Free Republic

BELEN, N.M. (KRQE) — A 6-year-old boy’s lemonade stand was burglarized last week in Belen, New Mexico, while he was trying to raise money for a good cause. After news spread about the theft, the community stepped up and rallied around him. Connor Brock had a goal: raise $250 to donate to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital as part of their “Lemonade Stand in July” challenge. His parents were also raising money for Connor’s benefit: “Connor has autism level two, and we’ve used the lemonade stand not only to benefit St. Jude’s Children’s Hospital but also to teach Connor responsibility,...

How 177 arrests led to no convictions — a tangled, seven-year tale of prosecutorial hubris and tenacious defense. Citing pending civil lawsuits, Reyna declined to speak on the record for this article, but he vigorously denied all the charges made in the affidavits secured by Broden, and he disputed The Tribune-Herald’s characterization of his actions. In the end, his primary wasn’t even close: Johnson defeated him by nearly 20 points. Before his term ended, Reyna would dismiss all but 24 of the bikers’ cases, with Johnson dismissing the final two dozen in April 2019. Carrizal was the only biker to...

The U.S. Supreme Court declined Monday to consider an appeal by the city of Waco and McLennan County in lawsuits filed by bikers arrested in the 2015 Twin Peaks shootout that left nine bikers dead and 20 injured. Attorneys for the defendants asked the U.S. Supreme Court to review an April decision by a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that reinstated the lawsuits of about 90 bikers whose civil rights cases were dismissed last year by U.S. District Judge Alan Albright of Waco. The federal appeals court panel reversed an Albright ruling that held a...

A Washington State teenager has gone from missing person to the subject of a murder investigation, police said. Gabriel Michael Davies, 16, of Olympia, was reported missing last Wednesday after failing to show up to football practice, according to the Tacoma News Tribune. Authorities located found the football player’s vehicle near Millersylvania State Park. Davies himself was found late Thursday in what police termed “suspicious circumstances.” Gabriel Michael Davies, 16, was reported missing last Wednesday after failing to appear at football practice. Detectives reportedly found a small amount of blood and a smashed cell phone around Davies’ car. Although the...

Married biker said 'I've had the privilege to be part of an amazing club' in message posted to Facebook after he died Sonny Barger has died aged 83 after a cancer battle surrounded by his wife Zorana and his loved ones The Oakland, California, biker was the founding member of the Hells Angels motorcycling group in the 1950s He had many run-ins with the law and spent some time in prison but beat murder and racketeering charges

Nearly 90 bikers claim they were falsely arrested after deadly shootout The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has reinstated the lawsuits – at least temporarily – of about 90 bikers arrested in the 2015 Twin Peaks shootout whose civil rights cases were thrown out last year by U.S. District Judge Alan Albright. A three-judge panel of the federal appeals court reversed Albright’s previous ruling that a grand jury’s indictment of the 90 bikers “served to break the chain of causation” for their false arrest claims and sent the cases back to Albright for further consideration in light of the...

If you ask Paul Looney, a Houston defense attorney, about the Twin Peaks biker case, he’ll tell you there’s one person who knows more about it than anyone else alive: his trial-preparation specialist, Roxanne Avery. An entire wall of her home office in Norman, Okla., is covered with wallet-size mug shots of the nearly 200 bikers arrested, as well as photographs of the nine men who died that day, seven years ago, after a violent brawl in a Waco parking lot. Each picture is layered with Post-it Notes and details about the subjects: ages, road names (Cheech, Chain, Drama, Sidetrack,...

Gunfire erupted when violent Antifa militants appear to have picked a fight with a notorious Portland, Ore. area biker gang. Antifa lost. At least one person ended up dead and five others were injured in Portland Saturday night.Portland Police are still sorting things out, but what we know is that police were called on Saturday night shortly after 8 p.m to a disturbance that quickly escalated into gunfire. According to Antifa protesters who took over the presser, identified by the Post Millennial as “Hailley Nolan and Dustin Ferreira,” the previous night their comrades had gone to confront members of notorious...

he 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has dismissed former Waco Police Chief Brent Stroman and Assistant Chief Robert Lanning from lawsuits filed by bikers alleging false arrest after the 2015 Twin Peaks shootout, but left former McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna as a defendant. The ruling, issued late last week, is the most recent development in the six-year legal battle waged after hundreds of Bandidos and Cossacks and their respective support clubs squared off in the Twin Peaks parking lot while families were dining or shopping May 15, 2015, at the busy Central Texas Marketplace. About 134 bikers...

