Posts Tagged ‘Cossacks Motorcycle Gang’

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48 More Waco Bikers Indicted

Friday, March 25th, 2016

Another update on the aftermath of the Waco shootout:

A Texas grand jury indicted 48 more bikers Wednesday in connection with a May 2015 shootout outside a Twin Peaks restaurant that left nine dead, bringing the total number of people facing felony charges to 154.

Prosecutors in Waco announced that all the bikers indicted are charged with 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.

McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna won indictments against 106 other bikers in November. In a statement Wednesday, he did not rule out more indictments in what he called “an ongoing investigation.”

Six of the 48 people newly indicted have not been arrested, and their indictments remain under seal. But Reyna and the McLennan County district clerk’s office confirmed they were facing the same charge as other bikers. A spokeswoman for Reyna did not respond to a question about whether the grand jury declined to indict in any cases presented.

Reyna has been harshly criticized by attorneys who say he’s prosecuting dozens of bikers who were at the restaurant only for a peaceful gathering of motorcycle clubs.

Snip.

Prosecutors have not indicted anyone specifically for murder in the nine deaths. The organized criminal activity charge incorporates allegations that every person indicted was responsible for the deaths and injuries that ensued in the gunfire.

Dallas attorney Don Tittle said Wednesday’s indictments appeared to center on bikers who weren’t members of the two major clubs present — the Bandidos and the Cossacks — but rather part of smaller “support clubs.” Dozens of Bandidos and Cossacks have already been indicted.

DA Reyna seems to be working on the novel (to America, anyway) theory of “collective guilt,” that if he can just get a grand jury to indict every member of every motorcycle club present at Twin Peaks that day merely for being in a motorcycle club, that will make up for his inability to charge any individual with murder.

That’s not going to fly. Quantity is absolutely no substitute for quality in the criminal justice system. Ten months after the Twin Peaks shootout, public officials seem no closer to determining who killed who that day, and what role law enforcement overreaction and incompetence played in those deaths.

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Waco Shootout Update: The View From the Cossacks

Wednesday, January 20th, 2016

The Dallas Observer has two interesting pieces up on the Waco biker shootout:

First, a profile of the Cossacks, which paints them as a tough but mostly mostly law-abiding group. Much of the piece covers Jake “Rattle Can” Rhyne, a Cossack who worked a day-job as an iron-worker and helped coach his children’s sports teams.

That was until May 17, 2015, when a gunfight took his life, along with those of eight other men. The details are sketchy, and Waco police haven’t done much to answer the lingering questions, but a melee involving an “outlaw” club, the notorious Bandidos, left Jake dying in the parking lot of the Waco Twin Peaks, bleeding from bullet wounds to his neck and torso.

Witnesses say he convulsed and bled for up to 45 minutes, receiving no medical help from police who swarmed all around him. Ambulances were parked nearby, but Rhyne spent his final moments with a young Cossack who desperately tried to staunch the bleeding with a bandanna. Jake Wilson, the “brother” who was with him, calls his death “a very big injustice.”

Second, an interview with Wilson, one of the surviving Cossacks, who claims Waco police made no attempt to tend to the wounded, or even allow them to be tended to.

John Wilson: … I ask him if several of us couldn’t pick up Jake along with some other ones that were wounded and carry them to the ambulances, and he basically told me that if I didn’t want to get shot, I wouldn’t.

[So the police] made no attempt during that time to give first aid or any kind of aid to Jake.

No. Absolutely not. Every one of those cop cars had some kind of first aid kit in ‘em. And not a single one at any time walked over, brought us a first aid kit, offered to tie a tourniquet on anybody, patch a hole, anything. Our guys were sitting there with nothing but bandannas in their hands trying to stuff bullet holes.

Could you tell from your vantage point looking at Jake [Rhyne] if there was a lot of blood loss?

Yes.

So it’s possible — I’m not a doctor, of course, and neither are you — that he bled out.

Well, I have to assume that those guys that were alive 30 minutes after the fact that died without medical care, you know, we can only make assumptions, but their odds of survival would have been better if they’d had medical care. Would they have died anyway? Maybe. As you say, I’m not a doctor. But they certainly deserved the opportunity to try to live. And to try to recover from it. And the opportunity was sitting right there in an ambulance 50 yards away that they weren’t allowed access to.

