Posted on 07/15/2016 7:14:22 PM PDT by Elderberry
Two more bikers arrested after the Twin Peaks shootout in Waco filed a civil rights lawsuit Friday, claiming they were improperly arrested with no evidence of wrongdoing and denied due process.
Christopher Eaton and Owen Bartlett, both members of the Los Pirados Motorcycle Club, bring the total of bikers who have filed civil lawsuits to 15.
The lawsuit lists Eaton as a Dallas County resident and says Bartlett is from McLennan County and names McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna, Waco Police Chief Brent Stroman, Waco police Detective Manuel Chavez and an unnamed Department of Public Safety agent as defendants.
All defendants previously have declined to comment on the lawsuits.
All 15 of the bikers filed suit in federal court in Austin and all are represented by Dallas attorney Don Tittle, who successfully represented nine sheriff’s deputies who sued McLennan County and Sheriff Parnell McNamara on claims they were retaliated against for backing McNamara’s political opponent.
“Neither of these guys have been indicted and neither had anything whatsoever to do with the violence that occurred,” Tittle said. “Mr. Eaton was employed at DFW Airport before the incident and still works there today. However, the false charges against him have cost him dearly from both a professional and personal standpoint.
“Mr. Bartlett is a devoted family man with three children under the age of six. His wife was left at home with a newborn while he was wrongfully jailed for more than a month. The cloud that continues to hang over these guys is just ridiculous. It’s way past time for the DA to publicly exonerate them and many others.”
The suit alleges unlawful arrest and due process violations and claims the plaintiffs were arrested with no evidence that they committed any crimes or had any ties to warring biker groups the Bandidos or the Cossacks.
“Despite a total lack of particularized evidence relating to specific individuals, defendants Stroman, Chavez and Reyna determined that individuals would be arrested and charged with engaging in organized criminal activity based entirely on their presence at Twin Peaks, the motorcycle club that defendants presumed an individual was associated with, and/or the clothing they were wearing at the time of the incident,” the suit alleges. “Rather than investigating the incident and relying on actual facts to establish probable cause, defendants theorized that a conspiracy of epic proportion between dozens of people had taken place and willfully ignored the total absence of facts to support their ‘theory.’ ”
The suit claims the arrest warrant affidavit, which was identical for all arrested that day, falsely alleges that the bikers all were members of a criminal street gang. The document was drafted by the DA’s office and obtained by Chavez.
“That statement is categorically false,” the lawsuit says. “It is an indisputable fact that defendants did not possess any reliable, particularized information to indicate that plaintiffs themselves were members of a criminal street gang on or before the date such fact was sworn to by defendant Chavez.”
Biker Ray Nelson filed a motion two months ago to disqualify Reyna from prosecuting the cases because of his role in the investigation and his decision to charge the wide array of bikers. A hearing on that motion was set for June 13 but was postponed until Aug. 8. Nelson’s attorney charged that Reyna “commandeered” the investigation after Waco police detectives had already processed a busload of bikers, identified them and allowed them to go home that evening.
The motion also claims that Reyna, as a defendant in the civil lawsuits, has a conflict of interest in prosecuting the cases because he has a financial stake in the outcome of the criminal prosecutions.
“In the aftermath of the incident at Twin Peaks, defendants apparently concluded that the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution ceased to apply and could be ignored given what they perceived as an immediate need to announce the re-establishment of law and order in their town,” the suit alleges.
If the Orlando Islamonazi had gunned don a strip joint instead of a gay bar, would you find it safer to criticize the clientele?
“It looked like a very small group, if anyone, “took their fight to a family plaza.”
Interesting how about 200 bikers from all over the state supporting two biker gangs showed up at a regional meeting ...
“They’d met for 20 years at that spot and nary a problem. “
uh .. The Waco meeting was relocated shortly before the meeting date.
Additionally, police had been called to that Twin Peaks previously to quell biker violence. Waitresses stated that fights were common.
“If the Orlando Islamonazi had gunned don a strip joint instead of a gay bar, would you find it safer to criticize the clientele?”
If the ‘clientele’ had gunned down a strip joint like the bikers gunned down Twin Peaks, I would criticize them also.
That woman who was married to the 0rlando person is in the ME-in Jordan, as of last week.
The police did the gunning in Texas.
And the police didn’t shoot a shooter they saw murder a man. Instead they shot a fatass waving a chain.
“The police did the gunning in Texas.
And the police didn’t shoot a shooter they saw murder a man.”
Perhaps you should read your words before you post them ...
“it may have been exacerbated worse by the presence of police firing into a crowd than it would have been at a solely biker function where everyone who didn’t want to be in the fight had just run for the hills.”
Videos show that it would have been much worse. And,
It may have been much worse with innocent women and children killed.
bttt
“Videos show that it would have been much worse” — how? They read minds? Knew who intended to do what?
““Videos show that it would have been much worse” — how? “
It was a freaking bloody gang fight! Did you watch the videos?
Two hundred gangsters came from all over the state to show who was boss.
“Once more you are begging the question? If this Reyna nut indicted them, they automagically have to be “there to show who was boss” with a brawl?”
No. I go with the entire scenario. You want me to repeat that which you already know?
Waco was a Cossack town.
Cossacks refused to pay the Bandidos for the ‘right’ to wear colors.
Bandidos rescheduled the regional CofC (Bandido front organization) to Waco.
Bandidos and Cossacks showed up from all over the state for a ‘regional’ meeting.
You want me to also cite the previous instances of violence between the clubs?
“I defer that to God, who often tends to condemn a lot less quickly than proud humans do.”
Interesting that you know what God thinks!
“Try some biblical empiricism. It will open your mind.”
Starting with Adam and Eve? Condemning mankind to a life of suffering and death?
“Meetings had been happening here for 20 years with both clubs/gangs, no brawl.”
Uh, this was the first CoC meeting in Waco.
Besides, waitresses said fights happened all the time at biker nights.
But you already know this because I posted it to you yesterday.
“Is that as far as you went? Pity you.”
I said ‘Starting with’.
I see you chose an attempted slur instead of acknowledging the truth of my post.
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