large gunbattle in Waco Tx leaves 9 dead, 18 wounded

[dragon]

At least no civies. However reading some comments on other news sites there's people already blaming Obama.

WACO, Texas (AP) — Many streets were nearly deserted in Waco, apart from law enforcement officials keeping watch, as night fell following a shootout between rival motorcycle gangs at a restaurant that left nine bikers dead and raised the specter of further violence.

Authorities increased security to quell other possible attempts at criminal activity in the Central Texas town following the melee Sunday that also left 18 bikers wounded, Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said.

The violence erupted shortly after noon at a busy shopping center along Interstate 35 after members of at least five rival gangs gathered at Twin Peaks restaurant for a meeting, Swanton said. Preliminary findings indicate a dispute broke out in a bathroom, escalated to include knives and firearms and eventually spilled into the restaurant parking lot, according to police.

"I was amazed that we didn't have innocent civilians killed or injured," Swanton said.

The interior of the restaurant was littered with bullet casings, knives, a club, bodies and pools of blood, he said. Authorities were expected to work throughout the night to process the evidence at the scene about an hour and a half south of Dallas. About 150-200 bikers were inside during the shootout, and at least 100 were detained, authorities said. It wasn't immediately clear how many were arrested.

Parts of downtown were on lockdown, and officials could be seen stopping and questioning motorcycle riders. Agents from the FBI and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives were assisting local and state authorities in the investigation.

"I am feeling a lot of anxiety," said Darhonda McFarland, assistant manager at Denny's at the Flying J Travel Center. McFarland told the Waco Tribune about 30 bikers clad in black walked into the restaurant shortly after the shooting.

They sat down but then abruptly got up and left, she said. About five minutes later, a SWAT team arrived, searched the restaurant and questioned people in the parking lot.

"I have never personally been caught up in anything quite like this from such a personal point of view. It was too close for me," she told the newspaper.

Police and the operators of Twin Peaks were aware of the meeting in advance, Swanton said, and at least 12 Waco officers in addition to state troopers were outside the restaurant, part of a national chain that features scantily clad waitresses, when the fight began.

Officers shot armed bikers, Swanton said, adding that the actions of law enforcement prevented further deaths. It wasn't immediately clear whether any of the nine dead were killed by police officers.

A statement sent Sunday night on behalf of Jay Patel, operating partner for the Waco franchise, said, "Our management team has had ongoing and positive communications with the police," and added that the restaurant was cooperating with the investigation.

But Swanton described the management as uncooperative with authorities in addressing concerns about the gangs and called Patel's statement a "fabrication."

Rick Van Warner, a spokesman for the Dallas-based corporate franchisor, said the company is reviewing the circumstances surrounding the shooting and is "seriously considering revoking" the Waco location's franchise agreement.

Van Warner said he couldn't address what the franchise owners "did or didn't do leading up to this," but added that the company is "very upset that clearly our standards of safety and security were not upheld in this particular case," he said.

McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara, whose office is involved in the investigation, said all nine who were killed were members of the Bandidos or Cossacks gangs.

In a 2014 gang threat assessment, the Texas Department of Public Safety classified the Bandidos as a "Tier 2" threat, the second highest. Other groups in that tier included the Bloods, Crips and Aryan Brotherhood of Texas.

The Bandidos, formed in the 1960s, are involved in trafficking cocaine, marijuana and methamphetamines, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

The Texas assessment doesn't mention the Cossacks.

There's at least one documented instance of violence between the two groups. In November 2013, a 46-year-old from Abilene who police say was the leader of a West Texas Bandidos chapter was charged in the stabbings of two members of the Cossacks club.

link

[Lonestar]

My (Texan) coworker and I were discussing how, whenever something happens in Waco, it tends to be big. Cult compound set on fire by the ATF, fertilizer plant explosion, Biker Gang battle...there must be something in the air there.

[Borgholio]

At least no civies. However reading some comments on other news sites there's people already blaming Obama.

Also seeing people blame open carry for this as well. While I doubt that's true as these guys were criminals anyways, it's nice to see conservatives try to defend their lack of gun restrictions when this sort of thing happens.

[Beowulf]

If the bikers couldn't get the guns semi-legally, they'd probably turn to the Australian solution: build them. Funny thing though, a full-auto gun is easier to make than a semi-auto: http://thehomegunsmith.com/pdf/9mmPistol.pdf

[Irbis]

While I doubt that's true as these guys were criminals anyways

Why? On the basis of NRA lie "criminals ignore gun restrictions anyway"? Because that only works if you have redneck state next to you without any restrictions whatsoever poisoning the well by having unlimited arms sales. In Europe, criminals having ready access to guns in gun restricting country are top level mobsters, say, in Poland that would be maybe three digit number among 40 mln people. So laughably small it has no bearing on country wide crime levels.

We do have gang wars (sorta) but somehow, despite being criminals these have no firearms whatsoever and are forced to do their business with sticks, chains and (at best) knives. Deaths of gangers are so rare that 1-2 of them knifed per year make country-wide news, something that in USA is just Tuesday.

If the bikers couldn't get the guns semi-legally, they'd probably turn to the Australian solution: build them. Funny thing though, a full-auto gun is easier to make than a semi-auto: http://thehomegunsmith.com/pdf/9mmPistol.pdf

Um, Australia, while being gun restricting country, is rather bad example as rifles are very widespread there. In real gun restricting country, criminals suddenly find themselves without access to corrupt gunsmiths and gun parts to make them, making such enterprise totally impossible. Look at these guns - they still have good barrels and mechanisms borrowed from somewhere, if not from mob gunsmith then smuggled from certain "well" regulated militia country where they are sold like candy.

Out of curiosity, I looked up how home made guns look like in Poland, and lo, behold, first three images returned on google:



One shot, big, shit pistol that looks like it's going to explode when fired, utilizing .22 very low power bullets, best you can get on black market without serious mob connections. So scary I am trembling.

By the way, while looking up Australian gun laws I came upon this gem:

Do Gun Buybacks Save Lives? Evidence from Panel Data

Andrew Leigh, Research School of Economics, Australian National University

Christine Neill, Department of Economics, Wilfrid Laurier University

Abstract

In 1997, Australia implemented a gun buyback program that reduced the stock of firearms by around one-fifth (and nearly halved the number of gun-owning households). Using differences across states, we test whether the reduction in firearms availability affected homicide and suicide rates. We find that the buyback led to a drop in the firearm suicide rates of almost 80%, with no significant effect on non-firearm death rates. The effect on firearm homicides is of similar magnitude but is less precise. The results are robust to a variety of specification checks and to instrumenting the state-level buyback rate.

Halving the gun owning households saves massive amount of lives even without significantly restricting black market? That must be some pinko commie anti-eagle imaginary propaganda

[Borgholio]

Why? On the basis of NRA lie "criminals ignore gun restrictions anyway"? Because that only works if you have redneck state next to you without any restrictions whatsoever poisoning the well by having unlimited arms sales. In Europe, criminals having ready access to guns in gun restricting country are top level mobsters, say, in Poland that would be maybe three digit number among 40 mln people. So laughably small it has no bearing on country wide crime levels.

Even in California, one of the most restrictive gun states that doesn't allow open carry, gun stores are everywhere. I know of a half dozen right off the top of my head that I've shopped at before. So open carry or not, guns are far more easily accessible here than in Europe, and this sort of thing could very possibly happen anywhere...not just Texas. If this fight was not between criminal gangs, but between a couple groups of those self-appointed anti-government watchdog groups who bitches about not being allowed to carry guns into a McDonalds...then blaming Open Carry would be quite reasonable.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Why? On the basis of NRA lie "criminals ignore gun restrictions anyway"?

In fact, smart criminals want legally acquired guns, anyway. The extra trouble involved in getting illegal guns really isn't worth it; it's not like the legally available ones are so hideously underpowered compared to what they could get on the black-market. Why open yourself to extra, unnecessary risk when there is a perfectly viable legal option? Most criminals aren't breaking laws just for the sake of breaking laws; most criminals break certain laws as a means to generate profit/power.

Criminals aren't going to illegally buy guns for no reason for the same reason a drug dealer with a half pound of cocaine in his trunk isn't going to start running red lights left and right. After all, "criminals ignore traffic laws anyway".

[Broomstick]

I wonder if part of the reason that homemade Polish gun looks like shit is because there isn't much of a cultural/institutional memory of gunsmithing. If you made all guns in the US disappear tomorrow (thanks, Q) and outlawed gun ownership* you'd still have a shitload of people in the US with the knowledge to make decent guns AND the tools required. Homemade guns from the US are going to be of a different and likely better quality than homemade guns in Poland for quite some time.



* There would also be that godawful mess from all the batshit conservative nutjob heads exploding. I want the mop and sanitizing concession for that clean up job. On the upside, we'd have fewer of that particular sort of whackjob to deal with.

