Posts Tagged ‘Waco’

All Waco Biker Cases Dropped

Wednesday, April 3rd, 2019

Nine dead. Eighteen wounded. 170 arrests. 106 indictments. 1418 days.

Zero convictions.

All remaining criminal cases will be dismissed from the 2015 Twin Peaks biker shootout that left nine dead and 20 injured, prosecutors said Tuesday, ending a four-year prosecutorial fiasco that resulted in zero convictions.

McLennan County District Attorney Barry Johnson said he will dismiss the remaining 24 criminal cases to “end this nightmare that we have been dealing with in this county since May 17, 2015.”

Johnson’s decision means no one will be held accountable for killing and injuring bikers or for engaging in a chaotic battle in a shopping center parking lot in front of a Sunday lunchtime crowd.

“There were nine people who were killed on that fateful day in Waco, Texas, and 20 injured, all of whom were members of rival motorcycle clubs/gangs, and the loss of life is a difficult thing,” Johnson said. “But after looking over the 24 cases we were left with, it is my opinion as your district attorney that we are not able to prosecute any of those cases and reach our burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt.”

Johnson inherited the Twin Peaks cases when he took office in January, and said he has spent 75 percent of his time since then with a team of prosecutors and investigators trying to determine how to resolve the remaining cases.

About 200 bikers were arrested after the shootout on identical charges of engaging in organized criminal activity and held on $1 million bonds each. Former McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna sought indictments against 155 bikers on those identical charges and chose to try Jacob Carrizal, the Bandidos Dallas county chapter president, first.

Carrizal’s case, tried in Waco’s 54th State District Court, ended in mistrial in November 2017, with most of the jurors in his case favoring acquittal. No other defendant has been tried since.

Johnson’s campaign hammered Reyna for his handling of the Twin Peaks cases, and he won the March 2018 Republican primary by 20 percentage points. After the primary, Reyna dismissed all but 24 of the remaining Twin Peaks cases.

Johnson probably made the right call here, as Reyna cocked things up so badly by refusing to charge individual bikers with individual crimes, choosing instead to charge almost every biker arrested with “conspiracy,” evidently operating on an unconstitutional theory of collective guilt. At least some of the dead appear to have been killed by police rifles, and there are reports of law enforcement officials failing to render aid to the wounded.

Thanks to Abel Reyna, multiple people got away with murder, while over a hundred people got arrested, and had their lives destroyed, not for actually committing any crimes, but simply for wearing the wrong colors and being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

More background here if you haven’t been following the story from the start.

(Hat tip: Dwight.)

Waco Biker Trial Update: No Prosecutions Under Abel Reyna

Tuesday, September 4th, 2018

The much-delayed Waco biker trials will be delayed again until defeated McLennan County DA Abel Reyna is out of office:

A judge, who said Friday he has been “troubled by the whole Twin Peaks matter from its inception,” put off the trials of bikers in his court until after the first of the year because he wants the new McLennan County district attorney to review how the remaining Twin Peaks cases will be handled.

Judge Ralph Strother, the morning after conducing a daylong pretrial hearing in Twin Peaks defendant Tom Modesto Mendez’s first-degree felony riot case, decided on his own to postpone Mendez’s trial, which was set to start Sept. 10.

Strother denied a motion Thursday by Mendez’s attorney to throw out the indictment after prosecutors agreed to amend language in the riot indictment that more closely tracks wording in the statute.

Both sides have been preparing for weeks for the Mendez case, and each side had scheduled witnesses, some from out of state, to be ready to go Sept. 10.

The sexual assault trial of former Baylor University football player Shawn Oakman had been set for Sept. 10 as a backup to the Mendez case, but it, too, was pushed back Friday. Strother granted the delay in that case, which Oakman’s attorney requested a few hours after Mendez’s delay, saying a character witness who is out of state cannot be subpoenaed in time for Sept. 10.

It was Strother, even more than Mendez’s attorney, Jaime Peña, who questioned prosecutors Thursday about the riot indictment and expressed concerns that they, in effect, had turned what normally is a Class B misdemeanor into a crime that possibly subjects the defendants to life in prison.

And remember that all this is after most of the original, overbroad charges against various bikers present at the Twin Peaks shootout were dismissed.

Snip.

“I think a fresh set of eyes re-evaluating how the state is pursuing these cases is warranted,” Peña said. “That is essentially what the judge is saying. He wants to push it into the new year and let the new DA look at this.”

