Less than 20 of the 177 Waco bikers arrested after shootout still face charges

The Texas Court of Appeals has determined over the last week that officials had probable cause in only five of the 177 arrests following a shootout between two rival biker gangs and local, state and federal authorities outside of a Waco restaurant in May, with just over a dozen more cases set to be reviewed over the next two weeks.

Among those still facing charges are a Bandidos chaplain and a husband and wife. Officials also found probable cause against Bandidos members Marcus Pilkington, 36, and Reginald Weathers, 43, who ascertain they are “being illegally confined” and authorities lack sufficient evidence to prove they engaged in organized criminal activity the day of the shootout, the Waco Tribune-Herald reported.

Nine men were killed during the exchange of gunfire that day and another 20 were injured. Authorities confiscated more than 475 weapons, including 151 firearms. No innocent civilians or law enforcement were injured during the shootout.

The incident remains under investigation, which is headed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, but a great deal of questions still remain, including who fired the fatal shots, which authorities have yet to disclose. However, Waco Police Chief Brent Stroman confirmed in June that a total of 12 rounds were fired by three Waco officers that day, leaving the remaining rounds at the hands of either the bikers or state and federal authorities.

At last count, 44 shell casings were recovered from the scene, including multiple .223 rounds, but ballistics evidence has not been made public at this time, despite the fact that autopsy reports were already released earlier this month, including vague descriptions of the injury-causing projectiles.

Weathers said the whole incident unfolded over a dispute about a parking space and a perceived act of disrespect, but while the melee initially involved the bikers, it’s unknown when authorities engaged.

According to Weathers, he and more than a dozen other members were outside of the Twin Peaks restaurant, while numerous members of the Cossacks, a rival biker gang, were near the patio area. A member of the Cossacks allegedly yelled at Bandidos club President David Martinez, saying he could not park in a particular space, but Weathers said he had not even pulled into the space at that point. Weathers, feeling his club president had been disrespected, then told the Cossacks member not to talk to his president that way, to which that member responded by punching Weathers in the face, he alleges.

Weathers said he covered his face in a defensive stance, but was soon pushed to the ground. Moments later, he heard gunshots, what he described as a “double tap.” Weathers was shot in the arm, but admitted that he did not know where the first shots came from because he was engaged in a fight with other bikers at the time.

Weathers said altogether the entire incident only lasted about four or five minutes.

Just like CTH, you are making that statement in the absence of any facts and in direct contradiction of the statement of bikers at the scene.

First--- what you quoted of my own words was not an assertive statement as was the problematic headline, but was instead a rhetorical statement.

And in the next sentence, one you failed to quote --- I provided my own opinion as for answer to that rhetorical question which I'd posed, when I told you that I never bought into the part of that CTH article headline (that asserted the police did all the shooting of those who died), so I am NOT doing anything "just like CTH." I had continued on from that slight pass at making clarification too suddenly perhaps, you may have missed it, for right afterwards I went to inquiring of you if CTH had continued that same claim (of it being police who shot all who died), etc., which was yet another aspect of things which you had said that I was hoping to somehow address.

Which makes it now you who is making misleading statements (about what I've said) in light of the fuller evidence of even my own comments. Do you really think you can confuses and distract me about what I myself said? You almost did.

Would it be fair to you, to say you that now are doing similar to how Princess quite often does, picking and choosing, ignoring everything which would go against gaining whatever convictions are being sought after?

What you did wasn't near as bad as Princess often does, of course, but it tended towards being that way, when the exculpatory had been skipped over, which if you were seeking to be fair, had been provided in the very next sentence following the one which you'd quoted. That sort of skipping over a next sentence thing can be done safely at times, but not when a following point of clarity reverses a prior rhetorical question that was not made as declarative statement.

That answer that I get the impression you missed, again, was that I never accepted, I never bought into (as I put it) the portion of the the headline from CTH that said the cops shot all who died. Get it now?

At this point I'm beginning to no longer care that one article wrongly accused the police. Later articles from that same source dropped that spurious noise, thus providing detraction of a sort, by way of further provided information which refuted much of that headline, leaving behind also the "thousands of rounds" statement to be sourced only from what appears to me to be a legitimately filed lawsuit --- that quite likely got that one item wrong.

So much for the "continuing misleading articles claim"? You did say that -- that CTH had "many" misleading" articles.

So far, you guys have been all about being butthurt over one single headline, and after examination, only one part of that was unjustified, even if we have to go to the badly constructed case filed by the Don Carlos gang to find support for the other point of contention having been presented as it was, in quotation marks.

After denial after denial (utter & total lack of acknowledgment) out of Princess that there could be any room for consideration that it is highly likely there are a significant number of the accused, who are not guilty of what they've been charged with --- in the way they were charged --- I'm supposed to give a damn for one side of things (the side which would limit, or else entirely preclude police from possibility of being guilty of wrong-doing, not even simple error, it seems) when I'm dealing with police and prosecutorial supporters who can't seem to bring themselves to give a damn about anyone but themselves, police --- and the worst one, where the real trouble now lay, unreserved pull-out-all-the-stops full throated support for the words and actions of the prosecution, in this case?

But for saying in that one article, that the police shot all 9 who died, that's the only place that CTH went seriously wrong that I know of, and I had moved on, forgotten it. But it does help in review to see how things got the way they are, I suppose.

Yet I never went there with it, nor have I ever argued that aspect of the headline was the truth, yet I've been talked to near continually by the likes of Princess as if I had, and that has been a frustrating experience to which you now have seemingly joined in.