This accords with previous reports of police not offering medical aid to the wounded.

I’ve often defended police over unrealistic expectations that they always make the exact right call in split-second life-or-death situations. But there was nothing split-second in a Waco aftermath that saw people bleeding to death (some from police bullets) tens of minutes after the scene was secure. That smells less like incompetence and more like (at a minimum) manslaughter.

I’ll reiterate something I’ve said before: One need not take every statement of motorcycle gang members facing possible capital murder charges at face value to believe that something went badly wrong with the police response in the Waco shootout.

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Waco Biker Shootout Update: Top Bandidos Arrested

Wednesday, January 6th, 2016

Three of the top Bandidos leaders have caught federal charges.

National leaders of the Bandidos biker gang were arrested Wednesday on charges of racketeering and waging a deadly “war” on the rival Cossacks gang, federal authorities said.

An indictment announced by the U.S. Attorney’s Office in San Antonio accuses three Bandidos leaders of sanctioning a three-year fight that included violent clashes with rival gangs and distribution of methamphetamine.

The accusations focus on a rivalry that came under renewed attention in May, when a meeting of biker groups at a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, Texas, ended in gunfire that left nine people dead.

Authorities believe that the fatal confrontation began when members of the Cossacks crashed a meeting of a confederation of biker clubs that included the Bandidos at a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco. The dispute ended in gunfire between the bikers and police standing nearby.

The federal indictment accuses John Portillo, the Bandidos’ national vice president, of using dues and donations to pay legal expenses of its members days after the Waco shooting. Portillo, along with national president Jeffrey Pike and national sergeant-at-arms Justin Cole Forster, are charged with racketeering, drug distribution and other crimes.

None of those three shows up on the list of bikers arrested at the Waco shootout.

“Using dues and donations to pay legal expenses of its members days after the Waco shooting…” Is that illegal? I’m actually asking here. I’m not aware of that violating any specific law, but I could be wrong.

Federal charges are heavy, as Uncle Sam has essentially unlimited resources with which to investigate and make the case. As the Bandidos have been involved in drugs in the past, that may be the easiest charge to make stick. But it’s still mighty curious that no one has been charged with murder for a shootout that left nine dead….

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Waco Update: 106 Bikers Indicted

Wednesday, November 11th, 2015

106 bikers involved in the Waco biker shootout have been indicted. (A complete list of those indicted can be found here.)

However, as far as I can tell, the indictment is only for engaging in an “organized criminal conspiracy.” No one has yet been charged with murder.

More indictments may be due the next time a grand jury meets, which will be later this month. Hopefully standard information (like ballistics reports) the Waco police have thus far withheld will finally be released.

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Waco Biker Shootout Update

Wednesday, October 7th, 2015

More than four months after nine people were killed in the biker shootout at a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, the details of who did what to who and why remain as murky as ever.

Of 170 (per the Dallas Morning News, 177 from other news sources) bikers arrested, all are now out of jail and none have been charged with murder.

As far as I can tell, ballistics reports for the shooting have never been released, and a gag order on all attorneys involved in the case remains in place, and restaurant surveillance video of the shootout has never been released to the public.

Something isn’t adding up here.

We know that at least some of the bikers involved were hit by police bullets. In a piece by Nathaniel Penn in GQ, he suggests that the vast majority of deaths from the shootout came from law enforcement.

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.

Snip.

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.

Nor has the post-shootout response of the local criminal justice system been a model of impartiality:

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.’”

One need not take every statement of motorcycle gang members facing possible capital murder charges at face value to believe that something went badly wrong with the police response in the Waco shootout…

(Hat tip: Reason.)

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Waco Biker Shootout Follow-up 7

Monday, June 8th, 2015

Three weeks after the May 17th biker shootout, it’s still not clear who instigated the fight.

Evidently at least 50 of those arrested have been released after their initial $1 million bail was reduced. Several hundred bikers also peacefully protested the mass arrests following the Twin Peaks shootout. Somehow bikers in Texas seem to have gotten the crazy notion in their head that “peaceful protest” doesn’t include looting local businesses…

Members of different gangs give conflicting accounts of the shootout. Two bikers just released claim to be members of the Los Pirados motorcycle club, and claim it was the Cossacks, not the Bandidos, starting trouble. The piece also mentions three other motorcycle gangs or clubs present besides the Bandidos and Cossacks, including two (Sons of the South and American Legion Riders) that I hadn’t seen mentioned in previous reports. Combined with those listed from previous reports, that puts members of Bandidos, Coassacks, Scimitars, Vaqueros, Los Pirados, Leathernecks, Boozefighters, Sons of the South, American Legion Riders and Veterans on the scene of the shootout.

