Human Garbage and the Waco Massacre

[Vashta Nerada]

She said her and her husband had no weapons except a pocket knife and a vest ornament considered a chain.
"That was one of the 300-some weapons right there," said Mr. English.[/i]

http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2015/06/01/waco-twin-peaks-shootings-two-weeks-later-more-questions-than-answers 

Most of the 300-1,000 "weapons" confiscated were common pocket knives, but many were chains like these:




No word yet on whether unopened cans of Coke were included in the count.   

[TulsaMoon]

I have a long time buddy named Mike Moore that is caught up in this. We call him Wrangler Mike ( cause he always wears them ) and he is in the jail along with the other bikers. He is a Vet, I have never known him to be a part of a biker gang and I am not sure what part he played in this. I know his better half Shanley has put up a go fund me page to raise the funds needed to release him. I am looking forward to speaking to him to get his side of events. Everything pertaining to this event just seems really fishy to me.

[patric]

I have a long time buddy named Mike Moore that is caught up in this. We call him Wrangler Mike ( cause he always wears them ) and he is in the jail along with the other bikers. He is a Vet, I have never known him to be a part of a biker gang and I am not sure what part he played in this. I know his better half Shanley has put up a go fund me page to raise the funds needed to release him. I am looking forward to speaking to him to get his side of events. Everything pertaining to this event just seems really fishy to me.

Was this the Sand Springs man that got scooped up along with the "Bikers for Christ" group?
Could you share the GoFundMe link?


Its going to be an epic class-action lawsuit.


"We're guessing that, in the coming years, the Waco authorities' handling of the Twin Peaks biker gang shootout in May will become a textbook example of how not to handle an emergency situation."
http://www.houstonpress.com/news/updated-whats-up-with-the-bogus-waco-biker-bond-reduction-story-7481084

Others disagree:

"The police played this smart," Stranahan said. "My friend used to describe the media as the 'drive by media.' The drive by media just means, this isn't even a matter of bias, they just hit the story and move on."
He explained that the police, by keeping everybody in on this million dollar bond, have been able to control the narrative. "We haven't heard from any of the eyewitnesses," he said. He continued about the lack of statements from waitresses and that none of the dashcam videos have been released.
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2015/06/08/law-enforcement-response-to-waco-shooting-raises-constitutional-questions/


Someone brought up an interesting point.  The official narrative is that the so-called "biker war" involved knives, chains, brass knuckles... stuff that will mess up your good looks... but do you see any hint of that in the mugshots?


To me it seems like a lot more people should be asking exactly why ATF and/or SWAT sprayed a crowded restaurant with machine gun fire.

[Breadburner]

Here is something for you 2 dingleberry's to jerk too....Enjoy....!!!

http://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/cnn-anchor-calls-dallas-attack-brave/ar-BBl6wpK#image=1

[Vashta Nerada]

Real classy, Lamar Billboards.  How would you like some boycott with your brown-nosing?

[Vashta Nerada]

Several victims claim they were fired on with silencer-equipped machine guns.  
There were a number of veterans groups at the restaurant (as well as some being recent combat vets, who would actually know what automatic weapons with noise suppressors sound like).
But in the process of denying they fired assault-style, the Waco police actually admit they were using fully-automatic weapons with silencers:

"SWAT team members had silencers on their rifles that fired .223 caliber ammunition, weapons which are capable of fully automatic fire"
said Waco Police Chief Brent Stroman in a June 12 press release.
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Waco-police-chief-offers-some-details-in-deadly-6324300.php

But.... They admit to only firing a total of 12 shots instead of the thousands of rounds almost 200 witnesses heard.







Within the last week, as more of the accused have been released from jail, a third version of events has begun to emerge. It portrays the Twin Peaks Massacre as a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives operation gone horribly wrong. Multiple eyewitnesses, speaking on condition of anonymity because they believe what they know places them in danger from the police, portray the Cossacks as an easy club for ATF agents to infiltrate and exploit.

Multiple sources who The Aging Rebel believes to be credible have independently stated that they saw two Cossacks take off their (patches) and put on police windbreakers and balaclavas. The Aging Rebel has confirmed that ATF agents were at the Twin Peaks before and after the shooting occurred. And numerous news outlets have reported that multiple eyewitnesses heard two or three pistol shots which were then followed by automatic weapons fire.