Shared Navy affiliation is it? Just got to make a stand against those evil bikers, even make that stand against one of the guys who is looking for the middling grounds, where I do strongly suspect the truth of the matter mostly lay, once that be set against template of what the charges are --- and what conditions are stipulated by that same law must be met in order for that portion of the code to possibly be rightfully applied as that is written.

As for your claim that I was stating something contradictory, there was no real contradiction also for reason there is something of an excluded middle -- or at least there was stronger possibility for one on about day 3 or 4 following the incident.

That middle, though I had serious doubts could be rationally contemplated to extend far enough to turn CTH's problematic headline into being entirely accurate, existed enough in possibility that I could imagine it possible to extend to all but 2 or three of those who were shot and killed, which would leave 6 who were shot by the police.

Princess throws a fit at the mention of that number 6. ;^')

Only after the autopsy reports came out was it undeniable that there were three? or was it four? who did not have small caliber wounds.

Though there was nothing saying prior to release of the autopsy that everyone who died very well could not have been shot by police, although some of those could have, even rationally would have [needed to be, for this to be at all rational possibility] been shot first by other bikers.

See it now? That's the middle when extended to fullest possible extent, back in May 20th or so. The possibility as it stood, slim as it was; *some* number of those who died, shot by bikers --AND-- by police.

All in all, this excluded middle, when stretched to fullest possible extent that it could and still be rationally contemplated even as mere & remote possibility, was never ground which I tried to stake anything upon.

You don't have to agree, "oh yeah, that must be the way it was" to see it as possibility ---- particularly when an unknown number of undercover officers were present. We know of one for a certainty. We do not know there were not more, for a certainty. And I have serious doubt that the one identified undercover officer known to be present, was entirely unarmed, not even a cut-down 9mm back-up sort of weapon, before at some point he became armed with a rifle which he was later photographed holding with high degree of familiarity. Not a 'seizure' gun, it appeared, (way too tactic-cool) and one which some account had him carrying while sweeping/patrolling inside the Twin Peaks facility right after the shooting stopped.

Undercover police. How many of those who died were shot by undercover officers? None? We don't know that. One? We don't know that either. More? I'd begin to have serious doubts about even more, right about here, if the doubts were not already there.

There are many unanswered questions, which I doubt we'll ever hear full and unvarnished truth concerning.

I personally would doubt any statement taken from a Cossack, with the exception of one very important issue. If the police were doing all of the killing, why do two different Cossacks give the same account of the first three Cossacks getting shot by Bandidos? Why wouldn't they they tell the truth?

As I do hope you have realized by now, I am not one of those who ever said that it was the police who did all the killing, although I did have to entertaine the strongest of possibility that they did more than Princess would care to contemplate --- as I have explained --- there very likely could have been police RIFLE bullets put into 5, or possibly 6? and we don't know about any officers with handguns, or what they may or may not have done.

Yet the portion you included about two Cossacks having agreeable accounts of Bandidos having basically started it, was my own strongest suspicion from very early one. When I first heard -- Bandidos came roaring up, there were words, then the one Bandido allegedly threw the first punch followed by getting hit in return himself, then allegedly fired the first shot --- and it was off to the races.

My own take on it, is there were Bandidos who desired no such thing to occur, like the one Bandido chapter president it is rumored had called a Cossack chapter president, or someone with an amount of influence to attend the meeting that day, with the idea being that underlying cause for tensions would hopefully be addressed. The same Cossack, or yet another one(?) said in a hearing that a Waco PD officer had called him and requested that he attend in hopes of working out some accommodation.

This news was circulated among Cossacks, and they smelled possibility for a a set-up, where some of their fellow club members could possibly be assaulted -- and so they decided to show up in force, even though it was known or understood that going there on purpose to seek a battle, wasn't exactly what club policy at that time was, with it being (and I'm guessing here) more like, "oh,yeah? ok we'll all show up, and if anyone starts the shit we'll defend one another."

Prosecutors are going to try to turn that "if" into deliberation and conspiracy to commit crime. As tempting as that may be to stretch that into justification to "clean up the gangs" by throwing a large number of them into prison, at that point it too rapidly becomes an end justifies the means sort of thing, rather than clearprocess of law to establish John X assaulted Joe Z & Joe Z, or John X killed the other, etc.

You know what I mean? The actual crimes. Not the "they all conspired" which is rough equivalent for what prosecution now alleges, with none of this "they went there uninvited" "the CoC is run by Bandidos" "Bandidos are bad" gazed upon whenever it comes to light that there so far has been lack of evidence for actual conspiracy.

When lacking that, one or more hotheads among them killed another man (and may well havegone there that day personally themselves, or with small cliches (within the clubs) or close confidant 'road dogs', it goes from individuals and small sub-groups to ---"THEY ARE ALL GUILTY!!!"--- sort of way of thinking Princess has been continually pimping...that when it comes to Cossacks and Scimitars, is even more difficult to fully justify to extend towards ALL of those MC members who were there, than it is for Bandidos, since that latter group does have a history --- which the others lack.

Sorry.

But many here on either side have made this subject nearly impossible to talk about. Princess has been the worst, play-acting at being reasonable, when there's been nothing much but games, accusations, smug & smirk, smart-ass crap, etc, which I saw from Day 1 was how it was going to be, so there and then told the Princess to go to Hell, and I meant it.

Butthurts followed, but no sign of assumption of innocence in the slightest degree, for any who were arrested that day ,no matter how anyone has tried to be rational. I admit that while I've attempted to rationally explain my own reasons, I've also been insulting the L out of that vile liar. I'd swear there is demonic activity going on there, and quite possibly some FBI baiting & snooping too, or at the least pass-along to LE friends.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.