[General Zod]

I wonder if part of the reason that homemade Polish gun looks like shit is because there isn't much of a cultural/institutional memory of gunsmithing. If you made all guns in the US disappear tomorrow (thanks, Q) and outlawed gun ownership* you'd still have a shitload of people in the US with the knowledge to make decent guns AND the tools required. Homemade guns from the US are going to be of a different and likely better quality than homemade guns in Poland for quite some time.



* There would also be that godawful mess from all the batshit conservative nutjob heads exploding. I want the mop and sanitizing concession for that clean up job. On the upside, we'd have fewer of that particular sort of whackjob to deal with.

It's probably just that home-made guns tend to be made out of the cheapest crap you can get your hands on.

[Pelranius]

Reports are going around that about four of the dead bikers died in the firefight with law enforcement.

The Waco PD sounded worried yesterday that more bikers would converge on Waco, but that doesn't seem to be happening.

[K. A. Pital]

I have fixed the weirdest mix of German and English in the title.

[Simon_Jester]

Why? On the basis of NRA lie "criminals ignore gun restrictions anyway"? Because that only works if you have redneck state next to you without any restrictions whatsoever poisoning the well by having unlimited arms sales. In Europe, criminals having ready access to guns in gun restricting country are top level mobsters, say, in Poland that would be maybe three digit number among 40 mln people. So laughably small it has no bearing on country wide crime levels...

...

Um, Australia, while being gun restricting country, is rather bad example as rifles are very widespread there. In real gun restricting country, criminals suddenly find themselves without access to corrupt gunsmiths and gun parts to make them, making such enterprise totally impossible. Look at these guns - they still have good barrels and mechanisms borrowed from somewhere, if not from mob gunsmith then smuggled from certain "well" regulated militia country where they are sold like candy.

Now, I assume you're saying "the US should enact gun restrictions," not just "watch me sneer at countries where citizens are allowed to own guns!"

But if that's true, then what would happen if the US actually tried to enact such a ban, then there would be literally millions of gun parts washing around the country, and thousands upon thousands of people who are fully competent to make guns, many of whom are ideologically opposed to the gun ban.

Our black market gun economy would make Australia's look petty.

In 1997, Australia implemented a gun buyback program that reduced the stock of firearms by around one-fifth (and nearly halved the number of gun-owning households). Using differences across states, we test whether the reduction in firearms availability affected homicide and suicide rates. We find that the buyback led to a drop in the firearm suicide rates of almost 80%, with no significant effect on non-firearm death rates. The effect on firearm homicides is of similar magnitude but is less precise. The results are robust to a variety of specification checks and to instrumenting the state-level buyback rate.

Halving the gun owning households saves massive amount of lives even without significantly restricting black market? That must be some pinko commie anti-eagle imaginary propaganda [/quote]It seems intuitively odd that halving the number of gun-owning households would eliminate 80% of gun suicides. How many gun suicides are there in Australia anyway?

[Grumman]

Halving the gun owning households saves massive amount of lives even without significantly restricting black market? That must be some pinko commie anti-eagle imaginary propaganda

Suicide is not a valid justification for infringing upon the general population's rights. Accidental misuse resulting in the death of yourself or others or deliberate misuse resulting in the death of others are valid arguments, but I should not be banned from doing something just because a mentally ill person would use it as an opportunity to destroy themselves.

[Dominus Atheos]

Why race is the main reason the murderous bloodbath in Waco was handled with velvet gloves



Nine people shot to death at a family restaurant.
Dozens of others stabbed, beaten, and seriously injured.

Over 100 guns recovered.

Sounds like one of the worst crimes in modern American history, right?

Then why do the men above look like they are tailgating? Smoking cigarettes, others using their cell phones, nobody in the world could guess that these men were even associated with such a horrible crime.

Instead, you'd think the man below was involved.



Nah. He refused to get on the sidewalk during a curfew in Baltimore. Sprayed in the face with pepper spray, the officers even seemed to enjoy brutalizing him. See the smile?
It's not a harsh comparison at all.

In Ferguson, Baltimore, New York, and around the country, protestors were actually protesting against violence and were often treated as if they were murderers.

In Waco, Texas, when one of the deadliest, bloodiest, most violent rampages in modern America happened, the National Guard wasn't called in, the perpetrators weren't beaten or pepper-sprayed, nobody was hogtied or humiliated, the dogs weren't brought out to intimidate anyone. Hell, they didn't even handcuff them or take their phones away. Instead, they just sat them down on the sidewalk peacefully.

Time after time, all around the country, protestors—particularly African-American protestors—have been brutalized by police. That's why, in part, it is so disturbing to see men, apparently all white men, who actually murdered and maimed others, treated with so much dignity and deference.

Americans don't really despise violence, even murder. That's why the Sons of Anarchy, a popular (and extremely violent) television show covering motorcycle gangs, exploded in popularity and why this bloodbath in Waco is being called "the real life Sons of Anarchy" all over the world.

Notice, though, how few images of dead bodies in Waco are being shown in the media. Notice the lack of dialogue about bad parenting or absentee fathers. Notice how the men aren't really being called thugs—even though everything about them fits this definition.

[Kamakazie Sith]

We have no idea what part those bikers played in that shootout in Waco. If they didn't shoot, stab, or attack someone then that is exactly how they should have been treated but you're a fool if you think they weren't all frisked for weapons. The author is making some significant assumptions.

[Dominus Atheos]

I would bet good money that if it were an LA gang shootout between the Crips and the Bloods (I know absolutely nothing about gangs), all people in gang colors would be in zip ties at least.

[Patroklos]

I bet if it was an LA gang fight none of them would have received million dollar bails, let alone all of them.

Anyway with several civil rights violations suits forthcoming based on them arresting everyone in the area including non biker gang customers at the restaurant and any random people walking around outside at the time the idea that "velvet gloves" were used is ridiculous. The difference is there was no risk of ongoing or follow on violence at the scene, full stop.

[Dominus Atheos]

This story has gotten weird as fuck. Source: http://www.wacotrib.com/news/twin-peaks-biker-shooting/

Summery:

177 people arrested and thrown in jail, all of whom have bail set at 1 million dollars “to send a message,” according to the justice of the peace who did so.

Who, BTW, doesn't actually have legal training of any kind.

2/3rds of those arrested have no criminal record.

The judge in the case, Matt Johnson, is the former law partner of the DA in the case, Abel Reyna.

The foreman of the grand jury is James Head, a Waco P.D. detective.

Gag orders on all the people involved to prevent them from talking with the media.

After many months, still no ballistics report released.

Article written Jun. 18:

One month ago yesterday, on the early afternoon of May 17, in and outside the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, Texas, a bevy of marauding motorcycle gangs who had gathered to create some sort of criminal trouble (the cops had already warned the restaurant to not let them meet there) began a wild melee of shooting at each other and at police. Nine people would eventually lose their lives, and 18 others were wounded.

Waco police (including a SWAT team) and officers from the state Department of Public Safety–who were all already on the scene, aware of the potential for trouble–swung into action, nipped the violent chaos in the bud, and put 177 violent criminals behind bars on charges of "engaging in organized criminal activity." Bail was uniformly, and understandably, set at $1 million.

So went the story as told at the time by the Waco police. But in the ensuing month the behavior of law enforcement that day has come increasingly into question.

First of all, the gathering was not just some premeditated bloody biker party with no legitimate intent. It was a meeting of a group called the Confederation of Clubs and Independents, a multi-biker-club confab dedicated to political chatter of interest to bikers. As Clay Conrad, a Houston lawyer whose firm is representing one arrested couple, William and Morgan English, pointed out in an interview, the gathering "was not a one-off, this was a frequent occurrence. These meetings would happen every couple of months [around Texas], and there has never been significant violence before. I believe at worse this would have been one murder if the police hadn't gone in and started shooting everyone in sight."

Conrad's spin is significantly different than that of the police. But it has been matched by numerous reports from other eyewitnesses, and people who have talked to eyewitnesses. The lawyer grants that the mayhem was launched by a conflict between members of the Cossacks and Bandidos biker gangs, in which one biker pulled a gun on another and started shooting. But that initial attack, Conrad insists, involved "no more than three rounds total of small arms fire, according to military vets on the scene who heard and knew how to recognize what guns sound like. All the rest of the fire came from police hardware. We believe that autopsies are going to show that at least six of the dead were shot by police, maybe all nine, and that the 18 wounded were shot by police."

William English, in an account circulated by his lawyer, said "I heard two pops that sounded like small caliber gunfire. Following that, I heard several bursts of assault weapon shots. I recognized the sound because I carried one of those weapons for six years as a Marine. That's all the gunfire I heard. Then the police started screaming 'Get down!'"

