The scene was chaotic, a stark contrast to the serene blue sky that loomed over Waco, Texas, on that fateful day on May 17, 2015
What began as a regular afternoon turned into a nightmare, unraveling the fabric of peace that usually blanketed the Twin Peaks restaurant. Laughter and idle chatter morphed into cries of terror as rival biker gangs clashed in a violent confrontation that would leave an indelible mark on the town’s history.
When the smoke cleared, nine men were dead, 20 people were injured, and 177 bikers were arrested for engaging in organized criminal activity, resulting in murder and aggravated assault—including the Grim Guardians Motorcycle Club.
155 bikers were subsequently indicted for the offense of engaging in organized criminal activity on $1-$2 Million dollars bond each by then McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna.
10 years later, Texas prosecutors couldn’t convict a single person. Only 1 of these 155 indicted bikers was ever brought to trial and he was acquitted.
The current McLennan County District Attorney Barry Johnson eventually dropped all charges in the 2015 shootout.
Four members of the Grim Guardians motorcycle club showed up to Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, Texas, on May 17, 2015, for a meeting about state politics. Instead, rival motorcycle gangs opened fire on each other before police moved in. They walked into gunfire, and they left in handcuffs.
In this new Insider Exclusive “Justice in America” Special, our investigative news team sits down with Brent Coon, who represents these four members, Jim Albert Harris, Bonar Crump Jr., Drew King, and Juan Carlos Garcia, who are suing the city, law enforcement, and the restaurant for violating their civil rights, slandering their reputations, and more.
Brent has described this police operation as “the worst police operation initiated by law enforcement in the history of Texas, including the fiasco of the Branch Davidian storming that killed dozens of innocent women and children outside of Waco over 20 years ago….”
They’re not the first bikers to sue over the shootout, but they are the first to demand $1 billion and compare the violence to poison gas attacks in Syria.
Harris, Crump, King, and Garcia say they were only arrested because of their presence at Twin Peaks and because they were wearing biker “colors.” But they say they committed no crimes that day. Yet their bonds were set at $2 million, while the rest of the bikers had bail set at $1 million.
According to their suit, the men were “unsuspectingly going to a place they weren’t wanted or liked, and where a paranoid and trigger-happy faction of local law enforcement had already been preparing for a shootout.”
What followed was a prosecutorial fiasco as one by one, the criminal cases collapsed under a former district attorney’s leadership, which led to a FBI probe of Abel Reyna
The only person to go to trial was Christopher “Jake” Carrizal, president of the Dallas Bandidos chapter. The county spent a total of $1.3 million preparing for his trial and investigating all the Twin Peaks cases. Carrizal was accused by prosecutors of organizing the brawl, but the jury saw it otherwise. In November 2017, the jury in Carrizal’s case voted 10-2 for acquittal, causing the mistrial.
Over 130 of the bikers have filed civil rights lawsuits against the police and DA’s office, angry they had been labeled “gang members” while insisting they were innocent of any gang conspiracy.
Will anyone ever be held accountable for the deaths of nine people during the biker-club shootout in the middle of a Twin Peaks restaurant parking lot in broad daylight in 2015?
Because this case is not only about the deaths and injuries inflicted on these victims, but also the Texas’s laws profiling of all motorcycle groups as “gangs”, a blatant violation of these clients’ civil rights, and an unprecedented abuse of police and law enforcement power.
Now Brent’s clients’ want and Deserve … ANSWERS and JUSTICE. As well as compensation for the extreme and unwarranted financial and emotional hardships they’ve were forced to endure by the former district attorney’s incompetent, unethical, and rogue prosecutorial local politics
Please contact Brent Coon & Associates https://www.bcoonlaw.com/ 409 242 5527 & 281 324 0399 for additional information.