Other sources have stated that at least two and possibly more confidential informants working under contract for the ATF were arrested and quietly released that night.
http://www.agingrebel.com/13024



There were at least 22 uniformed police officers and ten, marked, police Sport Utility Vehicles on scene. Shortly after the gunfire began, police entered the fray. Multiple Texas Department of Public Safety members lay down suppressing fire using FN 90 machine guns. Other officers shouldered M-16s and waded into the fray calling to each other as they wounded or killed the combatants. "One down! Another down!" http://www.agingrebel.com/13021

[TeeDub]

Why would combat veterans have any idea what automatic weapons using suppressors (not silencers)sound like?    Suppressors aren't widespread in the military.

Also, have you ever fired a full auto weapon?   They aren't accurate when you spray rounds...   If they wanted to hit who/what they were aiming at and not the entire crowd, they would have left them in semi-automatic mode.

I'm not siding with the police....   Just pointing out problems with your "news" story.

[patric]

Why would combat veterans have any idea what automatic weapons using suppressors (not silencers)sound like?    Suppressors aren't widespread in the military.

There seem to be multiple witness accounts
http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/local/texas-news/2015/06/11/twin-peaks-shooting-police-witness/71090750/

and the police chief admitted "SWAT team members had silencers on their rifles"
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Waco-police-chief-offers-some-details-in-deadly-6324300.php

Maybe every so many years something gets into the water in Waco.  Maybe the confederate flag made them do it.  Who knows.

[Vashta Nerada]

To me it seems like a lot more people should be asking exactly why ATF and/or SWAT sprayed a crowded restaurant with machine gun fire.

    Then they came for the Jews bikers, and I did not speak out—
    Because I was not a Jew biker.
   

With apologies to Niemöller.

[Jammie]

There seem to be multiple witness accounts
http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/local/texas-news/2015/06/11/twin-peaks-shooting-police-witness/71090750/

and the police chief admitted "SWAT team members had silencers on their rifles"
http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Waco-police-chief-offers-some-details-in-deadly-6324300.php

Maybe every so many years something gets into the water in Waco.  Maybe the confederate flag made them do it.  Who knows.

Haha. I love it!

What a sign Vasthta!  Then people wonder why it's not the most popular state in the Union!

[Vashta Nerada]

This is not the Surveillance video from the Twin Peaks restaurant (which the owners allowed the Associated Press to view) but rather video from the Don Carlos restaurant next door that Waco police tried to suppress.  We now know why, as it contradicts many claims Waco PD made after the massacre.






 A small fraction of the surveillance video shot by the Don Carlos restaurant in Waco between about 12:35 p.m. and about 2:05 p.m. on May 17 was leaked to 65 press contacts including The Aging Rebel website yesterday afternoon. The contacts include reporters and editors at the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Houston Chronicle, Fort Worth Star-Telegram, MSNBC, Fox, the Waco Tribune-Herald and numerous television stations.

The Don Carlos surveillance videos are multiplexed:  The restaurant recorded the input from 16 cameras on one hard drive. Yesterday's leaked video shows the view from Camera Two, which recorded activity around the front door of the restaurant and a small portion of the parking lot facing southwest in the general direction of the Twin Peaks restaurant. It faces toward but does not show the signup desk for the Confederation of Clubs and Independents meeting held that day. That is the portion of the shared parking lot where at least four of nine men were killed. An additional 18 people were wounded.

The Don Carlos and Twin Peaks parking lots were separated by a strip of lawn.

The sixteen camera views are: 1 Kitchen; 2 Parking Lot; 3 Loading Dock; 4 Seating Area; 5 Bar; 6 Office; 7 Hostess; 8 Kitchen; 9 Patio; 10 Patio; 11 Side Door; 12 Patio; 13 Back Dock; 14 Parking Lot; 15 Parking Lot; and 16 Parking Lot.

The Leak

The hard drive from which the leaked video was copied is in the possession of the law firm Broden, Mickelsen, Helms & Snipes, LLP. It was not sent to The Aging Rebel by that law firm but by another source using a pseudonym. As a courtesy to that source, The Aging Rebel self embargoed the video until somebody else broke the story. Television Station KCEN announced the leak and very generally described the video at 4:29 p.m. Pacific time yesterday.

Yesterday evening this page received commentary on the video from multiple sources. One source who has viewed the entire hard drive said, "It would appear that the relevant cameras are 2, 14, 15, 16 although they are redundant to a large degree.  Camera 7 may also have some relevance and Camera 11 displays what appears to be Justice of the Peace Peterson."

A second source said, "The video from the rest of the angles should be coming out in a couple of weeks though...none of them show much of the fight.

None of us understand why this video was suppressed at all – unless something significant happens herein that we haven't noticed yet."  