English told CNN that it was crazy to believe, as the police have claimed, that nearly everyone present was part of a criminal biker conspiracy preparing for violence. "Do you think I would want to take my wife to some place I know there was going to be shooting?" he asked. "Do you think I would want to be in a place where there was a shooting? I was in combat. I don't want to be shot at anymore."

English and his wife are members of a group called Distorted Motorcycle Club, and were there, he told local TV station KCEN, to participate in a "meeting of the Confederation of Clubs and Independents to talk about legislation for Motorcycle Awareness month." He noted in the interview that "part of your 300 weapons" that the police crowed about confiscating on the scene included his pocket knife.

English isn't alone in his assessment of what went down that day. A former Marine, Michael Devoll, told the local news station WFAA that he was just pulling into the Twin Peaks lot in a truck when he heard "a few rounds of handgun fire and then, I would say, an overbearing suppressing fire of M-4 rounds." Devoll characterized the ensuing melee as being mostly defined by a "barrage" of police rifle fire. "It was the most unorganized, unprofessional thing I've ever been a part of," he said.

The Associated Press reported, in the pages of the New York Times, that "several witnesses — at least three of them veterans with weapons training — told The Associated Press that the sound of rapid-fire rifle shots dominated," and that "Six witnesses interviewed by the AP describe a melee that began with a few pistol shots but was dominated by what sounded like short bursts of automatic gunfire." A named Navy vet, Steve Cochran, told the A.P. that "I heard one pistol shot. All the rest of the shots I heard were assault rifles," including sound-suppressed but audible rounds. The A.P. reporters who viewed some restaurant surveillance video say they saw only one verifiable shot fired by a biker, though they could only see the restaurant and patio, not the parking lot.

Conrad's partner, Paul Looney, had a more nuanced view today based on what he's pieced together from his clients, other eyewitnesses, and other lawyers representing other people arrested at the scene. He's not sure that all the shooting but for the first two or three shots was from police, but says as for the bikers, "I think that when it's all said and done there are four people with criminal liability and one of those people is dead"—that is, that at least one of the bikers shooting was himself shot dead.

Looney scoffs at the cookie-cutter document the police produced for every single arrested person, none of which provided any specific evidence that the arresting officer had seen them do any specific criminal act, besides being on the scene when some person or persons started shooting, and the police swept in to do some more shooting.

Waco Police spokesman Patrick Swanton claims that more biker guns were fired than police guns. The Waco police's most recent summation of the incident, from Chief Brent Stroman last week, asserts that only three officers fired at all, discharging just 12 shots. Forty-four total shell casings were reportedly found on scene, and Stroman categorically denied that his men fired "indiscriminately into the crowd." His most recent weapons-on-the-scene count is 475, including 151 firearms. The police impounded 130 motorcycles and 91 other vehicles, and so far have returned 52 of the motorcycles and 47 of the other vehicles. The police claim they found weapons buried on the grounds, and that somehow even at this late date the number of weapons on scene might still go up.

The constant harping on weapons found on the scene is clearly part of a public relations campaign to make citizens think that any amount of police firepower on the crowd of bikers was justified. But even after taking into account that law enforcement is counting things like pocket knives and wallet chains as weapons, the police have done nothing so far to prove publicly that possessing even the more potent weapons was a crime, or that those arrested were seen brandishing or using them. This is Texas, and these are (largely) guys in motorcycle clubs. Possessing weapons is not evidence of a crime, or even criminal intent.

The original $1 million bond for all 177 arrested is nearly impossible for most people to meet, even with a bail bondsman taking only 10 percent. Even the presiding judge said out loud that the large bail was designed to "send a message." Fortunately, once lawyers got involved, some sanity was applied to the proceedings. As of today, 142 have gotten out on bonds ranging from $25 thousand to the original million they all faced. As Associated Press discovered, 115 of these people pinned as being part of organized criminal gangs had no criminal record at all.

Even if, as the lawyers I've spoken to predict, the vast majority of those arrested eventually end up released unindicted, without specific proof of their intent or participation in any crime at the scene, that doesn't make the police's actions harmless. Imagine how your work life, family life, and home life, would be affected by being suddenly without warning locked away for weeks. Jobs, custody, relationships can all be lost. You've been marked in a manner not easily washed away.

At least one of the arrested, Matthew Clendennen, is suing the police officers involved and the city of Waco and McClennan County, essentially for false imprisonment. Clendennen, in a phone interview, says he was so late to the event and things were so chaotic he can't personally speak authoritatively to the question of who was shooting and when or why. He says that though he "rides with the Scimitars" and was aware of the political meeting aspect, "my main purpose was to hang out with friends."

Clendennen is suing because he feels damaged by the police. "They drug my name through the mud from a professional standpoint. I was born and raised in Waco and owned and operate a business in Waco and my business is based off of my reputation, and the initial report...the mugshot, all that stuff drug my name through the mud," he said. Clendennen can't yet testify that it's lost him any of his landscaping business, but "we survive off of people Googling my name, and to see all those reports [about his arrest] online?"

More painfully for Clendennen, while in jail "my ex-wife served me with a petition" to restrict his custodial arrangement with his son to supervised visits, and filed a restraining order, leaving him, thanks to the arrest, "in the middle of a legal battle" and unable to be alone with his son or to discuss his civil or criminal cases with him.

Clinton Broden, Clendennen's lawyer, said this week that he's in communication with other lawyers involved, and as far as they know no grand jury has yet indicted any of those arrested that day. If arrested without indictment in Texas, Broden says, you are entitled to a probable-cause hearing known as an examining trial, and Clendennen won't be getting his until August 10.

"People who don't make bond," says Conrad, English's lawyer, will sit in jail until at least August. "That is obscene. It's destroying people's lives to make some political point about not wanting bike clubs in Waco." While none of Conrad's clients are yet suing the police, Conrad can imagine a class action suit eventually arising. Conrad predicts a slow trickle of "no true bill" decisions, and the releasing of prisoners, with police hoping the public eventually loses interest in the story.

The notion that the police might have been at least partially in the wrong in the shooting incident, and almost entirely in the wrong in arresting so many people, has spread throughout the Waco community, leading to a June 7 "Waco Freedom Ride" biker rally in defense of the arrested that drew around 500 people, though those out on bond were not permitted by the conditions of their release to take part.

"Everyone involved in this wants the other side of the story out there," Conrad says. "There has been a false narrative put out by police of this huge biker melee and it isn't reality. Someone pulled a gun on somebody else and fired two or three shots. There was not this army of people shooting at each other. That never happened. It was mainly the police shooting at sitting ducks, or running ducks."

Sgt. Patrick Swanton of the Waco police told CNN in early June that "we won’t respond to allegations made by people in jail for probable cause, and the justice system is working the way it should." At this point, any possibly incontrovertible truth is buried in a morass of "cop said/suspect said." Sgt. Swanton did not return a call for comment or clarification as of posting; if I hear from him later, will update.

But the Waco police and the county court system have it within their power to settle most lingering doubts about whether the police did the right thing that day in Waco, chiefly by making actual evidence-citing indictments, and by releasing objectively verifiable information (including any video, which Chief Stroman said on June 12 was sent to the FBI for analysis, though there may well be recordings on some of the many confiscated cell phones the government wants to search) about how the dead were killed and the wounded were wounded. Chief Stroman says that federal ATF is handling the ballistics investigation into exactly what sort of weapons were used. But in general, rather than being more open, Waco police are doing the opposite: When Yahoo! News made a Texas Public Record Act request about the incident, the organization was mostly stonewalled and given a haphazard collection of redacted documents.

Clendennen's lawyer Broden maintains that "it doesn’t seem normal at all" that the police have revealed no hard facts about the sources of the mayhem. "Obviously they have access to preliminary information about the type and caliber of bullets and weapons that killed and wounded those people. I don't know why they have not released it."

https://reason.com/blog/2015/06/18/what ... co-motorcy

Over the summer, even the mainstream media started noticing how weird everything surrounding this case is. The Atlantic, July issue:

Why is Waco, Texas, fighting to suppress multiple videos of the shootout that killed nine bikers at the Twin Peaks restaurant on May 17? Why are some attorneys in the case now prohibited from talking to the press? And why haven’t Waco officials revealed how many of the nine victims were killed by bullets from police officers’ guns?

These are the most pressing questions as 177 people await a grand jury’s decision about whether they will be indicted for murder, conspiracy, or on lesser charges after attending a regularly scheduled meeting of motorcycle enthusiasts that turned violent.

Attendees included members of violent-outlaw motorcycle gangs and innocuous clubs. Many members of both groups credibly claim that they had nothing to do with a fight at the meeting. An Associated Press review of surveillance footage not yet released to the public suggests that most present fled from the gunfire rather than participating in it. Over the last two months, motorcyclists swept up in the mass arrest following the carnage have lost jobs, been evicted from apartments, and even lost custody of children. And every day that authorities continue their opposition to sunlight in the case delays vindication for the innocents who’ve had their lives upended. The state loses little by dragging its feet while accused innocents pay dearly.

