Investigation of May biker shootout in Texas shrouded
WACO, Texas — The secrecy that enshrouds the investigation into a biker shootout in May that left nine people dead and led to the mass arrests of 177 people is hardly surprising in this city, where public scrutiny is rare and unwelcome.
On the banks of the Brazos River in Central Texas, Waco and the surrounding county are largely run by a close-knit circle of judges, prosecutors and law enforcement that defense lawyers complain led local agencies to close ranks in the aftermath of this most recent calamity.
It's a city in which a district judge and district attorney are former law partners, the mayor is the son of a former mayor, the sheriff comes from a long line of lawmen and Waco pioneers, and the sheriff's brother is the district attorney's chief investigator.
Bikers and public watchdogs have criticized authorities here for how they have handled the investigation, citing the mass arrests in which people were held for days or weeks on $1 million bails without sufficient evidence to support such actions four months after the shootings.
No formal charges have been made, and it remains unclear whose bullets, including police bullets, struck the dead and wounded, or when cases will be presented to a grand jury, which is led by a Waco police detective.
“I don't know of any defense lawyer who hasn't looked at the facts of this case and gasped,” said Grant Scheiner, a criminal defense attorney in Houston not connected to the bikers case.
Waco police, McLennan County prosecutors and judges refused to comment — citing a gag order written by the DA — but law enforcement staunchly defends its actions, including the 12 shots that the police chief said officers fired into the melee when bikers allegedly opened fire on them.
The violence erupted May 17 before a meeting of a coalition of motorcycle clubs that advocates rider safety. Police have said two rival biker gangs got into a confrontation that turned deadly when one group of bikers opened fire on another outside a Twin Peaks restaurant.
About 177 people were arrested and remained in custody until their bails were reduced.
Defense attorneys have been critical of how the cases have been processed, accusing District Attorney Abel Reyna of writing “fill-in-the-blank” arrest affidavits. A police officer testified that a justice of the peace approved the affidavits without making any individual determination of probable cause.
In the criminal case of one of the defendants, Reyna's former law partner, District Judge Matt Johnson, issued a gag order as written by Reyna.
Although police and the district attorney described everyone who was taken into custody as criminals, a review of a Texas Department of Public Safety database found no convictions listed under the names and birth dates of more than two-thirds of those arrested.
