Bob Ricks

In 1993, Ricks was a Special Agent in Charge of the FBI's Oklahoma City field office. Following a raid on the Branch Davidian church by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms on February 28, 1993, the FBI assumed command of the Waco Siege. Ricks was named one of three Assistant Special Agents in Charge, under the direction of Jeff Jamar. The others were Richard Schwein and Richard Swensen.[2]

Ricks served as FBI spokesman during the Waco siege, often speaking for the government at press conferences. On April 16, Ricks told the media:

We are going to get them. . .to bring them before the bar of justice for the murder of our agents. They're going to answer for their crimes. That's the bottom line to this whole thing, they're going to come out.[3]

Ricks told the media that operations were costing $2 million a day.[4] However, a later Senate Appropriations Committee hearing revealed actual costs as of April 22, 1993, were $6,792,000, an average of $130,000 a day.[5]

At the direction of newly appointed United States Attorney General Janet Reno, FBI agents mounted a final assault on the Davidian church on April 19. By the end of the day, 76 Branch Davidians were dead, including women and children, and federal agents had seized control over the compound. Ricks' negligence in handling the Waco siege led to reforms in training procedures for FBI agents.

Six years after the Waco siege, Ricks was charged as a defendant in the 1999 civil suit Andrade et al. vs Chojnacki et al.[6]

Ricks was serving as the Special Agent in Charge for the FBI's Oklahoma City field office when, on April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It was the most significant act of terrorism on American soil until the September 11 attacks in 2001, claiming the lives of 168 victims and injuring more than 680. As the Special Agent in Charge, Ricks worked with Governor of Oklahoma Frank Keating and senior FBI and United States Department of Justice officials in the response to, and later investigation of, the attack.

Ricks served as chairman for the Oklahoma Federal Executive Board, which had oversight responsibilities for all Federal agencies in the State of Oklahoma. Ricks also served three years with the Drug Enforcement Administration where he was the Chief Counsel for DEA.