Worrisome aspects of the case include:

Waco and its police department could be liable for millions of dollars in damages if litigants can prove that they arrested bikers without probable cause, violating their civil rights; or that Waco police shot and killed innocents. Yet the grand jury that will decide whether to indict the bikers is reportedly being led by a longtime detective in the Waco police department––an arrangement defended by a local judge, who declared, “If there is nothing that challenges his impartiality, he is qualified … Who is better qualified in criminal law than somebody who practices it all the time?”

When one of the arrested bikers, Matthew Clendennen, sued authorities, Waco’s assistant city attorney fought to prevent him from getting access to video footage taken at the Twin Peaks restaurant, key evidence in the incident. While a judge ultimately ruled that his attorney must be allowed to see the footage, he barred its release to the public and imposed a gag order in the case.

The gag order was requested by McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna, who is named in Clendennen’s federal civil-rights suit––and granted by District Court Judge Matt Johnson, Reyna’s former law partner, according to press reports.

Over two months have passed since the shooting. The dead bodies have long since been examined. Yet the public still hasn’t been told how many of the gunshot victims were struck by bullets fired from police weapons. (I strongly suspect that if the answer was “zero” Waco police would’ve said so a long time ago.)

Why is this information being suppressed?

After all, evidence that is embarrassing to the Waco Police Department or that exposes the city of Waco to civil liability will presumably be made public eventually.

Here are two theories.

One is the official explanation. Authorities say that this is a complex investigation that takes lots of time and that suppressing video evidence and issuing gag orders is necessary to prevent prospective jurors from being influenced by pre-trial publicity.

I find that explanation dubious.

Authorities in Waco have actively advanced a contested narrative of what happened at the Twin Peaks restaurant from the start, sometimes getting facts wrong. They haven’t tried to preserve the impartiality of jurors, instead, they've pushed a version of events that reflects well on the Waco police and the actions they’ve taken.

Here is an alternative explanation.

If there is video or ballistics evidence suggesting that lots of innocent people were arrested without probable cause, or that police bullets killed some of the dead that day in Waco, it will be a public-relations nightmare and a huge liability for Waco and its police department. Scores of bikers could sue for six- or seven-figure sums. And prosecutors might find it much more difficult to secure indictments in the case.

But if indictments can be filed before evidence inconvenient to Waco authorities is publicly revealed, the leverage changes. A biker might be indicted for conspiracy to murder, then offered a plea deal to accept a much lesser charge, like disturbing the peace, with the understanding that time served would take care of the sentence. That would be a tempting deal to take. And pleading guilty to disturbing the peace would preclude a lawsuit for being arrested without probable cause while saving police and prosecutors from looking like they harassed innocents.

That alternative explanation may not be correct, but it’s plausible enough to justify concern. And the change in leverage between prosecutors and criminal defendants applies whether or not it is motivating authorities.

A final question law enforcement should be forced to answer, as the many criminal and civil lawsuits likely to stem from this case are adjudicated, is how many undercover cops and informants, if any, were present at Twin Peaks that day, and what role, if any, they played in altercations between various motorcycle riders. (My confidence in the Waco Police Department’s performance was not enhanced by the news that one police officer reportedly present at the scene has since been put on leave for allegedly assaulting a Waco resident in an unrelated matter.)

Scores of likely innocents arrested, suppressed video, clear conflicts of interest in the courts, and the possibility that multiple shooting victims died at the hands of police––the aftermath of the Waco shootout ought to be a prominent part of the ongoing national conversation about a criminal-justice system that routinely victimizes innocents. And by the time the truth outs, perhaps that will come to pass.

http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/arc ... URCE=yahoo

Reason again August 28th:

I’ve reported at length before about various reasons to question the official government narrative surrounding the chaotic and violent incident that resulted in nine people shot to death and 18 wounded and 177 arrested outside the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, Texas, on May 17.

It all happened outside a planned meeting of a mostly political biker club coalition, the Confederation of Clubs and Independents. See here for the most recent, and here the most thorough, of that reporting.

The gag order on people involved in defending the arrested, keeping information from flowing to the public on this controversy, was successfully challenged, then alas reinstated earlier this month.

A set of autopsy reports have been issued about the dead. They are available in full at the Waco Tribune.

The Aging Rebel website, which has featured a lot of interesting reporting and speculation casting doubt on the police story, sums up the somewhat vague basics in this post.

While they do not authoritatively state any judgment on to exactly what type of bullets from what type of gun did the killings—important to discover how many of the deaths and woundings were caused by police themselves as opposed to out of control feuding bikers—the Aging Rebel web site sums up what they don’t tell us:

They do not….disprove the notion that all, or at least most of the dead men were killed by police using M-16s and FN P90 machine guns.

Thirteen of sixteen entrance wounds were .25 inches in diameter or smaller.

FN P90s fire a round with a diameter of .224409 inches. M-16s fire slightly smaller rounds with diameters of 0.218898 inches. All but one of the victims had wounds fired from a downward trajectory. Six of the nine dead had head or neck wounds. None of the wounds contained gunshot residue which indicates that the shots were fired from at least three feet away and probably five feet or farther away. The absence of residue casts doubt on claims by prosecutors of “Bandidos executing Cossacks, and Cossacks executing Bandidos.” Two of the dead had large wounds consistent with a 12 gauge shotgun slug. Ten of 16 wounds were in the back, indicating that the victims were running away when they died. Seven of the wounds were fired from right to left. Six were fired from left to right.

Nine millimeter bullets have a diameter of 0.35433 inches; forty caliber handguns fire a bullet that is four tenths of an inch in diameter and 357 magnums fire rounds that are about .357 inches in diameter…

Most of the recovered bullets were either highly deformed or fragmented which indicates they were fired by high velocity …..

Most police ammunition in the United States is designed to penetrate a human body to a depth of 12 inches and for that reason that ammunition is usually copper jacketed. Most of the bullets that killed at the Twin Peaks were copper jacketed….

None of the autopsies include ballistics information. Notations by eight pathologists involved in the autopsies describe bullets and bullet fragments in very general and inconsistent terms….

In other Waco news, the “examining trial” hearings have been happening for various of the arrested. Those proceedings are meant to ascertain whether there was sufficient cause for an arrest in the first place such that the arrested’s cases should go to a grand jury for actual indictment. The results have not been encouraging about the judicial system's attitudes toward this whole mess.

A 65-year-old Bandido (one of the two biker gangs most blamed by police for the chaos) chaplain, Lawrence Yager, was found justifiably arrested, mostly because he had (legally owned and carried) guns in his possession and in his truck, although, as the Waco Tribune reported:

Yager’s attorney, Landon Northcutt, of Stephenville, argued after the testimonies of Department of Public Safety Lt. Steven Schwartz and Waco police Detective Sam Key that neither officer could offer evidence that Yager conspired to commit murder, assault or any crime that day.

Yager was not wearing his cuts or colors that day and serves as chaplain for the Bandidos, a VFW post and the Texas Association of Vietnam Vets, Northcutt said.

“He was wearing a Christian T-shirt. He was there to minister to people who need him. That is what he does. He is retired. That is all he does,” Northcutt told the judge.

The Waco Tribune’s reporting from the examining trial (where standards for keeping the defendant in the system are far lower than probable cause) of married couple William and Morgan English is a good window into the standards that went into many, likely most, of the arrests that day:

Department of Public Safety Lt. Steven Schwartz, a 17-year department veteran, testified at the morning hearing that William and Morgan English wore patches that identified them as members of a group called Distorted….

He said he thinks the Englishes were aware of the rift between the Cossacks and Bandidos and they were there that day as a show of support for the Bandidos.

But under cross-examination from [the Englishes' lawyer Paul] Looney, Schwartz said neither he nor other DPS investigators were aware that the seven-member Distorted group existed before May 17…

Schwartz said they wore patches that said they support the Bandidos, so that tells him they are at least “somewhat involved in criminal activity.”

He said he saw nothing that day and has developed no subsequent evidence to show the Englishes are involved in criminal activity…..

Schwartz agreed with Looney that the Englishes were cooperative and agreed to talk to investigators after the shooting.

“He said they told police that one of their friends brought a gun with him, but they left it locked up in the car.

“Other than that, all we have is that they were merely present at a murder. Correct?” Looney asked.

“Correct,” Schwartz said.

Only two of the 177 bikers who were arrested on engaging in organized criminal activity charges remain jailed in McLennan County.

Texas Lawyer magazine sums up the grand jury process at work in this case, which won’t see any of the arrested having any chance to clear their names until October, five months after the arrest.

Former Reason intern Jeff Winkler, writing in Texas Monthly, reports on various biker theories as to what was really up at Twin Peaks that day, reported from a planned rally in support of the arrested bikers that was shut down by a bomb scare last week.

