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Before the Court are: Defendants Frost and Schwartz’s Motion to Dismiss(ECF Nos. 57& 76);the City Defendants’ Joint Motion to Dismiss (ECF Nos. 58& 76);Defendants Reyna and McLennan County’s Motion to Dismiss (ECF Nos. 59& 78);and the respective responses, replies,and sur-replies thereto. The Court, having considered the Motions and applicable law,finds that the Motions should be DENIED or DENIED in PART and GRANTED in PART as discussed below. I. INTRODUCTION This case stems from the Twin Peaks restaurant incident on May 17, 2015.Members of the Bandidos and Cossacks Motorcycle Clubs, along with hundreds of other motorcycling enthusiasts,converged on the restaurant. Tensions...

Judge Ralph Strother is being forced to retire due to age. Now, four lawyers are vying to be his replacement. Strother was told he would be forced to retire due to age. He's recently made headlines with his involvement in the Baylor fraternity rape case and the Twin Peaks trials. The first forum in the contested 19th judicial court race started off with a bang Thursday. "I’ve tried 120 jury trials," criminal defense attorney Thomas West said. "I’ve been in the battles, I've been in the fire, I know what has to happen. In trials you have to make split...

In 2007, when I first met Jeff Pike, he had just finished an eleven-mile bicycle ride. He was wearing shorts, a T-shirt, and tennis shoes. We were at his two-story home that he had built on some secluded property five miles outside of Conroe, north of Houston. He was a good-looking guy, then 51 years old, and he wore his salt-and-pepper hair in a crewcut. As he handed me a bottled water, he gave me the most cheerful of grins. “Not what you expected, huh?” he asked. Not exactly. At the time, I was told by law enforcement officers that...

FBI agents discovered “suspicious items” Friday afternoon at the Robinson home of a man shot and killed by law enforcement officials at the home the morning before. Waco Fire Department hazmat crews and the McLennan County Sheriff’s Office bomb unit were called back to the home Friday, but no other information was given about the nature of the items. FBI Special Agent Michelle Lee said the “suspicious items” were found while FBI agents processed the scene at the property. “These teams will remain on scene for the duration of our operations to secure any additional items which may be found....

After four years of seriously sketchy prosecutorial conduct, likely trying to cover up the number of people killed by police and SWAT units as they shot into the crowd, the McLennen county district attorney has dropped all charges against the bikers involved in the Waco “Twin Peaks” brawl.

W.H. "Pete" Peterson had just left church on May 17, 2015, and was on his way to his granddaughter's high school baccalaureate ceremony when he got the call of mass casualties during a biker brawl that shattered the otherwise calm of the Sunday afternoon. Like many others that day, Peterson, a Vietnam veteran and a 38-year law enforcement officer, was not prepared for what he saw at the Twin Peaks crime scene after rival biker groups and police officers were involved in the deadly shootout that left nine dead and 20 injured. As McLennan County Justice of the Peace for...

Police officers in Texas had a double dose of Friday drama when they arrived at a home to serve a search warrant and their accompanying K9 dog attacked a cop instead of the perp!

The Waco, Texas justice cabal is a little farther from a conviction in the Waco Twin Peaks Mass Murder today than it was yesterday. The only defendant to be tried in the case so far is Christopher Jacob Carrizal. Carrizal is the president of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club’s Dallas chapter. After very many delays Carrizal had to endure a six-week trial last fall. Mostly what the prosecutors in that case were able to prove was that Carrizal is a Bandido, he likes being a Bandido and in 2015 he did not self-censor every text message he sent or forwarded to...

New trial dates were set Thursday for six bikers in the Twin Peaks trial. Two of the six bikers, Richard Lockhart and Marcus Pilkington, did not show up. Lockhart did not attend due to his attorney being out of the country and Pilkington’s attorney recently filed a motion to quash and object his re-indictment. The trial dates are below: Reginald Whethers: Feb. 25, 2019 Marshall Mitchell: Feb. 25, 2019 Richard Cantu: March 25, 2019. A fourth biker who showed up, David Martinez asked for a trial date in April or May 2019. However, the judge has not decided if a...

The mass arrests of witnesses to the Twin Peaks Mass Murder in Waco three years ago was such an Assault on the ideal of justice that it is difficult to list all the villains. That has to be the reason the two judges who have “adjudicated” all the cases, 19th State District Judge Ralph Strother and Matt Johnson of the 54th District Court have generally escaped the contempt and animus they deserve. A recent federal case in New York illustrates what a real judge might say about an analogous arrest and detention. Suspicious Clothing A 16-year-old Honduran boy living in...

