One Waco police officer described the aftermath as looking like something out of a video game. Bloodstained concrete. But goddamn, figure out who done this and get somebody in trouble.. Bikers run in every direction, taking cover behind vehicles, dropping to their bellies. How 177 arrests led to no convictions a tangled, seven-year tale of prosecutorial hubris and tenacious defense. The restaurant was located in a sprawling strip mall alongside big-box chains such as Bed Bath & Beyond. Peterson, the justice of the peace who set the identical million-dollar bonds, told The Waco Tribune-Herald that I think it is important to send a message. Im not far away if you need me and Im packing. What was he packing, Jarrett asked a lunch? She was initially put off by the idea of defending people who might well be guilty. dropped the last cases, Pierson recalled: I talked to Roxanne and said, So thats it. And shes all excited because they fought for our rights. In May 2015, the bikers were gathering for a meeting of the Texas Confederation of Clubs and Independents, a coalition of motorcycle enthusiasts that lobbies the state government over things like helmet laws. By July 10, all but four of the bikers had been freed on bond, but judges still ruled against defense lawyers, including Looney, who argued that there hadnt been cause to arrest their clients in the first place. Earlier in the month, Jeff Rogers, a detective with the gang-intelligence unit, sent out his own email warning colleagues that if the Cossacks attempt to attend this meeting or show up at this location, the potential for violence is very high. Shortly after Kelly Bowden, a 19-year-old bartender at Twin Peaks, arrived for her lunch shift, her manager told her that the cops had called corporate and tried to get them to cancel the meeting entirely. I was just kicking and punching. Broden and Tittle talked afterward and decided to file motions to disqualify Reyna from the cases of another set of bikers. WebLaw enforcement officers from around the area including the FBI and ATF are investigating the scene and providing security near Twin Peaks restaurant on Monday, May 18, 2015, where CNN video shows footage, crime scene photos of Twin Peaks melee. These meetings were typically low-key affairs; the Waco event was planned for 1 p.m. on a Sunday, at a Hooters-style chain restaurant called Twin Peaks, where the waitresses wear lumberjack-plaid halter tops. In this May 17, 2015 photo, authorities investigate a shooting in the parking lot of the Twin Peaks restaurant, in Waco, Texas. Even among the dragons, though, Twin Peaks has left a nagging sense of justice undone. Get up-to-the-minute news sent straight to your device. The trial-preparation specialist Roxanne Avery with her Chihuahua Bonnie in Norman, Okla.CreditEli Durst for The New York Times. Less than three months before the Waco brawl, the Texas Department of Public Safety issued an internal memo warning that the Bandidos were displeased with the Cossacks. Instead, the police positioned uniformed officers mostly members of the SWAT team in the parking lot, hoping their visibility might act as a deterrent. He would later say, in a sworn affidavit, that he had gone to the feds, claiming that Reyna had engaged in a pattern of preferential treatment for friends, campaign supporters and their relatives, including declining to prosecute D.W.I. And Im going, yes, Im happy, but Candyman died beside me, and no, its not OK with me. They met in 2002, when Avery needed a lawyer herself. CNN has obtained video and images of the chaos during and after the brawl. A Breckenridge man affiliated with the Cossacks motorcycle group pleaded not guilty Monday to charges related to the May 17 Twin Peaks shootout. 2. Did you encounter any technical issues? Then the crowd pulses, like a single organism, before scattering as the first gunshot is fired. After the DA tried to implement that in all discovery in all felony cases, the local defense (attorneys) reacted and had a meeting with the district attorney, Callahan said. The bikers werent being given Miranda warnings because they were being treated as witnesses. Lanning didnt think that would be appropriate, and neither did two other assistant chiefs and a sergeant he consulted. One of the 151 guns found by investigators was in the grass outside Twin Peaks after the fight. {{start_at_rate}} {{format_dollars}} {{start_price}} {{format_cents}} {{term}}, {{promotional_format_dollars}}{{promotional_price}}{{promotional_format_cents}} {{term}}, Nebraska cheerleader competes by herself at state competition, but crowd doesn't