Winkler's story ends with a touching scene of various bikers visiting the scene of the crime, treating it like an eerie combination of war memorial and live crime investigation, speculating on what sort of bullets from whom could have taken down biker comrades. (Many are quite sure a sniper was on the roof of a nearby restaurant shooting into the crowd.)

And two non-biker patrons on the scene are suing the restaurant for damages, claiming they were emotionally traumatized and received cuts and bruises at the scene, and that Twin Peaks was negligent for allowing the biker meeting to occur there in the first place after receiving warnings from police not to do so.

I talked briefly on the phone today with lawyer Clint Broden, who represents three of the people arrested that day. Besides confirming the history of the gag order being overturned then reimposed, when asked for any opinions about the relevance of, say, the inconclusive autopsy report, this lawyer representing clients in a matter of intense public interest involving possible criminal malfeasance by police could only beg off.

He’s under a gag order.

https://reason.com/blog/2015/08/28/waco ... ve-autopsy

Here's the most recent from, of all places, GQ magazine:

The Twin Peaks chain is the most successful of America's post-Hooters wave of so-called breastaurants. (“Hooters,” the co-founder of Twin Peaks has said, “wasn't racy enough.”) Flirty waitresses wear skimpy mountaineering outfits: tiny khaki shorts, midriff-baring plaid shirts, climbing boots. A sign outside promises EATS • DRINKS • SCENIC VIEWS.

Though it had been open less than a year, the Twin Peaks in Waco was already a popular spot for Thursday Biker Nights. The Texas Confederation of Clubs and Independents—a kind of United Nations General Assembly for local motorcycle clubs—had never held its bimonthly meeting at Twin Peaks before, but the organization's state chairman was returning from a national convention, and he wanted to speak to as many Texas bikers as possible about various legislative initiatives. Waco is situated between Dallas and Austin, two of the most populous biker cities in Texas.

Afterward—after nine bikers were shot dead, 20 were wounded, and an unprecedented 177 people from at least five different clubs wound up in police custody—the Waco Police Department would claim that the bloodbath was triggered by the Bandidos and the Cossacks, a pair of rival “outlaw motorcycle gangs” (OMGs in law-enforcement vernacular), beefing over the things that OMGs tend to beef over: territory, respect. Months later, though, the Waco P.D. was still suppressing any video footage and ballistic analysis that could offer proof. Some of the 177 arrested (including four women) languished in jail for weeks, others for months, before they could afford to post bail. All of them, even guys who hid out in the bathroom while bullets flew, face up to 99 years in jail.

These bimonthly confederation meetings, known as COC meetings, are mostly arcane discussions of motorcycle-rights issues. They have zero history of violence. Then again, they have virtually zero history of Cossack participation. In fact, May 17 marked only the second time in memory any of the club's members had ever attended a COC meeting; for years, they'd refused to join the organization—a direct rebuke to the Bandidos, Texas's most powerful motorcycle club and one of the nation's largest, with more than 2,000 members. But things had been ugly between the two rivals for a while—fistfights, knife fights, roadside beatings. Infrequent, but growing in brutality.

As a general rule, bikers are not big talkers. It's an insular and suspicious world, especially in Texas, especially now, in the hazy aftermath of the bloodiest day in the often sensationalized history of American biker clubs. Nevertheless, all the Cossacks interviewed by GQ for this story insist they showed up that morning to make peace. And virtually every biker I spoke with last June and July—Cossacks, Bandidos, members of multiple other clubs, 22 bikers in total—believes that the real blame for all the dead bodies belongs with the Waco police.

Anonymous Cossack #1: (1) We had almost 70 men, and we showed up at the same time, because we don't like being left on the road in small groups, because of what's been happening. We went in and ordered drinks.

Vincent Glenn (officer, Waco P.D., from an affidavit dated June 15): The Cossacks and their support clubs took over the patio area, which is the exact area of the restaurant that was reserved for the [COC] meeting.

Anonymous motorcycle-club member: We noticed all the Cossacks sitting on the patio. We gave respect to them, them being a bigger group and having so many people there.

Anonymous Cossack #1: A group of seven Bandidos rolled up on bikes, furious that we were parking up front. They hit one of our prospects, an older guy—ran over his foot.

Reginald Weathers (Bandidos, from court testimony at his bail hearing): My president and vice president tried to back in, and immediately the Cossacks on the porch came out and started pushing their bikes [away], saying they couldn't park there. [Cossacks] kept coming off the patio, over the fence—60 to 100 guys. They were yelling at my president [and] my vice president.

Glenn (from his affidavit): Several of the Cossacks pulled their weapons, including handguns.

Anonymous Cossack #1: Of course, we're not gonna back down. We're men. One of our sergeants at arms—our guys in charge of security—said, “We can take our cuts [vests with club patches] off right now, and you and I can fight.” The guy says, “No, we're not doin' that.” Our sergeant at arms says, “Then let's go in and have a beer and talk about it.”

John Wilson (Cossacks Motorcycle Club, McLennan County chapter president): It looked like it was all going to calm down.

Anonymous Cossack #2: And then somebody, I think it was a Bandido, said, “Don't talk to my president that way.”

Weathers (from court testimony): I said, “I don't think you need to talk to my president like that.” I didn't think it was very respectful. He hit me. My head got pulled down. There was a crowd of guys, and I couldn't see anything.

Anonymous Cossack #2: Fists flew, and it was game on. They went to the ground. Seconds later, I heard bang!

THE BANDIDOS VS. THE COSSACKS

The Bandidos are terrorists. They execute people.
—Jon “Hondo” Moses, Cossacks, Hill County chapter

The Cossacks are a bunch of inbred corn-fed dumb fucking hillbillies. That's my personal fucking opinion on those stupid asses.
—anonymous Bandido

The Bandidos were baptized in blood. They were founded in 1966 by an ex-Marine and Vietnam vet named Don Chambers, whose road name was Mother and who led the club until 1972, when he and two other men were convicted of double murder. They abducted two drug dealers who'd cheated the Bandidos on a meth deal, forced the dealers to dig their own graves in the Texas desert, then shot them and set fire to their bodies. Chambers's three successors were all taken down by the feds for a variety of offenses. During the 1970s, ’80s, and ’90s, the Bandidos did everything the feds continue to accuse them of doing today, including trafficking in narcotics and prostitution. But there hasn't been a major Bandidos bust since 2011, when 39 club members and associates were arrested in Dallas, San Antonio, and Denver on gun and drug charges. Jeff Pike, the club's publicity-shy current president, has held office—mostly quietly—since 2005. “The ’60s are over,” one Bandido insisted to me.

Most bikers today, in Texas and elsewhere, are community-minded law-and-order Republicans—the less affluent, more racially diverse descendants of the Elks and the Knights of Columbus. This includes Bandidos. But as “one-percenters,” the Bandidos also exist in a category apart from most other clubs. More of a boast than an admission of criminal intent, “one-percenter” is a reference to a long-ago line attributed to the American Motorcyclist Association that 99 percent of motorcycle owners are decent, law-abiding citizens. It's unclear whether the Bandidos are, as the feds continue to insist, an organized-crime enterprise, but it is likely that they tolerate a minority of members who are criminals and who use their brothers' loyalty as cover. When I asked one Bandido whether his chapter would kick out a brother who was engaging in criminal activity, he replied cautiously: “It would be the best thing to do.”

Today, as the dominant club in Texas, the Bandidos enforce order among the state's thousands of bikers. “I have personally been around the Bandidos for thousands of hours and have never known them to be violent,” says Steve Cochran, founder and vice president of Sons of the South and a prominent spokesman for the Texas biker community. “There are certain responsibilities as the dominant club that you have to attend to. And one of those things is to disallow knuckleheads, like what showed up at Twin Peaks, to destroy the motorcycle-riding community in the state and to disallow their ability to function.”

Much less is known about the Cossacks, except that they were founded in 1969 in East Texas, and they are growing rapidly. They claim a current membership of about 800 members, which would make them the second-biggest club in Texas after the Bandidos.

Over the past two years, the Bandidos and Cossacks appear to have been engaged in a simmering power struggle. In November 2013, two Cossacks were stabbed in a roadhouse parking lot in Abilene; the president of the local Bandidos chapter was arrested in connection with the assault. Earlier this year, on March 22, Cossacks allegedly forced a Bandido rider off I-35 in Lorena and beat him so brutally—with chains and metal pipes—that he nearly lost an eye. At a gas station in Mingus that same day, Bandidos confronted the Cossack son of a local politician and demanded that he remove the Texas “rocker,” or badge, from his cut. When he refused, they allegedly attacked him with a hammer. The FBI and members of both clubs believe several additional clashes were never reported.

Steve Cochran (co-founder and vice president, Sons of the South): There are no Bandidos in Waco. The Cossacks arrived on the scene three or four years ago. They started flexing on all the other clubs in the area. They would claim they own Waco. They would harass all the other motorcycle clubs: “You can't ride here. This is our town.”