Barry Johnson beat incumbent DA Abel Reyna by 20 percentage points in the March Republican primary and will run unopposed in November. Johnson, who takes office in January, said during the campaign that one of the first things he will do is assemble a team to review the remaining Twin Peaks cases.

Reyna has not attended any of the numerous hearings involving Twin Peaks defendants since he lost the primary.

The judge’s position is reasonable, but if I were a resident of McLennan County, I would be pissed not only that Reyna so badly screwed up prosecution with his unconstitutional “collective guilt” approach, but that he can’t even be arsed to do his damn job since voters handed him his walking papers…

LinkSwarm for August 31, 2018

Friday, August 31st, 2018

Just when I think the Catholic Church can’t make itself look any worse in the wake of the burgeoning child rape scandal, they prove me wrong:

  • Papal spokesman on the Catholic Church’s spiraling child rape scandal:

    In an NBC News interview yesterday, Cardinal Blase Cupich of Chicago insisted that it was more than acceptable for Pope Francis to refuse to discuss Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò’s shocking testimony, which implicates a host of Catholic Church leaders — including the pope — in covering up sexual abuse and immorality.

    “The pope has a bigger agenda,” Cupich told interviewer Mary Anne Ahern when asked about the pope’s refusal to discuss Viganò’s claims. “He’s got to get on with other things, of talking about the environment and protecting migrants and carrying on the work of the Church.

  • Evidently Pope Francis and company were doing their darnedest to imitate the Babylon Bee.
  • Related: “Pope Starting To Suspect He Might Be Antichrist.”
  • How ObamaCare was designed to force independent doctors out of business. (Hat tip: Ian Murray at Instapundit.)
  • ICE arrests over 100 illegal alien workers at Load Trail LLC in Sumner, north Texas.
  • The U.S. share of mass shootings is actually lower than the global average.
  • President Trump’s Iran sanctions are working.
  • “There’s a widespread consensus that at no time in the past 40 years, since Saddam Hussein acquired absolute power and led Iraq into a series of ruinous wars, has Baghdad been as free and as fun as it is now.” (Hat tip: Ann Althouse.)
  • Remember Russia’s new T-14 Armata tank? They were going to build 2,300 of them. Now? 132. And that number is split between the T-14 and the T-15 heavy infantry fighting vehicle, which shares the same chassis. Which means Russia will have to continue to rely on older T-72 and T-90 tanks as the mainstays of their armored forces for the foreseeable future. By comparison the United States has over 1,500 M1A2s and over 4,000 M1A1s, both of which proved capable of taking out T-72s in the Gulf War. As Stalin once put it, “Quantity has a quality all it’s own.” And the essential brokeness of Russia is why I’m not worried about their costly adventurism in Syria. (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • John McCain was admired by liberals; that is, when they weren’t calling him a senile plutocrat warmonger.
  • How Chicago 68 destroyed the Democratic Party:

    Humphrey would be the last Democratic presidential nominee to represent the values of Truman and JFK: compassionate big government at home, and resolute anti-Communism abroad. Instead, a new Democratic party was born, one that increasingly reflected the radical views of the Chicago protesters: that America, not Communism, was the real force for evil that needed to be contained and transformed. That Democratic party would nominate George McGovern in its 1972 convention and become a party obsessed with social justice, identity politics, and America’s past sins — essentially the party it is today. Meanwhile mainstream Democratic voters began their flight to the Republican party, “Reagan Democrats” who would enable the GOP to win four of the next five presidential elections and who later became the foot soldiers of the Trump insurgency.

    (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)