let her feel alone, Elementary school music teacher leaves $6M to Baylor, Former NFL star Chad Johnson says he saved money by living inside Cincinnati Bengals stadium for 2 years, Mike Copeland: Steak and Ale comeback; Paper plant progress; Bagby apartments; Gaines Booked Up, Lake on Waco Creek floated for park next to Floyd Casey development, Whizzbang's owner buys Health Camp with eye to preserving burger joint legacy, Sheriff names man found dead of apparent gunshot in Golinda, La Vega, Fairfield girls know the way to San Antone, clinching state trips, Brothers continue dad's clear legacy at Freddy's Glass, The GOAT of tennis families lives in Groesbeck. In this photo, Pursuing individual murder charges would have had its own limitations. The Bandidos came along 18 years later in 1966, founded by a 36-year-old Houston dockworker and Vietnam War veteran named Donald Chambers. Over 130 civil rights lawsuits are still pending against Reyna, the city and county and law-enforcement officers involved in the arrests. This surveillance Moving to a large computer monitor, Avery began to click through crime-scene photographs, many of them graphic close-ups of dead bodies. The Waco PD says about 480 weapons were found that day. Weve got to find a client, Looney recalled. Because of bad weather, they drove to the C.O.C. FORT WORTH, Texas -- Evidence reviewed by The Associated Press confirms that police bullets hit bikers Johnson, the district judge, presided. in Reynas office, Greg Davis, had left the job in protest. While the Twin Peaks incident contributed, one commissioner saysthe increase is really a reflection of the countys growth. Callahan said he likely will file a motion with the court asking a judge to order Reynas office to release the discovery items without requiring attorneys to sign such an agreement. Example: After months of watching as questionable decisions and obvious hiccups in , This is a condensed version of security camera footage from the parking lot outside Don Carlos Mexican Restaurant before, during and after the, The Texas Attorney Generals Office notified McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna this month that his office violated the Texas Public. The shootout at the Twin Peaks restaurant May 17 that claimed the lives of nine bikers and placed Waco in the cross hairs of national scrutiny, A Waco police detective was selected Wednesday to preside over a new McLennan County grand jury that could be the panel that considers the Twi, FORT WORTH The family of a biker slain in a shootout outside a Waco restaurant is suing the restaurant's parent company for negligence, acco, The owner of a local landscaping business who was jailed with 176 other bikers after the deadly May 17 Twin Peaks shootout has dismissed his f, Attorneys for Don Carlos Mexican Restaurant in Waco are seeking to block a subpoena that would require restaurant officials to turn over secur, A hearing Thursday for a disabled Gatesville Army veteran who rides with the Cossacks Motorcycle Club included a strong challenge to the proba, Two days after a state district judge extended the term of a McLennan County grand jury to consider the Twin Peaks shootout case, he changed h, A Dallas attorney who represents Hewitt biker Matthew Clendennen filed an emergency appeal Wednesday seeking to lift a gag order a judge impos, McLennan County hired former prosecutor and longtime Waco attorney David Deaconson on Tuesday to represent local judges who are being subpoena, With 100 potential grand jurors waiting to report to the McLennan County Courthouse next week to break in a new system for selecting grand jur, A state district judge ruled Tuesday that a Dallas attorney can have a copy of a Twin Peaks franchisees video of the May 17 biker shootout, b, The May 17 war zone around Twin Peaks cost lives, liberties and livelihoods, but local companies monitoring GPS ankle bracelets and writing ba, A Dallas attorney, seeking video of the May 17 biker shootout from the Twin Peaks restaurant franchisee, filed a motion Friday to sanction the, The city of Waco is seeking to quash a subpoena issued to the former Waco Twin Peaks franchise holder for video of the May 17 shootout that le, The Bandidos Motorcycle Club released a statement Monday responding to police and other accounts of the May 17 shootout at Twin Peaks that kil, Officials are releasing limited information and say disclosure of certain evidence, including videos of the incident, would compromise their i, Prosecutors filed notices Tuesday of their intent to seize and forfeit 17 motorcycles, eight pickup trucks