While Jeff Battey may know who shot him in the arm almost four years ago outside the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, McLennan County prosecutors dismissed charges against the remaining 24 biker defendants because they could not gain the same level of certainty to build murder cases.
McLennan County District Attorney Barry Johnson, who announced his decision to dismiss charges Tuesday, said Wednesday he and his staff agonized since he took office in January over how to proceed with the Twin Peaks cases. Johnson and his top assistants, Tom Needham and Nelson Barnes, were not sold on the rioting charges already filed, could not find sufficient evidence to make murder cases and realized that any other potential charges, such as aggravated assault, were barred by statutes of limitations.
“We have watched those tapes a jillion times, and it is like an ant bed with ants running wild out there,” Johnson said. “It is impossible to tell what is going on, who shot who, who got shot, and there is nothing to tell us definitely who fired the shots that hit the guys who were killed.”
Johnson spent much of his day Wednesday answering media questions about his decision to abandon the Twin Peaks cases. He said it was not an easy call but he believes it was in the best interest of justice and will benefit McLennan County taxpayers in the long-run.
He said his office has the option of filing murder charges in the future if more evidence becomes available.
“It’s likely going to take somebody going into a bar, having a few drinks and popping off to some folks that he pulled a gun on an old boy and shot that Cossack, or that Bandido, or whatever,” Johnson said. “But just generally, that is all we’ve got left as far as making a murder case.”
‘Tough psychologically’
For Battey, a Bandido and former Marine who works in maintenance at a Syracuse Sausage plant in Ponder, Johnson’s announcement was welcome news, according to his attorney, Seth Sutton.
“This whole ordeal destroyed him for a long time,” Sutton said. “The thing about these motorcycle clubs, they are like family to each other. Birthdays, holidays, anniversaries, they are all spent with the club. They are very close. If somebody has a birthday, it is going to be spent with the club. After they all were arrested, they were all told you can’t hang out with your best friends. That’s a tough pill to swallow.
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