I'm sure many of my readers remember the Waco biker shootout four years ago. Nine people were killed, eighteen injured, and over 170 arrested. There were all sorts of allegations about biker gang feuds, deliberately planned fights, and so on.
Well, guess what? The entire law enforcement and prosecution narrative appears to have fallen apart. It may be that the dead and injured were the victims of officially sanctioned murder and attempted murder.
From the start, lawyers and others pointed out that it was very unlikely indeed that all the arrested had committed any crimes at all, and that the initial $1 million bond for all of them charged with a blanket crime of "engaging in organized criminal activity" seemed unreasonably punitive. The police strove in the aftermath to keep a detailed account of what actually happened from reaching the public eye, or that of defense attorneys.
As the years under which those people had criminal charges hanging over their heads went by—with all the problems that come with that on top of the missed work and rent and family responsibilities that bedeviled them from their initial time in custody under that absurd bond—dozens of the arrested went unindicted as grand juries expired, and last year charges began to be dropped against many of the defendants, with not a single successful prosecution having happened yet nearly four years after the mass arrests.
Many of the bikers who had charges eventually dropped have filed civil rights suits against local police and district attorneys over the absurd arrests and incredibly long times to get any of them to trial.
This week the whole case continued its painfully slow unraveling, as three more bikers, the last still facing that first set of indictments, saw their cases dismissed. A team of special prosecutors eventually assigned to the case declared that the initial mass arrests seemed, in the words of one of them, Brian Roberts, "simply a shoot-first-ask-questions-later mentality....I can't imagine what (former McLennan County DA) Abel Reyna was thinking other than this was a big case and it was somehow going to be beneficial for him or his office," the Waco Tribune reports.
Roberts went on to echo the critiques against the Waco prosecution heard by many lawyers and media watchers over the years: Namely, that the bogus arrests hung over so many people's heads for far too long.
There's more at the link.
Did those nine people die for nothing more than a DA's ambition, and/or local law enforcement's determination to be seen to be the biggest, baddest dudes in their area of jurisdiction? It begins to look rather like that. As far as we can currently determine, not a single one of the injuries or deaths resulted from bullets fired by the bikers. It looks as if all of them were caused by police gunfire. This is compounded by what appears to be a deliberate, sustained, and initially successful post-shooting effort to prevent the news media and the bikers' lawyers from finding out what really happened.
Four years later, it seems the truth is finally coming out. Will charges follow against the now-former DA and the law enforcement personnel involved? If they don't, it'll be a travesty of justice - and will probably mean a lot more problems, further down the road, between bikers and cops in the Waco region. Frankly, if I were a biker, I'd be seething - and rightly so.
This entire mess stinks of injustice, malpractice, and law enforcement and prosecutorial overreach. Let justice be done - and let those responsible pay the price for their actions. They've not only killed and injured innocent people under cover of law, they've severely damaged law enforcement as a whole by their actions. If the agencies involved encounter increased public resistance to them in the performance of their duties, because of this incident and its aftermath, they certainly won't be able to blame the public for such a reaction. They'll have earned it the hard way.
Peter
10 comments:
Too much big brother.. . too too much unquestioned government power. . Not only did it affect local families but also businesses as this area could be avoided by tourists/vacationing families. I, personally, would not want my family anywhere near Waco . . Not to drive through, visit . . And definitely not a place to ever relocate to!
9 dead, the rest locked up on $1,000,000 bond. Turns out the cops did it all... I've NO doubt which is the top gang in that town!
I flew into Dallas the afternoon this happened and saw it on the news on the hotel room TV. Within 2 days the official account of the melee put about by the cops was being questioned. I always thought since then we were not told the true story about this. The media's attitude was "bikers are bad, therefor they must be criminals". As usual, the questions were asked outside the mainstream media.
Hey Peter;
The problem is that the people that caused all the problems, will not have to feel the pain of their assorted misjudgments. There seems to be 2 standards of justice, one for them and one for everyone else. I truly have no hope they will feel any repercussions for their actions and the rule of law in this country will fracture a bit more.
From my dealings with 'outlaw' bikers, there's a code to not go too far, in public. Face smashing? Okay. Shooting? Behind closed doors or better yet in the great outdoors, far away from everyone and look, a convenient hole...
Yes, they (outlaw bikers) have and do deal in some shady stuff, but they walk a fine line considering all the public and official scrutiny on them daily.
And, weirdly, some of the most lawful and upright people I have known have been outlaw bikers. There's that code thing that if they transgress against, it gets taken out of their hide, literally. Rough, but decent people in their ways.
Like the Gubmint trying to take the Mongols livery away from them. Gubmint overreach in order to line someone's pocket or feather someone's political nest.
Let us hope for the successful prosecution of the real thugs and murderers in this case.
NOTHING about that Waco mess passed the smell test from the first day.
I think the proper response is mass arrests and huge bail amounts for everyone on the .gov side of this. Make it hurt, to make a point about the seriousness of this sort of stupidity. And I expect prison for some of the .gov players. Anything less makes a mockery of our "justice" system.
The locals should be up in arms about the damage these idiots have done to their community. I have to wonder, is there something in the water there? After the Branch Dividian atrocity, I would think the citizens would have been keeping a close eye on "law enforcement" in that area, to avoid a replay.
"And I expect prison for some of the .gov players. Anything less makes a mockery of our "justice" system.
If you are expecting any of the Jackboots to face justice, I have two words for you : Lon Horiuchi.
If you still are optimistic as to justice being served, the surviving Branch Davidians would like to have a word with you. The ones that didn't get burned alive, that is.
Government is an exclusive club, Friend. You and I aren't members.
Only one way to get justice.
But "Open Season" would likely get some innocent cops killed, so a tough call.
Just Sayin'
J-dog:
I met the Branch Dividian survivors back in '94. IIRC, they had been invited to attend the program that was associated with the 3-gun match by SOF Magazine. The mag had done an exhaustive investigation of that .gov attack. I don't recall all the details of our chat, but do recall it was sobering to listen to the details of the .gov's perfidy. To hear that a woman was killed lying in bed with her baby, by a machinegun on a chopper, firing down through the roof, was infuriating. (I think it was his wife)
That's a group of .gov players I would very much like to see meet a hangman. All of them. The entire bunch that was on site. To include all the DC clowns involved.
The common thread between Ruby Ridge and Waco - Lon Horiuchi.
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