Marine veteran fights to clear his name
In wake of Waco carnage, biker has to repair a life thrown in turmoil
WACO — A U.S. Marine Corps veteran named Jorge Salinas stepped out of the Jack Harwell Detention Center on a recent evening after 40 days behind bars.
Salinas, who had served two combat tours in Afghanistan, survived the shootout last month at Twin Peaks but was soon arrested.
He said all he did was try to save lives as the chaos erupted.
“Unless going to eat and having a beer with my buddies is against the law, I haven’t done anyth ing wrong,” Salinas said. “We aren’t criminals just because we ride bikes together, hang out together and wear colors.”
The 24-year-old hugged his mother and father when he was finally released into the glow of a setting sun. He had a simple plea: “Let’s hurry up and get out of here.”
Salinas — and 176 other people allegedly affiliated with motorcycle gangs — were each ordered held on $1 million bail following the brawl at the restaurant that left nine people dead and 18 wounded.
Waco police contend many bikers arrived May 17 with guns, knives and other weapons to settle a score born from an ongoing beef between the Bandidos and the Cossacks motorcy-
cle gangs, which each had many supporters. It was not a spontaneous or isolated incident, according to Sgt. Patrick Swanton. His chief has said that officers fired their weapons a dozen times as a way to protect their own lives and those of citizens.
Each person was charged with engaging in organized criminal activity and faces 15 years to life in prison if convicted. No transparency
Salinas, who goes by Bubba in his hometown of Lometa, was among the latest of the bikers to be released from jail. An army of defense lawyers from throughout the region, including Houston and Dallas, is challenging McLennan County authorities to justify arrests. They also want explanations.
Who shot first? Who was acting in self-defense? How many people were killed by police?
Lawyers have been able to have bonds drastically reduced while contending that their clients are not the men police have described.
Most of those arrested spent weeks behind bars. About a dozen remained in custody late last week.
“Everyone who cares about justice, fairness and the rule of law in our state should be very concerned about the situation in Waco,” said Salinas’ Fort Worth-based lawyer, Brian Bouffard.
He said that most of the bikers involved appear to have done nothing wrong.
“The government generally, and in McLennan County in particular, views the Constitution as an inconvenient obstacle to be avoided or steam-rolled,” said Bouffard, a former Navy officer and prosecutor who served among Marines while stationed at Camp Pendleton in California.
The district attorney’s office has repeatedly declined to comment as has the justice of the peace, who handled the initial charges and set bail.
“It seems to me that this situation has been bungled since the very beginning,” said Charlie Baird, who spent a decade as a judge on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals and does not have a client charged in the Twin Peaks incident.
“One thing that is clear is there is no transparency in this investigation and how they are proceeding,” he said. “Release the videos. Release the ballistics reports. Release the autopsy reports. Release whatever is available.”
Salinas, who has no criminal record and was honorably discharged in 2013, with a medal for good conduct, a combat action ribbon and several other decorations, said his next fight is to clear his name. He wants to repair a life that has been thrown into turmoil. ‘Rebuild everything’
While he’s been locked up, Salinas lost a plumbing job, had his personal possessions moved back into his parents’ home and had his Harley-Davidson, which was impounded following his arrest at Twin Peaks, handed over by Waco police to the lien holder, despite him never having missed a payment.
“I’ll get past it,” Salinas said, “but I’ll have to rebuild everything.”
For now, he must wear a GPS-tracking ankle monitor, and he has a court-ordered curfew.
His father, George Salinas, said most people in Lometa are supportive. Some have come by to pray. He invites anyone with questions about his son to ignore rumors and knock on his door instead. One of the toughest days of his life, he said, was seeing his son’s mugshot on the Internet.
“I know that is not him,” he said. “It would be different if I knew he’d been in and out of trouble.”