Reason has been critical the police response to the shooting, especially since “more than 115 of the 170 people arrested in the aftermath of a motorcycle gang shootout outside a Central Texas restaurant have not been convicted of a crime in Texas.”

A longish profile of the Bandidos, which offers conflicting accounts of their current level of criminality.

On the one hand:

“They tell you up front: ‘We live by our own rules. We have our own morals, code of ethics, and this is our world,’ ” said Carlos Canino, head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Los Angeles. He described the Bandidos as “a lot rougher” than the Hells Angels, but “not as outwardly sophisticated.”

“They’ll fight at the drop of a hat,” he said of the Bandidos.

Police contend the Bandidos have stayed involved in drug trafficking, prostitution and other crimes.

On the other:

Houston lawyer Kent Schaffer, who has represented Bandidos for more than 30 years, said there are more police officers indicted on felonies every year in the Houston area than Bandidos.

He said current members are not like the men of the 1970s, “when they all had long hair, beards, missing teeth and tattoos – some of the older guys look that way, but most look like mainstream society.” They are engineers, oil field workers, computer programmers, he said, with college degrees, short hair and khaki pants.

“Most of these people have respectable jobs, pay their taxes and don’t have felony records,” Schaffer said.

“Most don’t have felony records” would seem to be damning with faint praise…

Other relevant links:

  • Dutch police indicted 14 members of the Bandidos, seizing a number of weapons in the process, including five rocket-propelled grenade launchers. Now, I’m not an expert on Dutch firearms law, but I’m going to guess those are not legal in civilian hands…
  • The Republic of Texas biker rally, far and away the largest in Texas, is in Austin June 11 through 14. I’m betting the police presence will be even heavier than usual…

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    Waco Biker Shootout Follow-Up 6

    Wednesday, May 27th, 2015

    We’re finally starting to get a fuller picture of how the Waco biker shootout between the Bandidos and the Cossacks actually went down. A Cossack who was there says that they were set up by Bandidos who invited them to Twin Peaks.

    He said that the Cossacks were invited to the Twin Peaks patio that day — by a Bandido leader, who offered to make peace in a long-running feud between the two gangs. That invitation was a setup for an ambush, though, according to the Cossack. That’s why the dead included six Cossacks, one Scimitar (an ally of the Cossacks) and only two Bandidos.

    Snip.

    “It was a setup from start to finish,” he said.

    The Cossack’s story has been impossible to verify, but it is largely consistent with what police have said about how the brawl began.

    Related stories:

  • “While the black Baltimore rioters and looters were called thugs, no white Waco rioters and looters were thus characterized. I wonder, why might that be? Oh, yeah, that’s right: there are no white rioters and looters in Waco.”
  • Here’s some maybe-not-entirely-wrong pop-psychological analysis of the shootout as almost entirely a generational issue: the Bandidos are old and the Cossacks are young.
  • Cossacks cancel a rally in the town of Mingus over safety concerns.
  • Information on the Indian American LLC that owns the Waco Twin Peaks.
  • The owner of an adjacent restaurant is suing Twin Peaks for damages. (Hat tip: Dwight.)

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    Waco Biker Shootout Follow-Up 5

    Thursday, May 21st, 2015

    And here’s still more information that’s dribbled out on Sunday’s Waco biker shootout:

  • A complete list of bikers arrested after the Waco shootout.
  • Security camera footage from the restaurant shown to the media but not released to the public (thanks a lot) shows members of the Cossacks, as well as members of “Scimitars, Boozefighters and Leathernecks.” Previous reports hadn’t listed the Boozefighters, who have a colorful history (they claim they were the inspiration for the movie The Wild One) but claim today “We are very patriotic & support the US military. We strive to do our best to continually improve ourselves, our Club, and the communities we live in.”
  • For those keeping track on the home game, motorcycle clubs/gangs listed as having been at the Waco shootout include: Bandidos, Coassacks, Scimitars, Vaqueros, Pirados, Leathernecks, Boozefighters and Veterans. Which is eight groups, though initial reports said five.
  • The names of the dead from the Waco biker shootout have been released, including two (Jesus Delgado Rodriguez and Manuel Issac Rodriguez) with Hispanic surnames.
  • Also make that at least two black bikers arrested after the Waco shootout. Bonus: One is an ex San Antonio cop.

