Law enforcement, either under-cover or overt or both, dominated by Feds using local PD only as support/fall guys, led BOTH Cossacks and Bandidos to believe that they would not interfere if these guys decided to resolve their beefs of territory the old fashioned way, via hand-to-hand fighting.
As someone pointed out (and having worked in a small biker-type bar once I had to use a broom, literally, to drive two huge beefy battling bikers, Nacho and Nasty [I kid you not!] and their fight outside before they broke anything), fights are regular occurrences at halfway rowdy bars, always have been, and God willin', always will be. Guns have been around for almost as long as barfights have, yet guns are very rarely wielded in them. Bar fights have sure erupted in my presence (soft spot for seedy dives in my yute, and I grew up in a rowdy town). They usually represent guys making asses of each other and providing great entertainment for onlookers.
BECAUSE according to a witness: A bunch of Bandidos, truly bad-ass dudes who had been harassing and attacking members of the Cossack club, drove right past a bunch of marked cop cars into the parking lot, where a bunch of Cossacks, who could just as easily see ALL the cop cars, were waiting with brass knuckles and batons. They engaged in a fight IN PLAIN SIGHT of all those cop cars.
Then somebody fired a pistol. Supposedly a biker who just chose to ignore all that visible law enforcement. Like hell! I bet it was an undercover officer pretending to be a Cossack. Odd that although the Bandidos are truly bad dudes and that's easy to confirm, according to early reports, MOST of the dead were Cossacks, only one Bandido, and still not sure on that.
For now, I think it was a set-up, at least one club (Cossacks) if not two (Bandidos as well) were lied to by LEO, and LEO set it up. Also I saw someone observe only halfway tongue-in-cheek that while pretty much all the clubs at the meeting were enthusiast clubs, Cossacks might be considered a "criminal" biker gang because "there are a lot of cops in that club."
I also think that in the weeks/month that followed, the two-thirds of innocent folks arrested were subjected to passive-aggressive tactics (keeping them in zip-tie handcuffs overnight, for example) to drive them to rebel and riot. Then LEO would really have an easy time of painting them as hardened criminals. That guys like Clendennen kept their cool reveals IMO the hand of God operating here.
I agree with you, it seems like a lot of innocent folks were detained and held way beyond what seems reasonable (or even possibly legal), but then again, I'm not being detained, nor you, because we are smart enough not to be around when stupid crap goes down. My dad rode with the Blue Knights, I love to ride too, but I don't associate or identify with these people just because they ride Harleys. And I'm not about to give them the benefit of the doubt.
So my original point still stands, I was only commenting to the guy Boomer about his snarky remark to QuisCustodiet1776, in that anyone who is a "supporter" (the subject of the original article) of an OMG really needs to be looked at as a criminal associate. Granted, Quis's calling him scum was inflammatory and his kill him comment was hyperbole at its finest. I wasn't refuting anything you had said about the detention of innocents. Peace