John Wilson (Cossacks): We never told anybody that Waco was a Cossack town, that nobody else was allowed to ride here. We were welcomed by all the different establishments. The only club that had a problem with us didn't have a chapter here. There was a Bandidos chapter in Waco, oh, probably 12 years ago, but those guys were involved in a murder in a local bar, and after that, they got shut down.

Anonymous Bandido #2: Some Cossacks might be Klan members. They wear the lightning bolts.

Wilson: I don't know if anybody actually ever said S.S. lightning bolts were outlawed, but there are no white-supremacist patches allowed. If some guy sewed one on, he might not have got called on it yet.

Anonymous Cossack #1: The Bandidos invited us to [the COC meeting at Twin Peaks]. That's why we were there earlier than any other club. We were told, “This meeting is about us stopping all this crap.” The agreement was made by a Bandido named Marshall Mitchell.

Marshall Mitchell (Bandidos): That's a lie. That is an absolute lie. They were never invited. Categorically absolute b.s. You can ask any motorcycle club in the world. You never bring 60 people to a meeting [as the Cossacks did; the Bandidos had about 20]. It's three people and three people, or two people and two people, and that's the way it is.

Glenn (from his affidavit): A Waco gang-intelligence officer learned that the Cossacks were upset that the Bandidos changed the location of the [May 17 COC] meeting to “their territory.” The Cossacks made the decision to take a stand and attend the meeting uninvited.

12:24 P.M., MAY 17, 2015
TWIN PEAKS RESTAURANT
WACO, TEXAS

The police were already there as the rest of the clubs arrived that morning. “They're circling like buzzards on a dead deer,” one biker told me. “I look at the people I was riding with, and I said, ‘This don't look right.’ ” Afterward, said the Cossacks' John Wilson, “a Waco spokesman was touting the quick 40-second response time of the police, when that was obviously false. They were here.”

The bikers believe this provides a clue to the Waco P.D.'s ongoing silence: The cops know their response was overzealous, possibly unlawful, and now they're covering it up. Some bikers believe there's an even more sinister explanation: that a firefight of some kind was supposed to happen—that it was all part of a plan by the Waco P.D. to provoke bitter rivals into a public brawl that could be violently crushed and then used as a basis for sweeping RICO indictments.

“We basically walked into an ambush,” says the Cossacks' Jon “Hondo” Moses. “The die was cast as soon as we rode into that parking lot.”

Wilson: I didn't see who fired the first shot. I was told it was a Bandido firing into the ground, trying to break up a fistfight.

Anonymous Cossack #2: I thought it was just a warning shot from somebody. I was dazed. I stood in place. I thought they had fired a gun in the air to make everything stop.

Anonymous Cossack #1: I felt a concussion from the pistol. It was a black semiautomatic.

Anonymous motorcycle-club member: We heard a pop. Then a few more pops. Your feet start to act. There's pops from the rear, from the front, on the far side. It's like being in a war zone.

Anonymous Cossack #2: I heard projectiles zinging past me, but I didn't hear no gun going off. It was either a silenced weapon or a very suppressed weapon in the distance. I've never been so scared in my life.

Unidentified Waco P.D. officer #1 (from radio traffic): Dispatch units soonest—Twin Peaks! Shots fired, several people down!

Anonymous Cossack #1: One [shot] killed Richie, our regional sergeant at arms. Another went through the neck of our sergeant at arms. This Bandido jumped off his bike and attacked him. He was beatin' the crap out of my S.A., right? He had gloves with lead in 'em. But when my S.A. got on top of him—he's a good ol' boy—this other Bandido came up from behind with a pistol and shot him in the neck. Well, we assume he was a Bandido—he wasn't with us. (2) My S.A. lived. He was very lucky. I pulled myself in underneath my motorcycle, making myself as small a target as possible. I was just breathing and hoping it would end soon. I just kept hearing shots. Long-distance.

Anonymous motorcycle-club member: Now, the first two or three pops—me and half my crew being ex-military, we know what small-arms fire from pistols sounds like. We also know what squad automatic weapons [typically used by the military and law enforcement] sound like. After the third pop, it was nothing but squad automatic weapons.

Anonymous Cossack #1: I got shot, and I didn't know it until it started burning. I looked down and saw a hole. It was bleeding pretty bad. I wadded my shirt and held it and yelled out, “I'm hit!” Then I saw Diesel [a fellow Cossack] get shot in the forehead. He also took cover next to me. He wasn't shooting or nothing.

Anonymous Cossack #2: I watched the top of Diesel's head come off and land on another dude's jeans. I was probably ten yards away from where it happened. And his son was standing right there beside him and watched it happen. Watched his dad die. Another brother of mine had a gut-shot hole I could've stuck my thumb in. He had Diesel's brains on his pant leg.

Weathers (from court testimony): I was shot, I have no clue by who. It went through my right arm into my chest. I'm on a blood thinner, so it's a big deal to get hit. I ran for the other side of the vehicles parked near the Don Carlos Mexican restaurant to find some cover.

Anonymous Cossack #2: I'd guess the shooting lasted two to three minutes, but when you got bullets flying over your head, three minutes is a long time. I will never forget any of that. Nothing I'd seen in the Marines had really prepared you for that. I have a couple of friends in the Cossacks who've done three tours in Iraq. They're like, “I've never seen no shit like this before.”

Unidentified Waco P.D. officer #2 (from radio traffic): Do not send an ambulance! Have 'em stage [nearby]. This place is hot!

Wilson: The police rounded everybody up and marched us out and through the carnage in the parking lot. We were detained, but we weren't cuffed. We were just sitting there and trying to take care of our wounded. Bear was shot in the abdomen and the legs. Rattle Can was shot in his torso, and he was bleeding bad and had even started to convulse while he was there on the ground while officers stood around with rifles pointed at us. Rattle Can was laying there in a lot of pain, and my son and others were over there, trying to stick bandannas in bullet holes. He was able to talk for a while, but before they picked him up, he had slipped into unconsciousness. That's really all I want to say about that.

Anonymous Cossack #1: I was losing a lot of blood. I started to lose consciousness at that point. A member of the Boozefighters came up and helped me. He ignored the protocols of “stay with your club”; he must have been an EMT or first responder. He told the guy to apply pressure, took shirts off and whatnot. He was saving lives.

Wilson: Not a single law-enforcement person lifted a finger to help any of the wounded. And they made it pretty clear that they were going to be violent if we tried to take our guys to the ambulance. Three men were bleeding out before our eyes. If those men were still alive 30, 40 minutes after being shot, they could have been saved. A prospect named Trainer from out of Tarrant County chapter was shot. They zip-tied him and laid him on the ground next to a Bandido they had handcuffed. I noticed him jerk a few times, laying there. We were sitting there, 30 feet from him, and weren't able to help him. About two hours later, somebody walked over, looked at him, and covered him with a yellow sheet.

THE WACO P.D.

Sergeant Patrick Swanton, the Waco Police Department's affably officious spokesman, gave seven press conferences in the first three days after the shootings. He became a minor media celebrity.

With so little evidence available to the public, Swanton had complete control of the narrative, and he took the opportunity to declare, repeatedly, that the COC meeting at Twin Peaks had been a criminal gathering and that every biker who attended was a gang member. When a reporter observed that many bikers had disputed these claims, Swanton was dismissive. “They lied,” he said. The dead men ranged in age from 27 to 65: seven Cossacks, one Bandido, and one unaffiliated biker—the 65-year-old—who was an ex-Marine recipient of the Purple Heart for service in Vietnam.

By his final press conference, Swanton seemed to be struggling to defend his early characterizations of the clubs. A reporter asked, “Can you please respond to criticism…that not all 170 [jailed bikers] are criminals, that a lot of [them] are totally innocent and had nothing to do with the shooting?” “No, I can't respond to that,” Swanton shot back, then hastily moved on. For a while, Swanton continued posting press releases about the shootings on the Waco P.D.'s Facebook page, but all of them have since been deleted.

The Texas Department of Public Safety did its part to ramp up hysteria, leaking a “confidential bulletin” to CNN alleging that Bandidos in active military service were arming their chapters with grenades and C4 explosives so that they could retaliate against the police. One of the DPS's sources was a club called the Black Widows, which does not exist except in the 1978 movie Every Which Way But Loose. In response, one biker blog jeered: “Waco Police Now Claim They Are Being Attacked by Clint Eastwood and An Orangutan Named Clyde.”

Any attempt to try to piece together exactly how the nine bikers died—whose guns fired the fatal shots—requires wading into JFK-assassination levels of paranoia and confusion. For instance, members of multiple clubs have claimed that when the shooting started, two Cossacks stood up inside the restaurant, took off their cuts, and put on badges. Were they undercover cops waiting for a fight to break out, and if so, did they play a part in instigating it? Other witnesses have said that a Waco cop wearing a Cossacks cut was firing shots, then helped make arrests afterward.

