Posted on 06/07/2015 5:06:07 AM PDT by don-o
Video of the deadly May 17 Twin Peaks shootout between rival biker gangs shows “Bandidos executing Cossacks and Cossacks executing Bandidos,” a prosecutor said Friday at a bond-reduction hearing for a Cossack from Northeast Texas.
The revelations from First Assistant District Attorney Michael Jarrett during Laurance Kemp’s bond-reduction hearing were among the first detailed glimpses provided by authorities of what occurred during the incident that left nine bikers dead, 18 wounded and 177 arrested.
In arguing against reducing Kemp’s bond to an amount that would allow him to be released, Jarrett said Kemp traveled 3 1/2 hours from his home in Bogata in Red River County that Sunday morning, proudly wore his Cossacks colors and associates himself with a group law enforcement considers a “criminal outlaw gang.”
After hearing testimony from the 40-year-old Kemp’s fiancee and her mother, 54th State District Judge Matt Johnson reduced Kemp’s $1 million bond to $250,000. His family said after the hearing that they would not be able to raise the money to secure his release.
Jarrett said video from the incident showed a group of Cossacks arriving at Twin Peaks and “spreading out across the patio in sentry positions,” obviously keeping close watch on their surroundings.
Later, video shows Cossacks looking in their vests and checking their holsters for weapons, Jarrett said. As a line of Bandidos rode through the parking lot, Cossacks scramble over patio railings as the shootout ensues, Jarrett said.
“The video clearly shows Bandidos executing Cossacks and Cossacks executing Bandidos, some at point-blank range,” Jarrett said. “The facts and circumstances of this case are so extraordinary and so different from anything we have ever dealt with, we believe adequate bonds need to be in place to ensure the safety of this community.”
Kemp’s attorney, Lawrence Johnson, argued that there is no evidence that Kemp did anything wrong that day and he shouldn’t be held on excessive bond just because of his biker affiliation.
Kemp’s fiancee, Julie Harrison, the mother of his 20-month-old twins, said one of the twins is disabled and that Kemp, who works for a road construction company, is the family’s sole breadwinner.
She said her 95-year-old grandmother has offered to help pay a portion of Kemp’s bond, but said $2,500 would be the maximum amount her family could raise.
The family would have to pay $25,000, or 10 percent, to make Kemp’s new bond.
Wiping away tears after the hearing, Harrison said her son has brain cysts that cause seizures and the family needs Kemp at home. With Kemp in jail, her family is suffering financial hardships, she said.
Harrison testified that the Cossacks group Kemp is associated with are good people who raise money for charities and who helped her family when their twins were born prematurely.
In other developments in the bikers’ cases Friday, two attorneys have petitioned the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals in Austin on behalf of 144 bikers, seeking a “prompt and efficient administration of justice.”
The petition asks the court to order Judge Billy Ray Stubblefield, the regional administrative judge, to assign visiting judges to McLennan County to conduct immediate bond hearings for the bikers still in jail.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys for the bikers have negotiated lower bonds in about 70 cases, with about 53 of the 177 bikers being released after negotiating reduced bonds.
There were other bond reduction hearings set for Friday, but they were canceled after negotiated reductions.
More bond hearings are set for every Friday in June and several in July.
I'd say that the SWAT guys most likely accounted for the rest of the body count. They saw those Cossacks spread out for the ambush, divided up the target list very efficiently, slipped off the safeties and waited.
Has any witness made mention of a "visible police presence" in that parking lot or next door? I recall hearing it before, but am curious - was it Waco PD narrative or an "I was there..." comment? All of the SWAT shooters might've been in biker garb, like that one photograph that keeps appearing in these threads.
Why don’t you elaborate on what you did mean by bringing Baltimore into the discussion of Waco?
I spent slightly over a week in Judge Billy Ray Stubblefields court.
He is a good and capable judge.
We won of course. Don’t know if I would be saying that if we had lost.
“——The video clearly shows Bandidos executing Cossacks and Cossacks executing Bandidos-——
There were nine killed
This seems to say that the cops didn’t kill all nine As I seem to believe was reported previously.”
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Well, this strange-talking Assistant DA says the bikers are shown on “the video” executing one another. I guess you don’t find it interesting that they haven’t released “the video” for the public to view? And, since SWAT and other law enforcement (including the feds) were present and pre-positioned, there should be other video also.
Come on, bert. You can do better than that. You know the difference between reporting and speculating.
One of the many troublesome things in this story is the LACK of real reporting. Troublesome, but not all that surprising.
There are around 50 who have posted bond, but I can find only 4 or 5 who have been interviewed by the press. Waco PD has their stonewalling blackout operational. The media is too lazy to go digging for what MAY be learned from people who do know something.
This outdated story is the “official police version” fed to gullible reporters.
Groups of people travel across state lines to Baltimore when a riot is going on with the obvious intent to cause destruction but were released after being arrested without having to post bail.
Let it go. YOU brought race into this.
But, love how you claim how other Freepers play the race card, but you don’t, yet you were the first one to instigate an argument by throwing the race card at me when I had played none.
Bullshit. You had the word “minorities” in your post 11.
That bathroom fight was among the first of many lies from Sgt. "Mount Carmel commendation" Swanton. He followed that up with an overly dramatic description of how "surreal" the blood and guts were inside the restaurant. Sure, because thugs always line up ready to start something in front of SWAT and ATF, at high noon, in the middle of a shopping center, on a Sunday with after church families going out to eat mere feet away. Of course the cops were visible. Can't hide all their vehicles in that open area around the shopping center. The Cossacks and Bandidos were played by ATF. IMO, it was a total set up and they were massacred. If the cops really wanted the day to be peaceful so they could all go home safely, all they had to do was at the first sign of trouble to flip on their lights and siren and that would have ended it immediately.
All they have to do is announce whether they took rifle rounds or hand gun rounds out of the bodies.
“The video clearly shows Bandidos executing Cossacks and Cossacks executing Bandidos, some at point-blank range,”
This cannot be true. I’ve read right here that a bunch of social club members were planning their next toy run, when for reasons the bikers never fully understood, a bunch of machine gun cops walked in and mowed them down.
“Who, exactly, are “these bikers” of whom you speak? “
Banditos and Cossacks. They run dope distribution routes for the cartels, run the prostitution and strip club industry, engage in murder and everything organized crime.
It was them, and people who are people friendly with them.
“Then show the video!”
Law degree in a crackerjack box? Yes, lets show the video again and again to the community and see if we can taint the jury pool.
This is real murder from these thugs and there will be plenty of time to watch the video on you tube after it is presented at trial.
Yet, somehow, 115 of the 174 arrested in the roundup have no criminal records in the state of Texas.
Does that seem a little odd to you?
“these bikers” of whom you speak? Had you taken any time to look into the story, you would know that they are a mixed bag.”
BINGO.
The Cossacks and Bandidos didn’t care that there were innocent people present who could have been hurt or killed.
no criminal gangs, no shoot out at Waco, no mass arrests
There should be greater outrage at the criminal gangs.
“all they had to do was at the first sign of trouble to flip on their lights and siren and that would have ended it immediately. “
You should teach at a police academy! So trouble ends when lights and sirens come on? That’s going to be a real game changer. And I never thought of it, but that explains why nobody ever fights, shoots, or stabs a cop when their car is right there. And with other cop cars pulling up with lights and sirens on./
And how about nationwide? And do you believe that every crip and blood gang member has an arrest record?
You present as lo-fo on this. Not my job to get you up to speed.
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