  • The Missouri Democratic Party does not need any of you stinking moderates. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Biased liberal news sites hate being called biased liberal news sites. (Hat tip: Mark Tapscott at Instapundit.)
  • Philadelphia is bankrupt. So naturally the liberal mayor is trying to ignore the obvious. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Cahnman looks at gang rape in the Baylor football program. Add to this the news that Baylor planted moles in sexual assault survivor groups to report back on cases involving student athletes, and you start to wonder whether the NCAA out not to revive the “Death Penalty” for Baylor’s football program…or maybe their entire athletic department.
  • CNN lied, they know they lied, and they can’t stop lying.
  • Washington Post: “Russia hacked the election!” Also Washington Post: “We’re going to court to fight election transparency advertising law!” (Hat tip: Ace of Spaces HQ.)
  • Speaking of liberal mouthpiece newspapers, both the editor and the publisher for the Austin American Statesman are retiring.
  • This just in: Greece is still boned.
  • “If he’s cute, it’s flirting. If he’s ugly, it’s sexual harassment.”
  • “Abbas to close banks in Gaza, cut off all salaries.” (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Lancaster Independent School District violates state law with illegal electioneering.
  • Dick’s Sporting Goods move away from guns hurt their bottom line. “The anti-gun crowd must not buy a lot of sporting goods.​”
  • ESPN finally seems to understand that they should get out of politics and stick to sports. Took them long enough…
  • Chicanery at the Llano police department. Bad cop! No ribs!
  • Eat Steak and Live Longer.” (Hat tip: Ed Driscoll at Instapundit.)
  • Snowflake Kansas professor cancels office hours because concealed carry is no legal. (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • There can be only one…going to prison. (Hat tip: Dwight.)
  • How ballpoint pens killed cursive.
  • Real Charges Finally Filed in Waco Biker Shootout

    Saturday, May 12th, 2018

    Finally, just shy of three years after the Twin Peaks shootout between rival biker gangs that left nine people dead, suspects have finally been indicted on charges of murder in their deaths:

    A McLennan County grand jury Wednesday re-indicted 24 of the remaining 37 defendants in the Twin Peaks biker shootout on a variety of charges, as the district attorney’s office continues to veer sharply from the prosecutorial path it took three years ago.

    The bikers had previously been indicted in 2015 or 2016 on identical charges of engaging in organized criminal activity as members of criminal street gangs.

    The new charges handed down Wednesday include three murder counts, in addition to first-degree and second-degree riot charges and tampering with physical evidence charges.

    Prosecutors are expected to dismiss the cases of remaining Twin defendants who were not re-indicted Wednesday, officials close to the cases said. The statute of limitations to charge bikers with riot runs out next week, though there is no statute of limitations on murder.

    While the DA’s office did not dismiss the engaging in organized criminal activity charges, the new charges will supersede the older charges and are the ones prosecutors say they will pursue from now on.

    The original organized crime charge carried a maximum sentence of life in prison. Some of the defendants now are facing a lighter possible maximum sentence, while those who were indicted on murder or first-degree riot charges could still be sentenced to life.

    Judge Matt Johnson of Waco’s 54th State District Court said Wednesday he will not require the bikers re-indicted in his court to make post-indictment bonds or to be arrested again. Judge Ralph Strother of 19th State District Court said he also will not require the bikers to post new bonds, saying he deems the original bonds to be sufficient.

    Nine bikers were killed and 20 injured on May 17, 2015 in the shootout between Bandidos and Cossacks at the former Twin Peaks restaurant. The DA’s office has dismissed 118 of the original 155 Twin Peaks indictments in the past few months, and none of those dismissed defendants were re-indicted Wednesday.

    Among those still facing charges with a possible life sentence is Jeffrey Battey, a 53-year-old Bandido from Ponder, who was re-indicted on a murder count and a first-degree felony riot count in the shooting death of Matthew Smith.

    Seth Sutton, Battey’s Waco-based attorney, said if “Reyna’s regime” had wanted the grand jury to get a complete picture of the evidence, prosecutors should have allowed Sutton to address the panel.

    “As with the original indictment from 2015, Mr. Reyna clearly did not want the grand jury to hear the truth,” Sutton said. “We look forward to the day when we will finally get to present exactly what happened on May 17, 2015, to a jury of 12 McLennan County citizens.

    “It is this kind of misguided prosecution that has wasted millions of taxpayer dollars, has undermined the public confidence in our system of justice and has produced hundreds of dismissals with no convictions. As we have maintained from the beginning, we believe that justice will prevail for Mr. Battey and that he will be acquitted of all wrongdoing,” he said.

    Reyna has kept a low profile at the courthouse since his defeat in the March Republican primary, and he did not return phone messages Wednesday.

    I’ll bet he didn’t. If Reyna had just done his freaking job rather than pursue an unconstitutional policy of collective guilt, these indictments could have been handed down more than two years ago.

    Also indicted in the murder of Matthew Smith was Ray Arnold Allen, 48, of Krum, a Bandido who also was indicted on riot charges.

