms children to be his sex objects is sexually abusing those children. Sex between an adult and a child is abusive. Sex between an adult and an 11 or 12 year old child can not be consensual. The fact that the name of God and religion were used to obscure this exploitive and abusive practice make these activities even more heinous and destructive to the long term development of these children. The fact that responsible adults, either parents or 'academics', would minimize these activities is shameful. David Koresh systematically exploited the members of the Branch Davidian community, slowly but surely coercing that community to play out the tragic and destructive visions of his disturbed inner world.
A final tragedy of this event will be that we, as a society, do not review our actions at Waco with clear, harsh and self-critical vision. The lives lost at Waco and the lives indelibly altered by that series of events cannot be changed but they will be diminished and disrespected if we choose not to learn from Waco's many lessons.
List of Attachments
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Biographical Sketch:
B. D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D.
Curriculum Vitae: B. D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D.
Appendix 1: Comments on the Social, Religious and Educational Experiences of the Children Living at Ranch Apocalypse (v2: March 25, 1993)
Appendix 2: The Effects of Traumatic Events on Children (v1: March 25, 1993)
Appendix 7: The Child's Loss -- Death, Grief and Mourning: General Guidelines for Caretakers of Children Experiencing Traumatic Family Death (v1: April 20, 1993)
memo to FBI (March 11, 1993)
Appendix 8: Issues Related to the Physical, Sexual and Emotional Abuse and Neglect in the Koreshian Children (April 26, 1993)
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This page, and all contents, are Copyright (C) 1995 by Bruce D. Perry, M.D., Ph.D., Houston TX
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