and two SUVs, alleging the vehicles, Waco Police Chief Brent Stroman said Friday that three Waco officers fired a total of 12 shots during the May 17 Twin Peaks shootout that kill, The president of the local chapter of the Cossacks Motorcycle Club was freed from jail Friday but he cant congregate with fellow Cossacks or , A member of the Bandidos motorcycle gang described Wednesday how he was punched in the face and then shot May 17 at Twin Peaks restaurant whil, McLennan county commissioners Tuesday began what will be a monthslong discussion to assemble the fiscal year 2016 budget, which includes how t, The mass arrests of 177 bikers after the May 17 Twin Peaks shootout is a nightmarish situation for everyone involved and are straining the l, As a veteran, community member and sworn defender of the U.S. Constitution, Ive been too quiet. Police say they responded within 30 to 45 seconds and were fired at by bikers. Hodge, prosecutors said, ordered subordinates to collect $100 from every member of the group to fund an elaborate revenge plot against a rival club, the Banshees, meant to include a machine-gun attack on a clubhouse in Texarkana and the bombing of homes and vehicles in Dallas. A tattoo on his left arm commemorates the number of arrests. Looney speaks in a mellifluous Texas drawl, wears bolo ties and cowboy boots and pilots his own plane to court hearings outside Houston. Another hearing on the motion to disqualify him was scheduled for February 2018. He was on the patio drinking a glass of water when the shots rang out, after which his actions, Broden later wrote in a case filing, were consistent with what 99 percent of the population would do he immediately took cover to avoid being struck.. The Bandidos are the biggest motorcycle clubs in Texas, with around 400 members. Id say: You dont need the time. Several members of his family worked in law enforcement in Houston, where his uncle, Raul Martinez, was the first Hispanic person to join the Police Department. Bucher, an Army veteran, was using his door for cover as bullets whizzed past. Johnson ruled that day that Dallas attorney Clint Broden could have a copy of a Don Carlos Mexican restaurant surveillance video of the May 17 biker shootout but barred the public release of the video. WebGraphic video shows Waco biker shooting that killed nine, ending in 177 arrests. He remains loyal to his club and wont speak about any internal business, except to insist that the Bandidos are not drug dealers or organized criminals back in the early days, maybe things were different, but now? This violent encounter wasn't the first between the Cossacks and the Bandidos, according to a Waco PD investigator's sworn statement. about an illegal gambling ring she believed Reyna and his friends had been operating. He pulled out a silver revolver with a long barrel that reminded her of Dirty Harrys gun. The footage is consistent with early police descriptions of weapons hidden between sacks of flour and bags of tortilla chips. Two men briefly pummeled him before running. This is one of the many weapons recovered. A Waco, Texas, police officer removes crime-scene tape from the parking lot where a biker brawl left nine dead, 18 others wounded and more than 177 in jail. As police officers secured the scene, the bikers raised their hands in surrender or sprawled prone with their hands on their heads. (Waco Police photo) Two Texas biker gangs were at the center of a violent brawl and shootout that left 9 dead and 18 wounded Sunday afternoon in Waco, Texas. When I called, some were like, I dont know if I have the time, Avery told me. Her best friend put her in touch with Looney, who flew out and cleared up the matter. Theyre legitimate fraternal organizations that arent running a criminal enterprise., Jay Dobyns, a former undercover agent with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives who infiltrated the Hells Angels in the early aughts, said he understood the attractiveness of the outlaw clubs for a certain type of 9-to-5, blue-collar guy suddenly hes respected, admired, feared, people want to shake his hand, buy him drinks, give him drugs, girls who in any other situation wouldnt look twice at this guy are cozying up to him. But he also said the fight between the Cossacks and the Bandidos was ultimately not any different than Crips and Bloods trying to own a particular street corner to sell drugs on, and that insisting otherwise was nave., Reavis whose Texas Monthly editor let him expense a shotgun he carried while reporting his Bandidos article nonetheless believes the Mafia comparisons are overblown. I