Five years ago Sunday nine died and 18 were injured after a shootout erupted between rival motorcycle groups at Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco. The shootout was the deadliest and most high-profile event in the Waco area since the Waco siege of the Branch Davidian compound in 1993. The bikers said the agenda at the regional meeting of the Texas Confederation of Clubs and Independents (COC&I), a statewide biker group coalition based in Tyler, involved political issues regarding the rights of motorcyclists. But trouble was brewing between the Bandidos and the Cossacks. Eighteen Waco police officers and four state troopers...

A disturbing surveillance video has emerged showing the moment two men wearing face masks jumped out of a Jeep brandishing guns topped with silencers and opened fire at a biker gang leader, killing him on a Bronx street in the middle of the day. The suspected execution took place on Hollard Avenue near Boston Road in the Allerton section of The Bronx at around 3.20pm on Sunday. The victim has been identified by unnamed law enforcement sources as Francisco Rosado, the 51-year-old leader of the Bronx chapter of the notorious Pagan Motorcycle Club. The newly released video begins with a...

As a biker in the 1960s, Joe Campbell always carried a gun with him. He had gotten into many fights and stolen from people. He needed to be ready for anything. “I carried a gun around,” he said, “because of the amount of people I had wronged.” His life was a chaotic mix of violence, drugs, alcohol, gambling and other biker gang activity in Illinois, and he knew it “would destroy my marriage,” Campbell says. When his wife Connie got saved, Joe didn’t immediately join her. In fact, he mocked her and constantly hounded her to return to their former...

A federal judge in Waco has dismissed 13 civil rights lawsuits filed by 45 bikers arrested after the May 2015 shootout at Twin Peaks in Waco, a ruling that suggests more dismissals will be coming. U.S. Judge Alan Albright, in a 13-page order issued Monday, dismissed civil rights claims against the city of Waco, McLennan County, former District Attorney Abel Reyna, former Waco Police Chief Brent Stroman and a handful of other Waco and Texas Department of Public Safety officers. The 45 plaintiffs were among 192 bikers who were arrested and among 155 who were indicted in the Sunday noon-hour...

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...

Be warned, that I am now going choke you with pages of legalese but the words might turn out to be important for you to know or for your lawyer to know. If you get lost reading it just skip to the end of this story. Last month, six days before Christmas, Judge Jim Jordan, who mostly makes his money as a professional mediator and arbiter, issued the following order. The Legal Notice Please take notice that the Waco Police Department and the McLennan County District Attorney’s Office are accepting requests for the return of property related to the May...

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...

A federal judge dismissed McLennan County as a defendant in a civil rights lawsuit filed by three bikers arrested after the 2015 Twin Peaks shootout but ruled the plaintiffs can pursue claims against the city of Waco and seven individual defendants. In a 22-page ruling Monday, U.S. District Judge Alan Albright threw out some of the claims filed by bikers Bradley Terwilliger, Benjamin Matcek and Jimmy Dan Smith, as well as dismissing the county and four Waco police officers from the suit. The lawsuit, filed by the three bikers who were never indicted in the deadly shootout, is one of...

Well Respected Attorney Gotro Correctly Asked a Judge for his Recusal, and won a Mistrial in the Highly Publicized Twin Peak Trial. The Judiciary Were Not Happy. She Was then Hunted, Stalked and Skewered to set an Example. A dynamic Houston trial attorney widely respected for her work freeing a Katy football coach from prison can’t practice law for the next three years after the State Bar of Texas suspended her license following a trio of grievances. The complaints against Casie Gotro all centered on three similar claims that she failed to keep clients up to date on the status...

Yes! Le Tour is here. The 106th edition of the race begins Saturday, in next-door Brussels, a nod to the stern-faced Belgian cycling titan Eddy Merckx, who won five overall Tours and 34 stages beginning in 1969... It’s got a case as the craziest and most beautiful event in sports, but it’s clearly an acquired taste. I’m really super-duper into it. You know this. ...the four-time Tour winner Chris Froome, was badly hurt in a crash, suffering a broken leg and other injuries. Froome would have been a favorite for this year. One of the more intriguing newbies is Mike...