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Multiple people have been rushed to hospitals after gunshots allegedly erupted between rival biker gangs during a rally in New Mexico on Saturday night. The Memorial Day rally in Red River, the town's 41st annual, turned violent on Saturday when shots rang at the packed event between rival gangs. The number of victims is unknown at this time, but unofficial reports are estimating up to 10 could be hospitalized and possibly four dead. At least 25 motorcycles were seen following the ambulances headed to Holy Cross Medical Center. One victim was seen being rolled to an ambulance on a stretcher,...

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...

Prosecutors and an attorney for Jacob Carrizal have agreed to postpone the retrial of the Twin Peaks biker shootout defendant, which had been set for Sept. 10. In a joint motion for a continuance, Robert Moody, McLennan County first assistant district attorney, and Chris Lewis, Carrizal’s attorney, cite the volume of evidence Lewis needs more time to review, plus evidence federal prosecutors have agreed to share from the trial of two former Bandidos national leaders that both sides want to see. Lewis signed on to represent Carrizal, the Dallas Bandidos chapter president, shortly after Carrizal’s first trial ended in a...

The anxiety was etched across Marty Lewis' face as he emerged from the Waco Police Department. It was clear Lewis was uncomfortable being back in Waco. As he sat for a brief interview, one of the first things he said was that he wanted to get back on the road and out of town. Waco left him with bitterness, he said. It had to be something important to bring Lewis back to the city where the retired San Antonio police detective was arrested after a shootout between biker groups at a Twin Peaks restaurant in May 2015. The decorated former...

On the three-year anniversary of Texas’ deadliest biker shootout, jurors in San Antonio found the two top former Bandidos leaders guilty of all charges they faced in a racketeering indictment. After two days of deliberations, the eight men, four women jury returned a unanimous verdict against former Bandidos national president Jeffrey Fay Pike, 62, of Conroe, and ex-vice president John Xavier Portillo, 58, of San Antonio, on all counts each faced in a 13-count indictment. The crimes include racketeering conspiracy, murder, extortion and drug dealing (or aiding and abetting the crimes). Some involved the killings of rival bikers by other...

A biker with a "big yellow helmet" who appeared to be in charge pulled out a "long, 'Dirty Harry'-type pistol" and fired the first shot in the May 2015 Twin Peaks biker brawl, a former Twin Peaks employee testified Tuesday. While testimony thus far has not revealed who was wearing the "big yellow helmet," previous video and photographic evidence presented by the state show Jacob Carrizal leading a band of Bandidos into Twin Peaks while riding a shiny blue motorcycle and wearing a yellow helmet. Also, a CNN special on the one-year anniversary of the shootout featured an interview with...

The evidence in the May 17, 2015 Twin Peaks incident is voluminous. So, I put together some important video clips that tell the story in the clearest manner. I then attached the audio from the ONLY recorded police interview of a COMPLETELY INDEPENDENT WITNESS. He describes what he saw, including the fact that a Cossack pulled a gun first, Cossacks fired first, and the police fired on all of the bikers in what he describes as “automatic gun fire”. Here are some additional facts from the evidence: 1) In August 2014, 3 Cossacks went to police complaining that they were...

Three top leaders of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club, considered an outlaw gang by U.S. authorities, have been arrested on charges of racketeering, assault and drug distribution that could bring up to life in prison, prosecutors said on Wednesday. The arrests are expected to send shock waves through the Bandidos, who have about 1,500 to 2,000 members in the United States, prosecutors said. The Bandidos, one of the biggest U.S. motorcycle gangs, with branches overseas, are suspected of being involved in a shootout last May in Waco, Texas, between rival gangs that killed nine people. The three named in a grand...

ABILENE, Texas - A jury found Jack Lewis, the former president of the Abilene chapter of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club, not guilty of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon late Wednesday afternoon. Lewis, 48, was on trial for stabbing Timothy Shayne Satterwhite, who is a member of the Cossacks Motorcycle Club. It's all related to a fight in the Logan's Roadhouse parking lot in November of 2013. Wednesday afternoon Lewis took the stand in his own defense. He said he never stabbed anyone. A fellow Bandido MC member, Wesley Mason, testified he stabbed Satterwhite and another member of the Cossacks...

The officer checked Dudley’s license and criminal history during the stop. The computer had Dudley’s license flagged with the warning “use caution” and indicated he was a Bandido, according to Johnston’s letter,

Texas Officials Under Scrutiny for Biker Shootout Case The secrecy that enshrouds the investigation into a biker shootout in May that left nine people dead and led to the mass-arrest 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 leads local agencies to close ranks in the aftermath of this most recent calamity.