According to Waco police chief Brent Stroman, only three of his 16 officers discharged their weapons, firing a total of 12 rounds. But eyewitnesses dispute that figure, as does the owner of the adjacent Don Carlos restaurant, who has claimed that “thousands of bullet rounds” were fired. Could it be that the department's numbers don't include shots from its undercover officers? And if the bikers were firing at police, as alleged, why hasn't the Waco P.D. released any hard evidence to prove it?

“Harried handgun fights are usually a pretty inaccurate situation,” says Cossacks chapter president John Wilson. “Head shots happen by mistake, if at all. Someone got lucky. To have that many guys hit with torso shots and head shots—in my experience, I would say that indicates you had trained people with long rifles and optical sights. That's accurate, aimed fire.” (3)

A rival Bandido, who declined to be named, reached the same conclusion: “Seven of the nine [dead] were head shots or chest shots. Who trains for that? Who?”

THE WACO 177

The volume of arrests at Twin Peaks completely overwhelmed the city's criminal-processing system. Many of the Waco 177 waited days to be provided with a lawyer while the desperate court system sought help from neighboring cities. “Like if you were in a fast-food restaurant and three buses pulled up,” a local judge named Billy Ray Stubblefield told the Waco Tribune, “and all the kids want their food just as fast as they normally do.”

It's still unclear why so many of the bikers were arrested in the first place, when it appears that so few of them were actually involved in the shoot-out. Three bikers were arrested despite arriving after the shooting stopped; Swanton later said it was because they were carrying guns—legally, as it later appeared—and because they were “wearing the colors of criminal gang members.”

Swanton, meanwhile, is now trying to parlay his elevated profile into a run for county sheriff.

Wilson: We were lined up and zip-tied, had our shoes taken from us and our belts and anything in our pockets. We were taken to the Waco Convention Center, where we were set on the floor, and we spent the next 18 or so hours there.

Anonymous motorcycle-club member: They ask me to identify my belongings that are in a big old pile of shit. It's like 177 bags, no names on them.

Matt Clendennen (Scimitars Motorcycle Club): Chair, floor—wherever we could find to sleep is where we slept, with our hands tied behind our backs. I didn't sleep much.

Anonymous motorcycle-club member: At two or three in the morning, I had my zip ties popped off for about four minutes so that I could pee. Then they put a new set on, just as tight, and brought us a piece of fried chicken and a little bitty cup of water. Have you ever tried to eat something with your hands behind your back?

Wilson: They took our clothes and put us in jail uniforms and stood us in front of a camera and told us we were on a $1 million bond and snapped our picture. I was in shock. The vast, vast majority of those people committed no crime. I kept thinking, There's some mistake.

Anonymous Cossack #2: To get out on a $1 million bond, it'll cost $100,000. How many people can just pull that out of their pocket?

Wilson: I was in jail 28 days. My son was in for 37. We're not wealthy people, so it took a lot longer for him to get his bond reduced.

Anonymous Cossack #2: I was in for 27 days. We had our bad moments, you know, when we'd get off the phone from talking to our wives or loved ones and be very down.

Wilson: Some of these guys were on PTSD medications that they were denied in jail. One of our guys was ten months out of Afghanistan, and it was very hard on him. I saw him break down several times.

Anonymous Cossack #2: They dropped my bond down to $250,000. My lawyer screamed and screamed; they dropped it down to $65,000. Here's my wife trying to raise up 10 percent to get me out of jail, and I only got to talk to her once a day for 15 minutes.

Clendennen: When I got out, I was in a hurry to pick my son up on his last day of school. My wife told him I was on a business trip, because he's 4 years old and his understanding of going to jail is you've done something wrong. We have a minivan, and my wife opened the door, and I was sitting in the backseat. He was surprised and overjoyed and confused all at the same time. The next morning, I had to get back to my job. When he woke up, he was real upset that I wasn't there. It hit him real heavy. He was thinking I was going to be gone again.

Anonymous Cossack #2: We have one guy that was a United Airlines pilot. For years. He lost his whole career.

Anonymous motorcycle-club member: When you get out of jail after being gone for 30 days, you don't have a job anymore. I got fired. Nobody wants to hire an electrician with a class 1 felony charge pending above his head.

THE WACO JUSTICE SYSTEM

“The city of Waco is looking at paying out hundreds of millions of dollars,” says Michael White, Wilson's attorney. “I don't think we've ever seen something on the scale of 175-plus people being arrested for something they did not do.” To survive the storm, the city's legal strategy seems to be to pressure the Waco 177 into pleading guilty to minor infractions for time served; this would preclude the bikers from being able to sue for wrongful imprisonment.

Justice of the peace Walter “Pete” Peterson's across-the-board imposition of $1 million bonds—“to send a message,” he said—was almost certainly illegal. Waco P.D. officer Manuel Chavez later admitted in court that Peterson signed all 177 of the so-called cookie-cutter probable-cause affidavits in bulk, without specifying the evidence against each individual defendant. Peterson, it turns out, is a former state trooper with no legal training.

Nevertheless, the Waco 177 still have their work cut out for them. The judge in the case, Matt Johnson, is the former law partner of district attorney Abel Reyna. Incredibly, the foreman of the first grand jury to be convened, James Head, is a Waco P.D. detective. “He was chosen totally at random, like the law says,” Reyna insisted to local reporters. If this seems brazen, consider that the commission to appoint jurors was originally going to be led by Reyna's own father. Reyna only backed down under pressure, acquiescing to the process that led to Head's selection. Asked why he'd permit an active police officer to lead a grand jury investigating possible police misconduct, state district judge Ralph Strother said, “I just thought, ‘Well, he's qualified. He knows the criminal-justice system.’ ”

On his first day as a grand juror, Head wore his badge and service pistol. Later, when a reporter asked him if he'd taken part in the Waco operation, Head responded: “Not really.”

The DPS declined an interview request. Swanton cordially e-mailed to say he would “touch base” with me the following morning, then melted away.

http://www.gq.com/story/untold-story-te ... -shoot-out

I know nobody really cares, (I don't even bother posting in the Police Abuse sticky because only like 3 people read it) but this is starting to be a national discussion so you should be at least tangentially familiar with the details.

[Simon_Jester]

It's impressive in a way, that I'm having difficulty just keeping count of the number of separate violations of basic principles of law and of how the judiciary is supposed to work that we're seeing here, based on accusations against the police by numerous individuals.

This is different than what we usually see in 'police abuse' cases because it involves a very large number of parallel events, and therefore provides easy evidence of what is being done as a matter of policy. It is harder to determine that, in a case where all the evidence involves one person and what happened to them.

Not sure what more to make of it in any detail.

[loomer]

So, this is going to become Waco 2.0 in the conspiracy and militia worlds, guaranteed. It's even in the same damn town.

[SAMAS]

IMO, it's reading a lot like the recent individual cases: Cop gets trigger-happy and kills somebody, force and local judiciary bends and breaks the law to try to get them off.

Just on a much larger scale.

And honestly? The idea that it's starting to look more like SOP than racism kinda scares me.

[Mr Bean]

Gotta admit this does look off and from a quick checking with a few old friends it is a story that's starting to perk up on the Radar. The initial story sold in the press oh Biker Gangs fight, a bunch of Bikers died and no Civilians died sounds like a great story, okay they fought and killed each other but hey at least they only killed each other.


But here we are months later and it's still an ongoing story and the lack of ballistics report and a breakdown of who shot who still is not yet released? Now we are going directly into conspiracy theory time. I'd say expect to hear about it on the Presidential debates in a couple of weeks/months but.... Ron Paul's not running and Rand Paul is not his father (Or likely to be along for that much longer) and those that remaing are far to mainstream to care about issues like this when they need to make the hopefuls sound as Presidential as possible.

[Kamakazie Sith]

What I think is interesting is the direction this thread went. First it's a heroic story. Then it's velvet gloves treatment directed at white OMGs. Now it's murder! I wonder what will be next?

I also enjoy the sudden change in policy by biker members. These are organizations that pride themselves with not cooperating with investigations and now they are suddenly credible sources and just full of details.

By the way, Bean. I wouldn't count on anything being released to the public until post trial...especially with a gag order in place. The public is not the court room and releasing this information could seriously taint the jury pool or future jury pool for other case if it does in fact turn out to be Waco 2.0. We will probably get the full story 10 years down the road as part of some documentary.

[Mr Bean]

What I think is interesting is the direction this thread went. First it's a heroic story. Then it's velvet gloves treatment directed at white OMGs. Now it's murder! I wonder what will be next?

I also enjoy the sudden change in policy by biker members. These are organizations that pride themselves with not cooperating with investigations and now they are suddenly credible sources and just full of details.