Chronology

The video is time and date stamped. The parking lot and patio in front of the Twin Peaks is obscured by the roof line of the Don Carlos porch. The view does not extend much beyond the grass median between the two lots. Photos taken the afternoon of May 17 show that a line of about a dozen bikes was pulling into the Don Carlos lot when the shooting started. Members of the Cossacks Motorcycle Club had already parked in the area closest to the registration desk at the eastern end of the Twin Peaks.  Contemporary photos indicate that a policeman taking cover behind the pole that supports the Twin Peaks sign fired at least five shots into the parking lot in the area where the two clubs confronted each other.

The video is mostly useful for determining the chronology of events. There is no sound.

The shooting started at exactly 12:41:01 p.m. Waco time. At 12:39:30 a couple entered the Don Carlos with hardly a glance toward the Twin Peaks.
Eleven seconds later two men in front of the Don Carlos stare toward the looming confrontation and a small knot of police is visible on the other side of the grass median near the southeast end of the Twin Peaks. A black SUV, such as government agents sometimes drive, moves from southeast to northwest toward the Jo-Ann Fabric and Crafts Store in the Texas Marketplace shopping center and toward the arriving line of Bandidos on the access road in front of the Don Carlos at about 12:40:27 p.m.

One of the spectators goes inside. The other, wearing a blue shirt looks bored as he stands and watches. He rocks from side to side waiting for something to happen and then he turns to his left and runs inside. (See the screen grab above.)

Much Scurrying

A cluster of seven uniformed cops runs through the Twin Peaks lot in the same direction. Two Swat officers are visible and it is obvious that there are many more than 22 cops on the scene. All of the action appears to take place at the northwest end of the lot and is invisible from Camera Two. All of the police have M-16s. They hide behind cars. One cop with a long rifle reloads at 12:48:48 and the fight appears to be mostly over by 12:42:58 although the police still seem frightened and jazzed on adrenaline.

A white police SUV with its blue flashers blinking pulls into the shot at 12:43:13. A cop gets out 20 seconds later and runs toward the Twin Peaks lot in a crouch. He seems to have missed the fight but he and three other cops come running back 13 seconds later and three cops who look like ninjas crouch behind a car at the southeast corner of the camera view. They appear to be covering the main entrance to the Twin Peaks.

The cops are so spooked that at 12:46:20, about five minutes into the tragedy, one cop appears to try to literally stick his or her head up another cop's buttocks. The video has an excellent view of those three cops standing there long minute and long minute. They are clearly talking to other police to the south and east of the camera. Some cops sprint. Others stroll. They clot into little groups with their M-16s pressed to their shoulders.

Reinforcements Arrive

Nine cops, presumably reinforcements, in light brown shirts arrive at 12:51:45. The fight seems over but there are still no sign of ambulances. At 12:57:58, about seventeen minutes after the shooting started, a cop carrying two rifles walks back to the white police SUV. He seems to change clothes then walks back toward the Twin Peaks at 12:58:47.

The first customer ventures out of the Don Carlos at 1:06:49 p.m. The first onlooker with a smart phone starts shooting video at 1:08:15. Multiple Don Carlos customers come out and shoot video of the crime scene over the next several minutes until about 1:20 p.m. A man in a salmon colored shirt wearing web gear that holds what might be a camera or a machine gun appears at 1:20:50 p.m. He talks to a cop at the southeast edge of the camera view who then takes off his shirt to reveal a yellow tee shirt under his ballistic vest. The black SUV drives back to the southeast and apparently leaves at 1:21:30.

People exit the Don Carlos carrying leftover containers and at 1:28:30 customers, including customers who have shot video of the crime scene, start to leave. At about 1:31:45 a customer who is shooting video of the scene is clearly told by a cop off camera to stop.

A cop in civilian clothes except for a vest that says "State Police" appears for the first time at 1:34:04 and the white police SUV pulls away at 1:36:29. Cops in riot gear appear at about 1:44 and cops with M-16s began to enter the Don Carlos.

At about 1:57 the plain clothes state policeman and another cop in plain clothes carrying a machine gun greet each other and replay the gunfight with their hands. They point and spread their arms wide. Then one of them leaves and the other describes the fight to an old, fat cop.

The crime scene tape finally goes up around the Don Carlos at about 2:05 p.m.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jpPNX4PHKVQ

[Vashta Nerada]

The video does have its moments though, and limited though it is it appears to document two crimes committed by police – falsifying evidence and a possible murder.
The video shows between 12:41:17 p.m. and 12:41:18 p.m., a person who is running away from the fight and who is well behind what seems to be the police line appears to get shot in the back and falls forward to the left front of a white hatchback car. He never rises during the next 85 minutes of the video.

