“There were multiple people on the scene firing weapons at each other,” Sergeant Swanton said. The police had anticipated trouble and were out in force before the confrontation. The bikers were appearing before magistrates who were setting bond at $1 million each. Patrick Swanton, a Waco Police Department spokesman, said that rather than overwhelm the jail, the police had used the Waco Convention Center as a staging area overnight to hold those arrested. The one-page document said the Bandidos were believed to have summoned additional members from Arkansas and New Mexico as “reinforcements.” The local management said it was disappointed that Twin Peaks had “made a sudden decision to cancel our Waco franchise before all of the facts are learned.”Īfter the shooting, the state-run Texas Joint Crime Information Center issued an advisory that members of the Bandidos and the Cossacks “reportedly have been instructed to arm themselves with weapons and travel to north Texas.” The bulletin said officers throughout Texas “should be aware of the escalating violence between both groups and are to consider all Bandidos and Cossacks members as armed and dangerous.”
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The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission suspended the restaurant’s license for a week, and its corporate headquarters revoked its franchise agreement. The restaurant where the biker groups had gathered, a chain known for scantily clad waitresses, continued to face scrutiny over its handling of security. The police on Monday were still sorting out what had happened at the restaurant off Interstate 35, and local officials were beginning an extraordinary booking process - arresting and charging about 170 people they had detained after the fight. “The only reason I am not in jail,” he added, “is that I got there late.” Eight Cossacks and one Bandido were killed in the gunfight, he said.
Jimmy did not want to be quoted using the club’s name, referring to it instead as “the other side” - were not part of the meeting, but the Bandidos were. On Sunday, a Twin Peaks restaurant at a popular shopping center in south Waco was supposed to be the setting for a meeting of a Texas branch of the Confederation of Clubs and Independents, an umbrella group under which various motorcycle groups discuss issues of mutual interest. While the police and government officials term the groups “gangs,” members insist on using the term “club” instead, and say they are often harassed and stigmatized for legal activities. “They are the big dogs of Texas, and then this other, smaller club - the Cossacks - comes along in 1969 or so, and they decide that they are not going to bow down.” “The view of the Bandidos is that Texas is their state,” said Terry Katz, the vice president of the International Association of Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Investigators.
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The shootout provided a glimpse of the sometimes competing agendas - power and influence, a desire to avoid public confrontations and a code of never backing down in a fight - that turned the meeting of hundreds of bikers into a blood bath. It will be up to prosecutors and a grand jury to decide what charges they will ultimately face, but capital murder charges can carry the death penalty. On Monday, about 170 bikers were charged with engaging in organized crime linked to capital murder.
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The feud formed the backdrop of the shootout here on Sunday afternoon, when a gathering intended to discuss bikers’ rights and how to work on issues of mutual concern erupted into gunfire that left nine bikers dead and 18 others wounded. Last year, two members of the Bandidos, including the president of the Abilene chapter, were indicted on charges of stabbing two men, in what the police said was a conflict with the Cossacks. There is little that is ambiguous, however, about their feud with the Cossacks. The Bandidos became the state’s biggest motorcycle group, but one that now tries to walk a fine line - declared by the government to be a criminal enterprise involved in the distribution of drugs, but also engaged in political advocacy on behalf of motorcyclists and activities like charity runs.
But the Bandidos were first, in 1966, with the Cossacks forming in 1969. In the denim-and-leather world of Texas motorcycle gangs, the Bandidos and the Cossacks are warring tribes in an unforgiving landscape.īoth originated in Texas in the 1960s.