Out of respect for your long FR tenure, I won’t call you a dupe.
Why is it difficult to understand that many times, often justifiably, people with no criminal record are arrested? No one is born with a record.
Their arrest in Waco was likely due to their being at the scene of the crime and looking a whole lot like the criminals gang members shooting one another. In a BIG killing, they use a big broom.
We do not know whether or not there was an illegal killing at Twin Peaks. Every death and injury there may yet be determined to be lawful. There was no justification for arresting all bikers in the area and holding them on $1,000,000 bail each.
Not difficult to understand at all. But, one must also stipulate that the police sometimes arrest people without a valid reason. And, in America, "dragnet' arrests are not a valid, legal or Constitutional police tactic.
So, we are left with a judgement call. is it likely that many of the people arrested were there doing criminal deeds, and had managed to avoid arrest thus far in life, but were still deserving of being arrested this time,
OR
does it seem more likely that the police screwed up, first by shooting many people in a very dangerous and stupid manner, and then by arresting everyone in sight.
In my judgement the latter scenario seems the likely one, all the more so as evidence and stories come out.
One fellow and his wife were released last week. I would say that when you are reducing bail from $1 million to $25K that's a pretty clean sign that you over-reached.
We now now that it is at least possible that all, or most, of the dead were shot by police. (Nine dead, 12 police rounds fired). This has been speculated upon by a number of people. It's now a plausible scenario.
If you compare this with most other high profile arrests it is extremely noticeable that there is a long time-lag in providing any details to the press.