Experts question high bails for bikers
They also say keeping 170 in jail is disrupting the lives of many innocent people at the crime scene.
They also say keeping 170 in jail is disrupting lives of innocent people at the crime scene.
Legal experts are questioning the abnormally high bail amounts set for the 170 bikers being held in the wake of Sunday’s deadly shooting in Waco, saying law enforcement officials’ strategy to keep them all in one place while they conduct a massive investigation is disrupting the lives of many innocent suspects.
“They wanted to arrest everyone that they could as a crowd control measure,” former Travis County prosecu- tor Mindy Montford said. “I’m sure it is advantageous for law enforcement, but I’m not sure that is the right thing to do.”
So far, only one person has been able to post the $1 million bail every shooting suspect received.
Experts contacted by the American-Statesman said that several suspects will eventually have their charges dropped. Others will likely plead to lesser charges in ex- change for witness testimony.
Waco police officials have alleged every person arrested is a member of a motorcycle gang. McLennan County dis- trict attorney Abel Reyna said he supported the bails being set so high.
Although the two gangs at the center of the fight that led to the shooting — the Cossacks and the Bandidos — are known criminal organizations, the nature of other groups involved in the melee is unclear.
For instance, Austin-area suspects Juan C. Garcia, Drew King and Jim A. Harris are all mem- bers of the Grim Guardians of Slaughter Creek. The small motorcycle group does charity work on child abuse issues, and its members aren’t criminals, sources close to the suspects said.
King’s lawyer and Harris’ mother both said the three had arrived at the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco just seconds before the shooting erupted.
“Simply being present in the vicinity of a crime does not amount to prob- able cause for arrest by definition,” King’s attorney, Chris Gunter, said.
Surveillance video footage from inside Twin Peaks reviewed by the Associated Press also showed scores of bikers running from the shooting, hiding in a bathroom and kitchen as well as gesturing at non-bikers to take cover.
Garcia, King and Harris were all released after posting bail Monday that had initially been set much lower than the $1 million. Police charged them again Tuesday after becoming aware of their release.
All three have since turned themselves in and are in the McLennan County Jail.
That they turned themselves in showed that they aren’t flight risks, Harris’ mother, Martha Saathoff, said.
Her son is nothing like the violent gang members Waco police have described since the shootout, she said.
He is a graduate psychology student at St. Edward’s University and a devout Catholic who regularly makes return trips to his hometown of Houston to volunteer his time on retreats for children, Saathoff said.
Being in the jail has kept Harris from starting his summer semester, and Saathoff was unsure he would be able to finish his classes.
Saathoff told her son to pray when she learned he was headed back to jail. There, Harris has been using toilet paper to make rosary beads, she said.
“They are ruining lives,” Saathoff said, “and it is so unfair that they are not only ruining Jim’s life, but all the others that you see are losing jobs.”