    According to court records, Smith, 27, of Keller, was shot twice — once in the upper back and once in the abdomen. The bullet in his back was described as a “medium-caliber jacketed projectile.” The bullet through his abdomen hit his right kidney and aorta before exiting.

    A Waco police officer reported that as he approached the Twin Peaks shootout scene he saw Battey and Allen standing behind the restaurant “in a triangulated position” in relation to Smith, who was lying on the ground about five yards away and “gasping for air,” according to court documents.

    An officer noticed Allen had a silver handgun in his hand and said Battey had been shot in his upper right shoulder, according to the documents.

    Also Wednesday, the grand jury indicted Glenn Allen Walker, 46, on murder and riot counts. He is charged in the death of Richard Kirschner, 47, of Wylie.

    Kirschner, 47, suffered a gunshot wound to his right thigh, one to the left knee and one in the left buttock. He also suffered a superficial cut to the right side of his neck, a scalp laceration and abrasions to his face, trunk and extremities, reports show.

    The grand jury also re-indicted Jacob Carrizal, 36, president of the Dallas Bandidos chapter and the only one of the original 155 indicted bikers to stand trial so far. Carrizal’s trial ended in mistrial when the jury could not reach a unanimous verdict.

    Carrizal was re-indicted on a first-degree riot charge, which has a maximum possible sentence of life in prison.

    This is a vast step forward toward bringing justice to all involved, innocent and guilty alike. The issue of law enforcement overreaction, which appears to be a significant cause in some of the deaths, remains unresolved.

    (Hat tip: Dwight.)

    Waco Biker Trials Update: More Dismissals

    Saturday, May 5th, 2018

    More news on the Twin Peaks biker fight indictments:

    Frustrated by a lack of movement in the Twin Peaks cases, a judge set trial dates Friday for three bikers, while McLennan County prosecutors dismissed 13 more cases involving those indicted in the May 2015 shootout.

    Judge Matt Johnson of Waco’s 54th State District Court summoned six members of the Cossacks motorcycle group or their support groups to court Friday to get updates on how their cases will be moving forward.

    On Thursday, prosecutors dismissed 15 cases against bikers who had been summoned to court Friday, leaving a much smaller group at the hearing in Johnson’s court. Prosecutors also formally refused an unindicted case involving Donald Fowler on Thursday.

    After the hearing, prosecutors presented Johnson with 13 new dismissals, most of them involving members of the Bandidos group or their support clubs.

    Cases dismissed Friday involve Justin Garcia, Cory McAlister, Jimmy Pond, Jason Dillard, Kenneth Carlisle, Richard Donias, Gilbert Zamora, Ronald Warren, Richard Smith, Phillip Sampson, Christopher Rogers, Rolando Reyes and John Martinez.

    The dismissals this week bring the number of pending cases to 98, down from 155 bikers indicted after the shootout in which nine were killed and 20 were wounded and injured.

    Since District Attorney Abel Reyna was defeated in the March Republican primary, his office has dismissed 56 indicted Twin Peaks cases and refused prosecution on 33 others. Special prosecutors appointed to handle four cases in which Reyna recused his office dismissed one indicted case this week.

    Reyna did not attended Friday’s hearing, nor was he at a similar hearing 19th State District Judge Ralph Strother held last week.

    Johnson set Wesley McAlister’s case for Sept. 10 as a backup case to the retrial of Jacob Carrizal, the Bandidos Dallas chapter president whose trial ended in November with a hung jury and a mistrial.

    Carrizal has a new attorney, and the judge said if he is not ready to try the case on Sept. 10, Wesley McAlister will take that trial slot. A jury panel has been summoned to report to court Aug. 24 to fill out questionnaires in the case.

    Johnson also set trial dates for early November for Jacob Reese and Timothy Shayne Satterwhite.

    Dallas attorney Clint Broden, who represents Richard Luther, asked the court to set a trial date, but said he will file a motion to recuse Reyna that would require a hearing because he thinks Reyna is a material witness in the case.

    The judge agreed to set Luther’s trial date after the first of the year, when Reyna will be out of office and the potential conflict will be resolved.

    It’s hard to think of such a high-profile modern criminal prosecution, following an incident in which so many people dead, where the prosecution of the case was so badly bungled. (Feel free to suggest alternate candidates in the comments below.) It’s almost as though all the mass indictments and endless delays were monuments to Reyna’s inability to actually indict specific individuals for the murders of other specific individuals, and now that he’s out of the way, maybe some actual justice can be salvaged from the ruins of his incompetence…

    (Hat tip: Dwight.)