guess they didnt realize were a franchise store, the manager said. appreciated. You have permission to edit this article. McLennan County prosecutors subpoenaed the president of the Bandidos motorcycle gangs Austin chapter to appear before a new grand jury that w, Extensive media coverage about the May 17 Twin Peaks shootout has damaged the Twin Peaks name in general and has made it impossible to pick , Of the 177 bikers jailed after the May 17 Twin Peaks shootout, none remain in McLennan County jails and 135 of those were fitted with GPS ankl. Since his arrest, he had risen from vice president to president of his chapter, and he had flagrantly violated the conditions of his bond by continuing to associate with club members. As a subscriber, you have 10 gift articles to give each month. So hes got a gunshot wound that you see is in his face and his eye, she noted, pausing at a particularly grisly image. Guns, knives, brass knuckles and batons scattered across the scene. Cody Ledbetter, a Cossack who grew up in Waco, remembered the convention center as the site of car shows and tattoo expos. Between witness testimony and video and forensic evidence, cases might have been built against specific men responsible for the violence. McLennan County commissioners Tuesday approved moving $10,000 to a fund designated for costs associated with the May 17 Twin Peaks shootout. He finally agreed that it was out of line, so they changed all the discovery documents to reflect it is an acknowledgment and tacked on language of the discovery statute and the rules of professional responsibility as it governs statements to the media. The same day, a group of Cossacks forced a Bandido off I-35 and beat him with a chain, pipe and baton before stealing his motorcycle. A few weeks before the primary, The Waco Tribune-Herald published an editorial that began, With McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna desperately dumping Twin Peaks biker cases right and left in recent days, the astonished taxpayer must demand honesty of himself if not of Reyna: Does anyone really believe Reyna has suddenly been struck by an epiphany that has stubbornly eluded him in the nearly three years since the May 17, 2015, biker shootout that left nine dead and 20 wounded?. Eli Durst is a fine-art photographer based in Austin, where he teaches at the University of Texas. That video shows dozens of motorcycle riders running inside to seek cover and trying to guide others to safety as the gunfire erupts, according to the AP. He wasnt taken to Highway 6, the county jail, for booking until 10 the next morning, and wasnt placed in a cell at Jack Harwell, an ICE detention facility, until 2 the following morning. They were arrested in January 2016 and found guilty, after a three-month trial in 2018, of conspiring to conduct the affairs of a criminal organization through racketeering acts including directing, sanctioning, approving and permitting members of the Bandidos to commit murder, attempted murder, robbery, assault, intimidation, extortion and drug trafficking, per the Justice Department. Even though he worked as a defense lawyer, Reyna found himself disgusted by the number of cases the D.A., a five-term Democratic incumbent named John Segrest, was declining to prosecute. Jury selection began in fall 2017, two and a half years after Twin Peaks. The prosecutors showed jurors stickers and patches on Bandidos gear, including one on Carrizals fathers bike that said I Do Gang Things. (Is that a literal patch, Jarrett asked sarcastically, or is that a secret meaning that means the exact opposite of what it says?) The prosecutors also revealed damaging text messages, including an exchange between Carrizal and a support-club member called Jughead, who had texted to say that Cossacks had tagged the wall of a bar in Dallas and might still be nearby. Reynas charging decisions would come to be seen as self-evidently disastrous including for him personally, once he faced his own legal problems. (Outlaw motorcycle clubs are exclusively male and also tend to be segregated into Black and white groups, though the Bandidos have Latino members, such as Carrizal.) Fifty-one of the defendants, they noted, were not even accused of being gang members by the state; only one-third of those arrested were charged with a violent or firearm-related offense; of the 117 people ultimately convicted of a crime, 35 were convicted based on nothing more serious than selling marijuana. On May 17, 2015, a fight broke out between two rival biker clubs in Waco, Texas. 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