It's not a gang, it's a club. When it comes to the Houston-born Bandidos Motorcycle Club, this debate has taken on some urgency and a few twists. Following a May 17 melee in Waco that left nine dead and 18 wounded, police arrested 177 bikers. Each was charged with engaging in organized criminal activity by being part of a conspiracy to commit murder and assault as part of a turf war between the Bandidos and a lesser-known rival, the Cossacks. The distinction carries a hefty penalty, as those charged faced 15 years to life in prison if convicted - even...

Waco is leaking lies again. Detective Manuel Chavez has admitted to a defense attorney that he perjured himself when he presented a fill in the name criminal complaint to Justice of the Peace Walter H. “Pete” Peterson on May 18. Chavez presented the complaint which began, “Before me, the undersigned authority, personally appeared the affiant herein, a peace officer under the laws of Texas, who being duly sworn, on path made the following statements and accusations: “My name is Manuel Chavez and I am commissioned as a peace officer with the City of Waco by The Stale of Texas. I...

If you thought violent biker gangs were a relic of the Altamont era, the shootout at a Waco, Texas, restaurant on May 17 might have come as a shock. A long-simmering beef between the Bandidos and Cossacks boiled over into gunfire. When police arrived at the scene, gang members shot at them too, leaving nine bikers dead, 18 people injured, and 170 suspects in police custody. Over 100 weapons have been confiscated. The scale of this incident dwarfs a typical urban gang confrontation, says Harold Pollack, co-director of the University of Chicago Crime Lab and an expert on gangs and...

A member of the Bandidos motorcycle gang described Wednesday how he was punched in the face and then shot May 17 while rushing to defend a Bandidos president, who became embroiled in an argument with the rival Cossacks moments after the Bandidos rode in from Dallas. Two Bandidos asked 54th State District Judge Matt Johnson to reduce their $1 million bonds at back-to-back hearings Wednesday. Reginald Weathers, 43, of Forney, was successful, but his fellow Bandido, Marcus Pilkington, 36, of Mexia, who has at least four pending felony cases against him in Limestone and Ellis counties, was not. After hearing...

What was initially reported as a motorcycle gang shootout that killed nine and wounded 18 to which police heroically responded last month in Waco, TX, at the Twin Peaks restaurant seems a bit more complicated, and bit worse for the cops, than that as further details have been revealed. This week one of the people arrested at the scene, Matthew Clendennen, filed a lawsuit directly against the officers involved in the incident (Manuel Chavez by name, the others as John and Jane Does) as well as the city. From that suit filing, in which Mr. Clendennen presents himself as a...

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out—Because I was not a Socialist.Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Trade Unionist.Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out— Because I was not a Jew.Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.Martin Niemöller’s words delivered a painful sting to his fellow pastors in postwar Germany. These words clearly spoke the truth: the guilt for the desolation of Germany lied on their shoulders. From the very beginning...

WACO — Richie was the first to die, then Diesel, then Dog. Whatever else they were in life, the men with the biker nicknames were Cossacks, loud and proud and riders in a Texas motorcycle gang. And that’s what got them killed, shot to death in a brawl with a rival gang in the parking lot of a Texas “breastaurant” that advertised hot waitresses and cold beer. “I saw the first three of our guys fall, and we started running,” said their brother-in-arms, another Cossack, who said he was there a week ago when the shooting started at the Twin...

The shootout in Waco that killed nine motorcycle gang members began in the weeks before Christmas with a beating at a Toys for Tots event in Wise County and a murder in Fort Worth, according to law enforcement sources. The backdrop is a growing turf battle between the Bandidos – which has controlled Texas for years – and the Cossacks, a lesser-known biker gang that has been gaining power by aligning itself with Bandido rivals, the sources said. On Dec. 12, 10 Bandidos burst into Gator’s bar in Fort Worth and "without saying a word, started punching and attacking people,"...

Despite the characterization by police that the afternoon gathering at a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, Texas that led to Sunday’s bloody shooting incident was a gathering of criminal biker gangs with violent intent, the meeting appears to have been a legitimate, organized gathering of motorcycle riders meeting to discuss political issues. The group that met was the Texas Confederation of Clubs and Independents (CoC&I) and a look at that group’s website and history gives a very different impression of the group’s purpose and goals than what has been said repeatedly by Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton.