Trove of weapons recovered in Waco
Investigators look for clues to aid in prosecution of deadly biker brawl
WACO — The roughly 170 motorcycle gang members behind bars after a bloody brawl at a Twin Peaks restaurant left nine people dead may never tell authorities all they know about the incident, but a massive trove of weapons, spent shell casings and bullets left behind could help fill in the blanks.
Investigators are poring over more than 300 weapons — including firearms, knives, chains and brass knuckles — recovered at the scene of the clash, according to police in this Central Texas city that has been in the spotlight since the Sunday battle.
The weapons found at the fight, which involved five gangs as well as Waco police, are tainted not just by sweat, blood and fingerprints. Bullet slugs, shell casings, and serial numbers off firearms could offer investigators a road map for what is a highly complicated case.
The agencies still have to determine how many of the dead, as well as 18 wounded, were shot by fellow bikers and how many, if any, were shot by police who had gathered at the restaurant and rushed in moments after the fighting broke out.
All those arrested, including a retired San Antonio police detective allegedly affiliated with the Bandidos motorcycle gang, have been charged with engaging in organized crime activity and each is being held on a $1 million bail. They could face other
charges, including capital murder.
“The priority here is the murder investigation, show who killed who, who shot who,” said Rob Elder, head of the Houston division of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
The serial numbers on firearms as well as the unique markings on shell casings and spent bullets are among the items that are going to offer valuable information, said Elder, who was here Wednesday as part of the federal effort to support the investigation which is being by the Waco Police Department.
“They are pieces of the puzzle. You have to put them all together to figure out what happened,” Elder said. “They help tell the story.” Gun hidden inside toilet
Waco police Sgt. Patrick Swanton said weapons were found inside the restaurant as well as in the parking lot.
“We found weapons hidden under bags of flour, in bags of chips. We found a handgun stuffed inside the toilet,” Swanton said as he stood outside the restaurant, which was still teeming with police Wednesday, some on guard against a possible retaliatory attack by gangs. “We found an AK-47 in a vehicle in the parking lot and even so much as body armor.
“This isn’t your church-going crowd that came out to have dinner with the family,” he continued. “This is a gang-oriented criminal element that was in our city to conduct criminal activity.”
Authorities at first said about 1,000 weapons were found, then adjusted the number down to “318 and counting” as of late Wednesday. About 130 of the weapons recovered were firearms.
The weaponry shows the bikers knew there was a likelihood of violence, said Swanton, who stressed that most who were fighting were not from Waco.
“The majority of those individuals arrested who shot, stabbed, killed were not even from our community,” he said. “I think this shows the level of violence that they thought was going to go on here and knew most likely would occur.”
Chuck Joyner, a Houstonbased retired FBI agent who trains law enforcement and provides consulting, said matters would have gotten nastier if the bikers had decided not to surrender and had chosen to battle police.
“The police officers were much better armed, but when you are talking about 170 vs. 20 or 30, it would have been very ugly,” he said. “If things went bad, it would have been catastrophic.”
But he said most biker gangs know not to take on law enforcement, as that just puts more heat on their organization and is bad for business.
“It goes back to the old Mafiosos; they understood that no good comes from being bad to cops,” he said. “Normally the outlaw bikers don’t involve law enforcement they keep a low profile and are all about making money.” ‘Nightmare’ of analysis
Twin Peaks managers in Waco said they shared surveillance video with authorities and urged “that people avoid rushing to judgment” before all the facts are known.
Figuring out what exactly what happened at Twin Peaks is going to take a long time because so many people were involved in the incident, he said.
“Until you go through and do all the ballistics and all the autopsies, you don’t know who killed who. It is going to be just a nightmare just doing a crime scene analysis,” Joyner said. “This sounds like a melee, a lot of people shooting, a lot of people running around.”
The criminal cases could take a toll on the local court system. The legal issues that spring from such a massive crush of arrests will have to be fleshed out one-by-one between prosecutors and scores of defense lawyers.
While dozens of the cases will plead out or be dismissed before they make it to trial, a judge will eventually decide whether there will be one big trial or several small ones.
The fact that Waco police are leading the criminal investigation could complicate things, said Larry Karson, who teaches criminal justice at the University of Houston-Downtown.
“One issue that hasn’t been recognized is that the department, in investigating the homicides of the various motorcyclists, is also investigating its own officers use of deadly force,” he said. Biker raised in Pasadena
The dead include Richard Jordan, 31, who was raised in Pasadena and was a member of the Cossacks gang. His mother lives in Waco. He went by “Chain,” his friends said Wednesday.
“Little Ritchie” Jordan had a hard childhood, they said. He took to the guitar, learning to play one his father gave him.
Eric Sherrod, 31, said Jordan had played for the “Gates of Enoch,” a heavy metal rock band, performing with KISS-style makeup and releasing albums like “Enochian Invocation” and “The Banishing,” according to Encyclopaedia Metallum, a genre website.
Several years ago, he moved to Waco after his mother started dating a biker in the Cossacks, family friends said.
His friends said they never imagined that move could prove fatal. “We’re still in shock,” said Stacey Roth, who baby-sat for Jordan when he was young. “He’s always been a precious baby.”
When Sandra Hargrove heard the news, “Everything blurred.” Hargrove, a family friend and a roommate of Jordan’s father, who lives in east Houston, said the news of his death had left relatives grief-stricken.
“He wasn’t a bad kid at all,” she said. “He liked his music, liked his band … he was definitely a mama’s boy.”