Several documents ordered released to The Sentinel by OAG letter dated April 27, 2018 show that the three sniper rifles used in the death of four of the Cossak Bikers at the Twin Peaks in Waco, Texas were assigned to three of Waco's PD officers. We will refrain from publishing the LEO's names at this point but ATF records prove the men were each issued a suppressor also. The narrative long posted on the Waco public websited denies that they had any snipers deployed but evidence documents obtained by The Sentinel prove there were at least two snipers firing from...

It’s been three years since the bloodiest motorcycle gun battle in Texas history — a melee at high noon featuring dozens of guns, chains, knives and even machetes — left nine bikers dead, 18 injured and 177 in jail. There are still few answers about what happened on May 17, 2015, or why the Bandidos Motorcycle Club and the rival Cossacks went to war at a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco as local and state police watched nearby. But as Thursday’s deadline approaches for new charges, the aggressive law enforcement effort once billed as a pro-active crackdown on biker violence...

Three years into the perversion of justice that began at the Waco, Texas Twin Peaks “breastaurant,” the fundamental, obvious question, the – for want of a more appropriate turn of phrase – satorical question remains unchanged. Why? Why did the Twin Peaks Mass Murder happen? Why didn’t the police stop it? Why did police take pains to contain and video record it instead? Why did the FBI and the Texas Department of Public Safety go out of their way in the month before the tragedy to spook multiple, influential members of the Cossacks Motorcycle Club by telling them that the...

The McLennan County District Attorney dismissed 62 more cases related to the May 17, 2015 Twin Peaks Mass Murder yesterday. Prosecutors dismissed charges against at least 19 Cossacks and 13 Bandidos, two Valerosos, three Escondidos and two Macheteros. Cossacks who were cleared yesterday included Nomad Michael Chaney; McLennan County chapter president John Wilson; John “Voodoo” Arnold; Mark White, the police informant who told prosecutors the fight was not about the Texas bottom rocker and whose statement was then hidden from defense lawyers; and Philip White, who was shot in the face during the 109 second ambush. Bandidos Dallas Bandido Christopher...

Felony charges against 62 more bikers in the 2015 Twin Peaks shootout were dismissed Tuesday, the largest of several rounds of recent dismissals. Judge Ralph Strother of 19th State District Court signed dismissals requested by the McLennan County District Attorney's office for 42 cases Tuesday morning, which stated it was dismissing the cases to focus on "more culpable" defendants. Tuesday afternoon Judge Matt Johnson signed an additional 20 dismissals in the 54th State District Court, bringing the day's total to 62 cases. "I was very happy to sign the dismissals," Judge Strother said Tuesday. With the dismissals, only about one-third...

A letter from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton's Open Records Division to the City of Waco and carbon copied to The Sentinel offices has ordered the city to forward all documents requested except the assignment of the rifles to an officer by name. The remainder of the request was geared toward proving whether the city owned the rifles used in the Twin Peaks biker shooting or not. Sentinel readers may recall (stories on Texas page under Waco) that two of the three 'counter sniper' rifles were accounted for by the manufacturer (Remington) but the only Colt gun used that day...

With the McLennan County District Attorney's Office in a state of flux, the county's two felony court judges have summoned about 50 Twin Peaks biker shootout defendants to court in coming weeks to try to determine how the 128 or so remaining cases will proceed. Judge Ralph Strother of 19th State District Court and Judge Matt Johnson of 54th State District Court have scheduled status conferences for many of the Twin Peaks defendants. Strother has summoned 27 defendants for April 27, while Johnson's conference with about 25 defendants is set for May 4. All of the defendants directed to be...

Barry Johnson ousted two-term incumbent Abel Reyna as McLennan County district attorney, in a contentious race played out under the dark specter of the 2015 Twin Peaks shootout. Johnson, 61, who practiced personal injury law in Dallas for 30 years before moving back to McLennan County last year, got 10,347 votes for 59.9 percent of the vote to Reyna’s 6,930 for 40.1 percent. Johnson is a Waco native and son of Judge Joe N. Johnson, who served as justice of the peace for 24 years and judge of Waco’s 170th State District Court for 24 years. Johnson promised to serve...

In 2014, I made a last-minute effort to bring justice to our community in the form of a write-in campaign for district attorney. More than 6,000 people voted for me and my gratitude cannot be overstated. Once again, I call upon the good people of McLennan County to demonstrate your commitment to justice in our community by voting Barry Johnson for district attorney. If you’ve followed any news this past year, you are well versed with the numerous accusations leveled against McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna. These have been downplayed by the DA as mere musings of “disgruntled former...

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...