    • I can understand the Waco police’s impulse not to give out the names of the biker gangs involved so as not to give them more publicity. However, in today’s media environment this is an essentially meaningless gesture

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    Waco Biker Shootout Follow-Up 4

    Tuesday, May 19th, 2015

    A few more tidbits about the Waco biker shootout:

    And still more background on the Bandidos/Cossacks beef:

    Earlier Monday, Dallas TV station WFAA reported that the Texas Department of Public Safety’s Joint Information Center issued a bulletin May 1 that cautioned authorities about increasing violence between the Bandidos and the Cossacks. McNamara has said all nine people who were killed in the melee Sunday were part of those two groups.

    The bulletin said the tension could stem from Cossacks refusing to pay Bandidos dues for operating in Texas and for wearing a patch on their vest that claimed Texas as their turf without the Bandidos’ approval.

    “Traditionally, the Bandidos have been the dominant motorcycle club in Texas, and no other club is allowed to wear the Texas bar without their consent,” the bulletin said, according to WFAA.

    The bulletin said the FBI had received information that Bandidos had discussed “going to war with Cossacks.” It also outlined several recent incidents between the two groups, including one instance in March when about 10 Cossacks forced a Bandido to pull over along Interstate 35 near Waco and attacked him with “chains, batons and metal pipes before stealing his motorcycle,” WFAA reported.

    That same day, a group of Bandidos confronted a Cossack member fueling up at a truck stop in Palo Pinto County, west of Fort Worth, the bulletin said. When the Cossack member refused to remove the Texas patch from his vest, the Bandidos hit him in the head with a hammer and stole it.

  • This Dallas Morning News piece suggests that the Cossacks showed up uninvited to the Waco meeting.
  • Anyone trying to make a shootout between two (or more) biker gangs about “race” or “white-on-white violence” is talking out their ass. Remember that this morning’s follow-up showed 11 Hispanic and one black suspect among those arrested. So the liberal race-hustler /victimhood identity politics/Social Justice Warrior crowd is wrong not just conceptually (as they are 100% of the time), but on basic incident facts as well.

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    Waco Biker Shootout Follow-Up 3

    Tuesday, May 19th, 2015

    And still more on the biker gang shootout in Waco that left nine people dead:

  • According to The Wall Street journal:

    The tensions reached a boil recently when some Cossacks members began wearing a patch with the word “Texas” emblazoned at the bottom of their biker jackets and vests.

    Those “bottom rocker” patches, as they are called in biker parlance, were a direct affront to the Bandidos, a larger gang with a long history of criminal activity in several states, Mr. Cook said. The Bandidos had claimed the sole right to display the patch as a sign of their turf, he said.

    “The fact that the Cossacks would put on a bottom rocker with the state of Texas is basically saying, ‘We don’t respect you, and we won’t answer to you,’ ” Mr. Cook said. “It was a powder keg.”

    So if Mr. Cook is correct, nine people just got killed over this:

  • “Steve Cook, a police detective in Independence, Mo., who heads the Midwest Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Investigators Association—a nongovernmental group of law enforcement experts that tracks biker gang activity and shares intelligence among members.” And ironically, he was already scheduled to hold a seminar on outlaw biker gangs in Waco in June…
  • Although initial pictures of detained bikers them to be overwhelmingly white, eleven of the mugshots show people with Hispanic surnames, and one of the suspects appears to be black. America: So diverse even scumbag outlaw motorcycle gangs are integrated!
  • This report says that members of the Vaqueros were involved in the fight. Assuming that this website is for the same gang, they claim to be “family men engaged in legitimate business.” Fat Tony nods approvingly.
  • Here’s a piece on a Bandidos funeral from 2007. “Bandidos parked their bikes and began hugging and kissing one another on the mouth—the traditional Bandido greeting.” Uh huh…

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