    Waco Biker Trials Update Update

    Thursday, April 5th, 2018

    Somehow, when compiling the info for this piece on Waco biker trial news, I missed this update, which notes the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office dismissed cases against Cody Ledbetter and George Bergman.

    Ledbetter, who has said he has been ready to go to trial for almost three years because he didn’t commit a crime, witnessed his stepfather, Daniel Boyett, get shot during the May 2015 brawl at the former Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco between two rival biker groups. Boyett died from his wounds.

    “Give me a break,” [Ledbetter’s attorney Paul] Looney said Monday after learning of the dismissal. “Cody never should have been filed on in the first place. He has had this case hanging over his head for three years and when we finally get a trial setting, they say never mind. That is just cruel beyond description. My client has lived with the thought of 15 years to life in prison for nearly three years on a case I guess they never prepared for trial or never intended to prepare for trial.”

    Neither McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna nor Jarrett returned phone messages Monday.

    Looney, who called the Twin Peaks cases “the most bizarre saga in the history of American criminal law,” added that he is happy for Ledbetter but “just repulsed at the system.”

    “It looks like they have mishandled this case to the point that nine people died and nobody gets prosecuted. How bizarre. This is an impossible outcome. That can’t be the case, but it looks like they are going to end up there,” he said.

    In other Waco biker trial news, “Senior U.S. District Judge Sam Sparks, of Austin, conducted a status conference Monday in a portion of the 133 Twin Peaks civil rights suits and extended by at least 90 days a stay that has been in place for almost two years.”

    Meanwhile, in San Antonio, Bandidos members John Xavier Portillo and Jeffrey Fay Pike are on trial for federal racketeering charges.

    Waco Biker Trials Update

    Thursday, March 29th, 2018

    The wheels of (in)justice seem to be grinding ever on in the endless string of (non)trials resulting from the 2015 Twin Peaks Waco biker shootout.

    First, another of the bikers arrested in the shootout is now headed to trial on April 2:

    Cody Ledbetter has been trying to get his day in court for almost three years as the specter of witnessing his stepfather’s death in the 2015 Twin Peaks shootout and his pending indictment hang over his life.

    Ledbetter and his attorney, Paul Looney, of Houston, got their wish Monday when 54th State District Judge Matt Johnson gave them the April 2 trial date initially reserved for the retrial of Jacob Carrizal, president of the Dallas Bandidos chapter, whose November trial ended in a mistrial.

    Ledbetter’s stepfather, Daniel Boyett, was shot and killed at Twin Peaks during the Sunday afternoon brawl between members of the Bandidos and Cossacks motorcycle groups and their support clubs, and Ledbetter’s life has been turned upside down while the first-degree felony charge hangs over his head.

    Carrizal’s trial ended in mistrial in November after jurors could not reach unanimous verdicts on any of the counts against him. The McLennan County District Attorney’s Office hand-picked Carrizal to be tried first among 154 bikers indicted at the time in the Twin Peaks case.

    On Monday, Carrizal’s new attorney, Christopher Lewis, of Dallas, filed a motion for continuance in the case, telling Johnson he is set for trial in federal court in Dallas on the same day. He also said he received 1.9 terabytes of discovery from the DA’s office on Feb. 12 and needs more time to adequately review the materials and prepare for trial.

    With a trial date available, Looney and Ledbetter, a 28-year-old diesel mechanic with no criminal record, jumped in.

    “It is just time to go in and lay the cards on the table and let the jury exonerate this man,” Looney said. “He has been innocent and on bond for three years. That is a torture that no innocent person should have to go through. It is time for it to stop, and we are finally in front of a group of people who can finally make it stop.”

    Looney filed a motion to disqualify McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna in October after it was discovered that the DA’s office released videos from Ledbetter’s cellphone that showed Ledbetter and his wife having sex. The videos were sent to more than 125 attorneys as part of the massive Twin Peaks discovery process.

    In news you may have missed, the charges against thirteen of the bikers were dismissed in February:

    An attorney for one of the bikers indicted in the deadly 2015 Twin Peaks shootout said it appears the “Twin Peaks dam” is starting to break with the dismissal of charges against 13 bikers Thursday.