Pulled by a desire to see the world, Salinas was in Marine Corps boot camp just days after graduating from a high school class of 30 students. He was named Mr. Lometa High School, having played basketball and six-man football and run track. Within six months of graduation, he was on the ground in Afghanistan as part of the 3rd Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion. He served both tours in the southern Helmand Province, near the Pakistan border.
When he returned to Lometa in 2013, he missed the brotherhood of the military.
He said he found his calling with the Cossacks after seeing their camaraderie at a few rallies in which there were cookouts and plenty of riders, as well as their families. He doesn’t talk about the war with his family, but he does at times with fellow Cossacks who also served.
They nicknamed him “Jalapeno,” and the former enlisted man soon became a Cossacks officer. He helped launch a small chapter based out of Bell County, not far from Lometa.
On the morning of May 17, he said he was asked by a fellow Cossack to join a group ride to Waco to grab lunch and attend a gathering of Central Texas bikers.
After a 90-minute ride, he was on the patio having a burger with a fried egg on top of it.
He said he had noticed a few police on the far edges of the outdoor mall’s parking lot, but there were no officers walking inside the restaurant, as there had been on previous occasions when he’d been there with a large number of bikers. ‘We did our best’
After the trouble began, Salinas said, things went crazy.
“I heard a pop, not even something heavy,” he said of gunfire. “Whoever did that lit a match.”
He quickly flashed back to Afghanistan — diving for cover until he could “assess the situation.”
He then hurried with other Cossacks for safety inside Twin Peaks.
While shielding themselves from gunfire, he and others helped usher wait- resses into the protection of the large walk-in freezer. They themselves hugged the restaurant floor.
At the same time, a rider he only knew as Bear was bleeding heavily after being shot in both legs.
He and an Army veteran used belts as tourniquets, and Salinas put his bare hand over a wound to slow the flow of blood.
The scrambling to help a fallen brother and the urgency of having another’s life in his hands was all too familiar.
“We did our best,” Salinas said, noting that they also carried Bear to a police truck to try and save him.
He learned Bear died when he saw a TV news report on his funeral while sitting in jail.
After he was arrested, Salinas said he and the other bikers were kept with their hands zip-tied behind their backs for about 18 hours.
They struggled not only with the pain and discomfort, but with being treated like prisoners.
“They told us they were going to take us to a safe place, interview us and let us go,” Salinas said. “The only thing that turned out to be true was we were going on a ride, and we went on a ride all right.”
He recalled riding in a bus that was guarded by police cruisers, ushered through traffic lights and filmed by news cameras.
“I felt like a terrorist or something,” he said. ‘They can’t stop time’
The bikers were taken to the city’s convention center, where, Salinas said, they had to help each other drink water and eat bread by holding items in their cuffed hands behind their backs and offering them to each other.
From there, they were taken to jail. Cossacks and Bandidos were kept apart, he said.
He didn’t delve into the dispute between the two groups on the advice of his lawyer, but Salinas was adamant they are different, saying Cossacks are not outlaws and don’t tolerate drug use.
“Everybody knows what (the Bandidos) do. They’ve been on ‘Gangland,’ ” he said of the History Channel show.
The Bandidos and Cossacks have both been around since the 1960s, but the Bandidos have long been considered one of the largest outlaw motorcycle gangs in the United States, according to police.
The Texas Department of Public Safety said it considers the Cossacks to be an “emerging outlaw motorcycle gang,” but the agency’s 2014 Gang Threat Assessment does not mention the group.
As for Salinas, home became a cell of about 10 feet by 30 feet, with four bunks, a shower, toilet, picnic table, television and pay phone.
He read a few books, including “The Great Santini” about a Marine fighter pilot, watched television and did plenty of push-ups and squats. He was never allowed outside, he said, and only saw the sun through a skylight overhead.
“I amnot used to being in a confined space,” he said. “You have to tell yourself, they can’t stop time. Eventually, I’m going to get out of here.” dane.schiller@chron.com twitter.com/daneschiller