The Bandidos Motorcycle Club has as many as 2,500 members in 13 countries and even the Hell’s Angels ask for their permission to ride in Texas

groups like the Cossacks who refuse to respect their power and when outlaw biker gangs jostle for power, sooner or later blood is spilled. And there will, inevitably, be more blood.”

The Cossacks also come from Texas, formed in 1969, but according to Sher are “very meaningless on a global scale”. At Waco, they were backed up by an even smaller club, the Scimitars. Authorities were expecting trouble and sent, to keep order, Waco police SWAT officers.

In a bulletin issued on May 1 to state law enforcement agencies, the Texas Department Of Public Safety warned the Bandidos had “discussed the possibility of going to war” with the Cossacks, primarily because of the Texas rocker. It detailed several clashes between the gangs.

On March 22, at a truck stop, Bandidos spotted a Cossack and demanded he remove the Texas rocker from his vest. He refused. So the Bandidos hit him with a hammer and removed the rocker themselves. On the same day, Cossack forced a Bandido off the highway, beat him with batons, chains and metal pipes, and stole his motorcycle.

The feud had been brewing since November 2013, when two Bandidos were charged with stabbing two Cossacks outside a steakhouse in Abilene. A month later, three Bandidos were arrested in connection with a shooting outside a Fort Worth bar in which two men were wounded and one man died. The bloodbath at Twin Peaks left nine people dead