    Meanwhile, the same attorney, Brian Bouffard, said McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna only dropped the cases in a show of “moral cowardice by an elected official” to avoid adverse testimony at a scheduled Thursday hearing to disqualify his office.

    Two district judges signed orders submitted to them by the DA’s office Thursday morning dismissing charges against 13 bikers arrested in the May 17, 2015, Twin Peaks shootout and two recusing the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office in two other biker cases.

    Besides the 13 dismissals, prosecutor Michael Jarrett told the judges that Reyna also intends to formally refuse eight more cases against bikers who were arrested, but have not been indicted in the shootout that left nine dead and dozens injured.

    The dismissals came hours before a hearing scheduled for Thursday afternoon at which two bikers were asking to disqualify Reyna from handling their cases on a variety of grounds.

    That hearing was canceled in light of Reyna’s actions.

    Reyna did not return phone calls seeking comment Thursday and declined to provide the Tribune-Herald with a written statement he prepared about the dismissals.

    Judge Ralph Strother, of Waco’s 19th State District Court, said Thursday he plans to ask the Texas Attorney General’s Office prosecutorial assistance division to take over prosecution of the case against biker Billy McRee. Reyna agreed to recuse his office in that case, while he dismissed the case against Jorge Salinas.

    Salinas, a two-tour Marine combat veteran; and McRee, a mechanic, are both former members of the Cossacks motorcycle group.

    Salinas, who said he was sitting in a deer blind when he was notified his case had been dismissed, said he became emotional at the news. He said he is grateful, but that the decision came too late and at too high a cost to him and his family.

    Salinas, his family and Bouffard, of Fort Worth, spoke at a press conference Thursday that also included McRee and his family; and his attorney, David Conrad Beyer, also of Fort Worth; and Dallas attorney Clint Broden.

    Broden, who represents two bikers indicted in the incident, said they chose the first-floor courthouse rotunda as the location of the press conference because it was there that Reyna held a press conference almost three years ago to announce that he had, as Broden characterized it, “bamboozled” a grand jury into indicting 154 bikers on identical charges after the shootout.

    “My client is a decorated Marine combat veteran,” Bouffard said. “He and I took the same oath years ago. Part of that oath is that we will support and defend the Constitution of the United States of America from all enemies, foreign and domestic. And I ask you and I ask the public to ask yourselves, what better definition of a domestic enemy of our Constitution than Abel Reyna?”

    The attorneys charged that Reyna only decided to drop the charges and to recuse his office in McRee’s case to escape being placed under oath at the disqualification hearing and to prevent the adverse testimonies of former and current members of his staff, some of whom have reported alleged abuses of his office to Texas Rangers and the FBI.

    “The Twin Peaks dam has now broken, and with each new dismissal that may come, the public will see clearly what Twin Peaks defense counsel have known for almost three years — that Abel Reyna arrested, charged, and indicted a very large number of these men for purely political reasons, apparently without any intent to take them to trial,” Bouffard said in a statement Thursday morning.

    “Though it took far too long, we pushed Mr. Reyna’s back to the wall and he finally had nowhere else to run.”

    And what about Mr. Reyna himself, the prosecutor who has yet to bring a single charge of murder in an incident where nine people died, but was more than willing to file conspiracy charges against bikers for being in the wrong place at the wrong time? He lost in the Republican primary:

    Barry Johnson, who beat Reyna in the Republican primary, made the bungled prosecution of more than a hundred bikers a central issue of his campaign. The years since the shootout, he argued, have been marked by misconduct, suppressed evidence, and overreach.

    According to the official story, two rival motorcycle gangs got into a turf war outside a local Twin Peaks restaurant, and then turned their guns on police officers who tried to intervene. Nine of the bikers were killed in the shootout and 20 more were wounded. But investigative reporters have cast doubt on this narrative, suggesting instead that police overreacted to a small skirmish and escalated the fight. Police were responsible for at least four of the nine deaths, according to evidence obtained by the Associated Press.

    Snip.

    Reyna’s office ultimately pursued charges against more than 150 bikers under the argument that even individuals who weren’t involved in the fight were guilty by their attendance alone. More than 100 bikers have since sued Waco for wrongful arrest. Their cases could cost the city more than a billion dollars.

    Prosecutors were caught repeatedly withholding evidence during the first and, thus far, only biker trial. A Texas Ranger relayed that Reyna had specifically instructed him to keep evidence away from the defense team.

