170 Bikers Charged in Waco, in a Rivalry Rooted in the 1960s
WACO, Tex. — In the denim-and-leather world of Texas motorcycle gangs, the Bandidos and the Cossacks are warring tribes in an unforgiving landscape.
Both originated in Texas in the 1960s. But the Bandidos were first, in 1966, with the Cossacks forming in 1969. The Bandidos became the state’s biggest motorcycle group, but one that now tries to walk a fine line — declared by the government to be a criminal enterprise involved in the distribution of drugs, but also engaged in political advocacy on behalf of motorcyclists and activities like charity runs.
There is little that is ambiguous, however, about their feud with the Cossacks. Last year, two members of the Bandidos, including the president of the Abilene chapter,
were indicted on charges of stabbing two men, in what the police said was a conflict with the Cossacks. The feud formed the backdrop of the shootout here on Sunday afternoon, when a gathering intended to discuss bikers’ rights and how to work on issues of mutual concern
erupted into gunfire that left nine bikers dead and 18 others wounded.
On Monday, about 170 bikers were charged with engaging in organized crime linked to capital murder. It will be up to prosecutors and a grand jury to decide what charges they will ultimately face, but capital murder charges can carry the death penalty.
The shootout provided a glimpse of the sometimes competing agendas — power and influence, a desire to avoid public confrontations and a code of never backing down in a fight — that turned the meeting of hundreds of bikers into a blood bath.
“The view of the Bandidos is that Texas is their state,” said Terry Katz, the vice president of the International Association of Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Investigators. “They are the big dogs of Texas, and then this other, smaller club — the Cossacks — comes along in 1969 or so, and they decide that they are not going to bow down.”
While the police and government officials term the groups “gangs,” members insist on using the term “club” instead, and say they are often harassed and stigmatized for legal activities.
On Sunday, a Twin Peaks restaurant at a popular shopping center in south Waco was supposed to be the setting for a meeting of a Texas branch of the Confederation of Clubs and Independents, an umbrella group under which various motorcycle groups discuss issues of mutual interest.
“We have been doing this for 18 years, and we never had a problem,” said Gimmi Jimmy, national ambassador for the Bandidos and the state chairman for the Texas Confederation of Clubs and Independents, which oversees the local branches. “We discuss things like biker rights, but no individual club business is talked about.”
The Cossacks — Mr. Jimmy did not want to be quoted using the club’s name, referring to it instead as “the other side” — were not part of the meeting, but the Bandidos were. Eight Cossacks and one Bandido were killed in the gunfight, he said. “The only reason I am not in jail,” he added, “is that I got there late.”
The police on Monday were still sorting out what had happened at the restaurant off Interstate 35, and local officials were beginning an extraordinary booking process — arresting and charging about 170 people they had detained after the fight. The restaurant where the biker groups had gathered, a chain known for scantily clad waitresses, continued to face scrutiny over its handling of security. The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission suspended the restaurant’s license for a week, and its corporate headquarters revoked its franchise agreement.
The local management said it was disappointed that Twin Peaks had “made a sudden decision to cancel our Waco franchise before all of the facts are learned.”
After the shooting, the state-run Texas Joint Crime Information Center issued an advisory that members of the Bandidos and the Cossacks “reportedly have been instructed to arm themselves with weapons and travel to north Texas.” The bulletin said officers throughout Texas “should be aware of the escalating violence between both groups and are to consider all Bandidos and Cossacks members as armed and dangerous.”
The one-page document said the Bandidos were believed to have summoned additional members from Arkansas and New Mexico as “reinforcements.”
Sgt. Patrick Swanton, a Waco Police Department spokesman, said that rather than overwhelm the jail, the police had used the Waco Convention Center as a staging area overnight to hold those arrested. The bikers were appearing before magistrates who were setting bond at $1 million each.
The police had anticipated trouble and were out in force before the confrontation. “There were multiple people on the scene firing weapons at each other,” Sergeant Swanton said. “They then turned on our officers. Our officers returned gunfire, wounding and possibly killing several.”
Law enforcement officials said the gun battle was primarily between the Bandidos and Cossacks, though members of the Scimitars, who are affiliated with the Cossacks, and two other groups were also involved. It remained unclear what had caused the first fight in the restaurant that led to a larger fight in the parking lot.
Sergeant Swanton said the initial confrontation had involved a “parking issue.” Mr. Jimmy said that he had heard there was no such argument, but that there was a fight in the restaurant bathroom about something, although he did not know what.
The Bandidos take their supremacy so seriously that in El Paso in 2012, five members and associates were arrested on allegations that they attacked bikers belonging to other groups because the Bandidos had not given them permission to wear their “colors,” or group logos. Members who fight in the name of a motorcycle club are often rewarded with patches and pins.
Wrapped in their patch-covered jackets and straddling thundering motorcycles, biker groups are familiar sights along America’s highways. But the shootout here has brought renewed attention to organizations that sometimes describe themselves as “outlaw motorcycle clubs.”
Bikers, their lawyers and other supporters say the constitutional rights of many club members are constantly under assault by law enforcement authorities. They accuse the authorities of harassing them because they are such a visible presence and because they are conspicuous in their disdain and distrust of the police and agents with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the main federal agency that monitors biker groups.
But to law enforcement officials, groups like the Bandidos and the Cossacks amount to crime syndicates that are prone to violent clashes over territory and real and perceived slights. In recent years, the State Department and the Department of Homeland Security added the Bandidos — along with the Hells Angels, the Outlaws and the Mongols — to a list of known criminal organizations that also includes the Mafia, the Chinese Triads and the Japanese syndicate Yakuza.
The Bandidos are one of the few major biker gangs in the world. According to the Department of Justice, it has up to 2,500 members in 14 countries, with about 900 belonging to 93 chapters in the United States. Members of the Bandidos, whose motto is “we are the people our parents warned us about,” have been arrested in several states on drug, weapons and racketeering charges and have been involved in deadly feuds around the world.
One slogan displayed in the 1990s by Bandidos members caught up in a Nordic turf war with the Hells Angels seemed to sum up the group’s ethos: “God forgives. Bandidos don’t.”
For the most part, observers and law enforcement officials say, the crime associated with motorcycle groups is carried out in secret because of the awareness that high-profile episodes of violence invite renewed crackdowns by the authorities. But while violent clashes are fewer in number, they have in recent years played out in public and sensational ways, such as when a Hells Angels leader was killed in a Nevada casino in 2011.
“The violence is more intense and more public,” said Randy McBee, an associate professor of history at Texas Tech University and the author of a coming book about the culture and the history of the American motorcyclist since World War II. “These people don’t seem to have a concern about where or when it happens.”
Representatives of the Cossacks could not be reached on Monday. The group has promoted itself with a simple motto: “We take care of our own.” Previous news accounts about the organization mention its toy drives and social events.
Don Charles Davis, who writes the biker blog “The Aging Rebel,” said the Waco episode was “a challenge to the Bandidos’ pre-eminence” by less established organizations, like the Cossacks.
“A lot of the newer members are veterans, and they want to prove their independence and equality,” he said. “It’s a generational thing that is reshaping the culture.”