Gang members are people too in the sense that this idea of a possible funny business on the part of the local cops (Which the wide reaching gag orders plays into) idea is gaining steam. Keep in mind associate chapters and fellow travelers are interested in this case, they have reason to be you admit, I don't think this goes any farther than what we have except perhaps add the oh lets say FBI plant wrinkle, IE we were totes there to make peace but Johnny who was a fucking fed started a fighting and we all started brawling to back up Johnny but he was a fucking fed so the whole thing must be a setup.... Not saying that's were it's gonna go but I'm looking ahead and "setup" is about as far as you can go unless Aliens Vampires or the Democratic Party are involved.

By the way, Bean. I wouldn't count on anything being released to the public until post trial...especially with a gag order in place. The public is not the court room and releasing this information could seriously taint the jury pool or future jury pool for other case if it does in fact turn out to be Waco 2.0. We will probably get the full story 10 years down the road as part of some documentary.

This leads back into the natural story with the wide reaching gag order and 100+ defendants it "smells" cover up even if it's nothing of the sort. Can you think of a similar case in the past (Even including Waco) where we did not have the officers claiming a count within a month or two of the incident. IE we shot three Bikers, they shot fifteen or we shot one biker fataly and wounded four but they got everyone else... because unless the ballistics report is damning in some way (Lets go full conspiracy 100% of the bullet wounds were police fire arms) it should not impact the Jury pool right? It's not like some interested party could not gather some information like saying getting the bodies of the dead autopsied to see what they died from and when, I assume the Judge did not order a Gag order and cremation for the dead Bikers so if some Media organization with... Investigative reporters where interested they could find and release the information your saying is being held back.

But perhaps I'm off base explain to me how revealing the claimed kill counts would be prejudicial to any individuals trial? How would Mr Bean the Jurior be influenced by this information being publicly released.

[Dominus Atheos]

This has passed the one year mark, and its gone from weird to downright bizarre.

Houston local news

The Waco Biker Gang Shooting Investigation Is a Complete Mess

It's been nearly a year since nine bikers were killed in a chaotic shootout between the Cossacks and Bandidos gangs at a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, and we still don't know much about what happened or who did what. And while 177 bikers were arrested at the scene, we still don' t even totally know which ones will be charged with a crime.

A Waco grand jury handed out 106 indictments in November — a full six months after the shooting — and announced 48 more indictments last month. The indicted bikers were all charged with engaging in organized criminal activity, so it's pretty clear investigators remain unsure who fired the fatal gunshots, otherwise we'd probably see a few murder charges. When the District Attorney's office announced the first round of indictments, it got the number of dead wrong, claiming ten people were killed instead of nine. At least it was able to get that cleared up the second time around.

Whether there will be a third round of indictments is unclear. There are 38 more bikers who were arrested and have yet to be charged. No one seems to be able to agree on what their status is. Houston lawyer Paul Looney, who represents three of the bikers arrested in May, told the Houston Chronicle that all possible charges are automatically dropped against the remaining non-indicted bikers because the grand jury has apparently passed the agreed-upon deadline to hand out indictments in the case. "It timed out," Looney told the Chron on Friday. "Pop the champagne."

But county officials handling the case apparently think they have all the time in the world.

“Mr. Looney’s version of what transpired today is sadly inaccurate,” McLennan County DA Abel Reyna told KWTX-Waco on Friday. “We have not filed any dismissals in any of the remaining Twin Peaks cases... Furthermore, any McLennan County grand jury can hear evidence on this matter and decide to issue additional indictments. This is an ongoing, continuing investigation.”

That investigation has been "ongoing" for a quite some time now, and has produced few public results. Last month, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives reportedly completed its report tracing the 151 guns recovered from the shooting scene (according to the Associated Press, there were more than 400 weapons found at the scene, firearms included). While the ATF hasn't released that report, the AP says it reviewed grand jury evidence that showed four of the fatally shot bikers were hit with "the same caliber of rifle fired by Waco police."

Whatever else investigators may currently know about what happened, they aren't sharing. From the AP in December:

Police and the district attorney's office declined to comment on the latest evidence, but have defended the officers' use of force, claiming that bikers had also opened fire on police. Police have previously cited a gag order in the criminal case of one of the bikers. Media groups including the AP have fought the order, contending that it is overly broad and unconstitutional.

With a gag order firmly in place and hundreds of related cases that need to be tried, it seems like it will be a long, long time before we get anything close to a complete picture of what happened in Waco.

The Atlantic

The Troubling Prosecution of Waco Bikers

Newly released videos leave little doubt that most people present were surprised that gunshots erupted and did their best to get away, not participate.


In Waco, Texas, authorities are still using a gag order to suppress evidence of what happened during the May 15, 2015, melee where 9 bikers were killed, some by the same caliber bullets used by police officers who fired their weapons that day. And newly available video underscores the likelihood that injustices are being perpetrated.

The carnage began after a fight broke out at a regional gathering of motorcycle clubs, including the Cossacks and the Bandidos, who started brawling in the parking lot.

There is no doubt that some bikers bear much blame.

The violence escalated quickly, but the parties responsible for the killings have yet to be revealed. In fact, the public has never been told how many were killed by police versus bikers, or whether that is known. Nevertheless, in the wake of the killings, 177 bikers were arrested. Authorities faced criticism for jailing so many, using fill-in-the-blank paperwork that didn’t differentiate among the jailed, even though it was always wildly implausible that so many bikers were involved in the killings. If the cops shot accurately, some of the guilty are presumably among the dead.

Now a Texas attorney has posted video from the dash cam of a police vehicle that underscores the injustice of first arresting 177 people, and then later charging most with conspiracy to kill:

VIDEO

Viewed by itself or alongside other video footage from the scene of the killings, it appears to show a tightly packed gathering of people who begin to scatter in surprised panic sometime after the 30-second mark, with many running around the building, others crouching behind cars, and still others fleeing through the restaurant.

Here’s a second video from a different angle that also shows most people running away from the violence:

VIDEO

Here is a third video released by the same attorney, this one shot from a patio:

VIDEO

There may well be some men who broke the law among the faces who passed by the camera. There are certainly men who drew guns. Maybe some should be jailed. These three videos certainly don’t resolve the Waco biker shooting by themselves.

They do, however, make one thing clear.

The vast majority of bikers present that day appear to have been shocked by the gunfire and inclined to flee the scene of lethal violence rather than to participate in it.

Yet prosecutors arrested the vast majority of this same group, later charging most of them. The videos make it seem plausible that dozens of people who fled trouble as expeditiously as possible have now spent almost a year of their lives in serious legal jeopardy, at great cost to their livelihoods and relationships.

None have gotten a trial or even a trial date.

“With a gag order firmly in place and hundreds of related cases that need to be tried,” The Houston Press declares, “it seems like it will be a long, long time before we get anything close to a complete picture of what happened in Waco.” But even the incomplete picture shows enough to conclude that the judge should lift the gag order.

Sunlight is the only thing that can disinfect this matter.

And a year later, the county is still trying desperately to gag everyone involved in the case:

June 16, 2016

WACO, Texas – Texas' highest criminal court reversed a gag order Wednesday in the case of one of the nearly 200 bikers arrested after a police-involved shooting last year outside a Waco restaurant that left nine dead.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals released the decision a year after a lawsuit was filed by Matthew Clendennen against the city of Waco, the local district attorney and the Waco police officer who drafted a warrant for his arrest. Clendennen, a landscape-lighting designer from nearby Hewitt, argued that the warrant lacked probable cause.

The gag order, which was requested by prosecutors, barred parties in the case from speaking about it publicly. Sixteen news organizations, including The Associated Press, told the court last summer they supported Clendennen's request to overturn the gag order — which investigators have repeatedly cited when declining to comment on ongoing investigations related to the shooting.

Prosecutors did not return messages Wednesday seeking comment on the court ruling, but police suggested they would continue to be cautious in discussing the shooting.

"We don't want to possibly hinder the court process by discussing further evidence or information about the case," Waco police spokesman Sgt. Patrick Swanton said.

Prosecutors and Swanton gave a flurry of news conferences and interviews in the initial weeks after the shooting, which authorities have described as a melee between rival biker gangs. But at least two of the nine people killed were fatally wounded by the same caliber of rifle fired by Waco police, according to a review of ballistics evidence by the AP late last year.

Investigators have largely stayed silent since then about the criminal investigation. Since November, a grand jury has indicted 154 people on charges of engaging in organized criminal activity, meaning they're accused of being complicit in the shooting that also left 20 people injured. They face 15 years to life in prison if convicted. No trial dates have been set.

Swanton confirmed Wednesday that the officers involved in the shooting remained on administrative duty. But he and other investigators had repeatedly cited the gag order to not comment on the investigation or any of the individual bikers' cases.

The judge who issued the gag order had declined to clarify whether it should be interpreted so broadly.