The Sunday Read: ‘The Waco Biker Shootout Left Nine Dead. Why Was No One Convicted?’

The Daily

The New York Times

News, Daily News

4.5 • 97.8K Ratings

🗓️ 6 March 2022

⏱️ 60 minutes

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Summary

It was a perplexing event, with little in the way of legal closure. Seven years on from a fatal biker shootout in 2015, Mark Binelli explores the details of the event — which started as a brawl between rival “outlaw” motorcycle clubs, the Cossacks and the Bandidos, at a restaurant in Waco, West Texas, which left nine dead and 20 wounded — and the investigation that followed. The article delves into the methodology of the case’s main investigator, Paul Looney, and a trial-preparation specialist, Roxanne Avery, as well as the event’s cultural significance, described by The New York Times as “what appears to be the largest roundup and mass arrest of bikers in recent American history.” The aftermath of the deadly brawl, which was preceded by rumblings of an escalating feud, has been the subject of protracted interest: Despite the arrests of 177 bikers — all of whom, regardless of the evidence, were subject to identical felony charges and million-dollar bonds — no one has been convicted. Binelli explains the root causes of the tensions between the Bandidos and the Cossacks, relays the details of the incident, and considers why it has been so hard to bring the perpetrators to justice.

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0:00.0	Hi, my name is Mark Benelli and I'm a contributing writer to the New York Times magazine.
0:10.1	Sir remember first coming across the Waco Biker story in 2015.
0:14.3	It made national headlines, massive biker brawl on broad daylight in Waco, Texas.
0:19.8	200 arrests, 9 dead.
0:23.3	My reaction at the time was of course, wow, what a crazy story.
0:26.8	But also to some degree a dog bites man.
0:29.7	Marauding bikers.
0:31.0	Isn't that what bikers do?
0:33.7	The incident itself was a territorial dispute between an outlaw motorcycle club called the
0:38.8	Banditos and a rival club the Kassax, who were smaller but growing.
0:44.3	The Banditos are basically the hell's angels of Texas, the biggest and most feared club
0:48.8	in the state.
0:50.8	Federal and state law enforcement considered the Banditos a serious criminal gang.
0:55.1	And at the time of the incident the police in Waco had been made aware of the increased
0:58.8	tension between the two clubs.
1:01.8	There was a concern when a large meeting of bikers was scheduled to take place in the
1:05.4	spring of 2015 that it could become a combustible situation.
1:11.1	The meeting took place at 1 p.m. on a Sunday afternoon at a restaurant in Waco called Twin
1:15.7	Peaks, a hooter-style chain in Texas where the waitresses wear lumberjack halter tops.
1:22.3	Shortly after the Dallas chapter of the Banditos arrived, utter mayhem erupted.
1:28.0	On police dashed camp footage you can see bikers swinging chains, waving guns, beating
1:33.7	other bikers to the ground.
	...

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