    “At one point in the trial, [the defense attorney’s] discoveries of withheld evidence had become so regular that [the judge] ordered Reyna to instruct his prosecutors and all law enforcement agencies involved in the Twin Peaks investigation to go back and search their files to make sure all materials had been disclosed to the defense as required by law,” the Waco Tribune reported.

    That trial ended with a deadlocked jury in November. Since then, Reyna has dismissed more than 50 biker cases and recused his office from another to avoid a disqualification hearing. The bikers’ defense attorneys subpoenaed several of Reyna’s employees and a retired police detective to testify about the DA’s misconduct and corruption.

    Assuming he wins in November, Johnson has his job cut out for him cleaning up Abel Reyna’s mess…

    (Hat tip: Dwight.)

    LinkSwarm for January 13, 2017

    Saturday, January 13th, 2018

    Welcome to an out-of-band Saturday LinkSwarm!

  • Hawaii missile alert is a false alarm. Ooopsie…
  • The Gang of Six floats a terrible DACA deal.
  • Democrats are more worried about the color of immigrant’s skin than the content of their character. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Convicted felon running for Governor of Connecticut. As a Democrat, naturally…
  • Pamela Harris, a Democratic Brooklyn assemblywoman, was indicted on “four counts of making false statements, two counts of wire fraud, two counts of bankruptcy fraud, and a single count each of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, witness tampering and conspiracy to obstruct justice.”
  • Every county in Wisconsin has unemployment under 4%.
  • Waving an Israeli flag in Austria is now a hate crime. Insert your own “You know who else was from Austria?” joke here.
  • Feminists in a rage over something someone might say. So what else is new? (Hat tip: Instapundit.)
  • Lasers are getting ten times more powerful every 3 years, soon Exawatt lasers will unlock fusion and more.” That’s cool and all, but practical fusion has always been 20 years away the entirety of my life… (Hat tip: Stephen Green at Instapundit.)
  • Houston man combines his two passions. Namely cooking and forensic pathology. By making really cool knives.
  • Ohio bans sale of some 600 brands of alcohol merely because they can. (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)
  • Does Magic: The Gathering have a pedophile problem?
  • People travel to Waco to see reality-TV foxed-up homes. Problem: They’re still in Waco. “It’s a mansion surrounded by homes that are falling apart.”
  • Conservative author Matt Margolis temporarily banned from Facebook for sharing ads for his book The Scandalous Presidency of Barack Obama…even though he had already paid for Facebook ads for it. (Hat tip: Director Blue.)
  • Outstanding life advice from Will Smith: “Fail early. Fail often. Fail forward.”

  • Important Florida Man safety tip: Do not pick up frozen iguanas and put them in your car intending to sell them for meat, because they will thaw out, revive, and bite you, causing your car to crash.
  • It looks like the mothership has arrived:

    (Hat tip: Ace of Spades HQ.)

  • Mistrial in First Waco Biker Shootout Trial

    Wednesday, November 15th, 2017

    Slightly belated news: The very first trial to arise out of the Waco Biker Shootout has resulted in a mistrial:

    The first trial stemming from a bloody biker gunfight at a Waco restaurant that left nine people dead and 20 wounded has done little to determine the fate of more than 150 people indicted in the complex and controversial Texas case.

    A judge on Friday declared a mistrial in the case of Jake Carrizal, president of the Dallas Bandidos motorcycle club, who could face life in prison if he ultimately is convicted on three counts stemming from the melee on May 17, 2015.

    The jury deliberated for 14 hours before telling Judge Matt Johnson it was hopelessly deadlocked. McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna declined to comment after Johnson declared a mistrial, so it was not clear if Carrizal will be tried again. All the defendants were charged with engaging in a criminal activity leading to the deaths.

    This is not surprising, given that, despite a shootout that left nine people dead, not a single defendant has been charged with murder. Evidently finding the right people to charge with murder is still too daunting for McLennan County’s DA, so he has instead gone for a “collective punishment” approach, charging all Bandidos and Cossacks present at the shootout with a conspiracy charge merely for being present.

    No wonder the first jury had such a hard time.

    Another reason for difficulty: All the weapons that forensics could definitively link to dead bikers came not from other bikers, but from law enforcement rifles.

    The dead in Waco deserve justice, but they’re not getting it, because Abel Reyna evidently finds it too hard to actually determine who committed homicide and has pursued unconstitutional indictments on “collective guilt” instead.

    Waco Biker Shootout Update for June 22, 2017

    Thursday, June 22nd, 2017

    It’s been a while since I last reported on the wheels of justice continuing to grind in the aftermath of the May 17, 2015 Waco biker shootout. The grinding is more glacial than slow, not only are they not grinding exceedingly fine, right now they don’t seem to be grinding at all.

    With the trial of Bandidos member Christopher Jacob Carrizal delayed, the trial of Cossacks member Kyle Smith was supposed to start June 5.

    Guess what? That trial has also been delayed:

    A judge on Friday effectively postponed the start of any Twin Peaks biker trials in McLennan County until after the federal trial of Bandidos national leaders in San Antonio or until federal prosecutors agree to share evidence with McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna.

    Judge Matt Johnson of Waco’s 54th State District Court granted a motion to delay the June 5 trial of Kyle Smith, 50, an air-conditioning technician from Kilgore and member of the Cossacks motorcycle group.

    I would say that further delay starts to raise Sixth Amendment issues, but in fact, since it’s been more than two years since the shootout, those factors were already in play. I’m hardly an expert, but Orand vs. State and Barker vs. Wingo seem to be the relevant precedents here. Both cases involve balancing factors for speedy trial issues. The defendant in Orand was acquitted after a 12-year delay between indictment and the arrest, while the five years Barker waited for trial (during which an accomplice was tried five times before a conviction was obtained) was not considered excessive, partially because Barker had not asserted his right to a speedy trial.

    Given the large, complex cases against the numerous Waco biker shootout defendants, the judicial system is more likely to make allowances, despite the fact that none of them have been charged with murder.

    There are, however, a few tidbits of news related to the case:

  • William Richardson, a biker who was shot at the Waco shootout but not charged, is suing to recover medical expenses. Named in the suit are “Twin Peaks Investment; Front Burner Restaurant GP; former Waco Police Chief Brent Stroman; Waco police Detective Manuel Chavez; McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara; and an unknown officer identified in the lawsuit as John Doe.”

    One of the arguments in the lawsuit is one we’ve heard before: that Waco police refused to render medical aid:

    The lawsuit claims the deaths of nine bikers and injuries to at least 20 others were compounded by the mass arrests “and wrongful detention of innocent individuals.”

    “During this period of detention, prior to transporting the detained off scene, neither law enforcement officers under control of defendant Chavez, defendant Stroman or defendant McNamara rendered aid to detainees who were injured nor did they call for emergency medical assistance,” the suit alleges.

    Richardson was not provided immediate medical attention by restaurant or law enforcement officials, the lawsuit claims.

  • But one Bandidos member has been convicted in a murder case involving a bar fight with a Cossack. A different bar fight:

    About 20 members of the Bandidos, one of the most notorious outlaw motorcycle clubs in Texas, poured into the front and rear doors of Gator’s Jam Inn in Fort Worth on a Friday evening in early December 2014. Reports of gunfire soon followed. “There’s been 15 shots so far, and they’re still shooting,” one of several 911 callers reported to Fort Worth police.

    The Bandidos’ Fort Worth chapter president, Howard Wayne Baker, was one of three arrested in connection with the shooting. He was charged with engaging in organized crime and directing the activities of a street gang. On Tuesday, the 62-year-old was sentenced to 45 years for one charge and 40 years for the other, to be served concurrently in prison.

    Fort Worth police said that in 2014, the Fort Worth Bandidos ambushed three rival outlaw motorcycle clubs — the Cossacks, the Ghost Riders and the Wino’s Crew — at the bar. When the smoke cleared, Geoffrey Brady, a 41-year-old member of the Ghost Riders, had been shot in the head, and two others also sustained injuries.

    “They dragged Brady out of the front door and executed him in front of his wife and friends,” said Allenna Bangs, Tarrant County assistant district attorney, in Baker’s trial last week. “They stood over him in a circle, and Howard Baker was standing in that circle.”

  • On May 8, there was also another Waco bar shooting involving Bandidos affiliates. Evidently seven members of a unnamed biker group affiliated with the Bandidos assaulted a man, the man pulled a gun and started firing, and then everybody ran away.
  • Bandidos were also involved in a violent gang brawl in Australia.
  • Would you believe that the Bandidos have filed papers to operate as a non-profit?