Biker gangs can be real ‘domestic threat’
The motorcycle gangs involved in Sunday’s shootout in a Waco, Texas, restaurant parking lot are a breed apart from weekend hobbyists on bikes, authorities say.
The groups are serious criminal organizations — including one that the FBI alleges is among the largest outlaw motorcycle gangs in the USA.
Police in Waco say the melee that left nine dead involved five gangs, including the Bandidos and the Cossacks, who clashed at a weekend recruiting event.
On Monday, law enforcement officers were combing a bloody, bullet-riddled crime scene, trying to sort out who killed whom.
Some of the dead and wounded may have been shot by officers responding to the bedlam at the Twin Peaks restaurant franchise, Waco police spokesman Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said. “They started shooting at our officers, and our officers returned fire,” Swanton said.
“It is a pretty gruesome scene,” he said.
He said 170 people have been charged with engaging in organized crime resulting in death — a capital offense that could bring the death penalty in Texas.
The FBI says the Bandidos is one of the largest outlaw motorcycle gangs (OMGs) in the USA, with about 900 members and 93 chapters. OMGs such as the Bandidos “pose a serious national domestic threat,” the FBI says. It defines them as “organizations whose members use their motorcycle clubs as conduits for criminal enterprises” including drug trafficking, cross-border drug smuggling, prostitution and human trafficking.
More than 300 OMGs are active in the USA, the FBI says.
The FBI’s National Gang Intelligence Center in 2013 found that 2.5% of U.S. gang members belonged to an OMG. By contrast, 88% were street gang members; 9.5% were prison gang members.