The most chilling sequence in the video begins at 1:20:50 p.m. Two plain clothes operators stand under the Don Carlos porch and point toward what seems to be the dead body.
Six seconds later one of the operators, a gray haired man wearing a light orange shirt and a machine gun, walks toward the apparent body. He disappears briefly as he talks to a uniformed cop at about 1:21:07 p.m. Then at 1:21:35 he clearly and unmistakably places something on the ground of this crime scene. Then he quickly walks away.

At 1:59:31 p.m. a uniformed officer walks over to the evidence planted by the plain clothes cop and marks it as evidence.

[Vashta Nerada]

Waco Is Suppressing Evidence That Could Clear Innocent Bikers
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2015/07/waco-is-suppressing-evidence-that-could-clear-innocent-bikers/399047/


Why is Waco, Texas, fighting to suppress multiple videos of the shootout that killed nine bikers at the Twin Peaks restaurant on May 17?
Why are some attorneys in the case now prohibited from talking to the press?
And why haven't Waco officials revealed how many of the nine victims were killed by bullets from police officers' guns?

These are the most pressing questions as 177 people await a grand jury's decision about whether they will be indicted for murder, conspiracy, or on lesser charges after attending a regularly scheduled meeting of motorcycle enthusiasts that turned violent.

Attendees included members of motorcycle gangs and innocuous clubs.  Many members of both groups credibly claim that they had nothing to do with a fight at the meeting. An Associated Press review of surveillance footage not yet released to the public suggests that most present fled from the gunfire rather than participating in it. Over the last two months, motorcyclists swept up in the mass arrest following the carnage have lost jobs, been evicted from apartments, and even lost custody of children. And every day that authorities continue their opposition to sunlight in the case delays vindication for the innocents who've had their lives upended. The state loses little by dragging its feet while accused innocents pay dearly.

Worrisome aspects of the case include:

    Waco and its police department could be liable for millions of dollars in damages if litigants can prove that they arrested bikers without probable cause, violating their civil rights; or that Waco police shot and killed innocents. Yet the grand jury that will decide whether to indict the bikers is reportedly being led by a longtime detective in the Waco police department––an arrangement defended by a local judge, who declared, "If there is nothing that challenges his impartiality, he is qualified ... Who is better qualified in criminal law than somebody who practices it all the time?"

    When one of the arrested bikers, Matthew Clendennen, sued authorities, Waco's assistant city attorney fought to prevent him from getting access to video footage taken at the Twin Peaks restaurant, key evidence in the incident. While a judge ultimately ruled that his attorney must be allowed to see the footage, he barred its release to the public and imposed a gag order in the case.

    The gag order was requested by McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna, who is named in Clendennen's federal civil-rights suit––and granted by District Court Judge Matt Johnson, Reyna's former law partner, according to press reports.

    Over two months have passed since the shooting. The dead bodies have long since been examined. Yet the public still hasn't been told how many of the gunshot victims were struck by bullets fired from police weapons. (I strongly suspect that if the answer was "zero" Waco police would've said so a long time ago.)

Why is this information being suppressed?

After all, evidence that is embarrassing to the Waco Police Department or that exposes the city of Waco to civil liability will presumably be made public eventually.

Here are two theories.

One is the official explanation. Authorities say that this is a complex investigation that takes lots of time and that suppressing video evidence and issuing gag orders is necessary to prevent prospective jurors from being influenced by pre-trial publicity.

I find that explanation dubious.

Authorities in Waco have actively advanced a contested narrative of what happened at the Twin Peaks restaurant from the start, sometimes getting facts wrong. They haven't tried to preserve the impartiality of jurors, instead, they've pushed a version of events that reflects well on the Waco police and the actions they've taken.

Here is an alternative explanation.

If there is video or ballistics evidence suggesting that lots of innocent people were arrested without probable cause, or that police bullets killed some of the dead that day in Waco, it will be a public-relations nightmare and a huge liability for Waco and its police department. Scores of bikers could sue for six- or seven-figure sums. And prosecutors might find it much more difficult to secure indictments in the case.

But if indictments can be filed before evidence inconvenient to Waco authorities is publicly revealed, the leverage changes. A biker might be indicted for conspiracy to murder, then offered a plea deal to accept a much lesser charge, like disturbing the peace, with the understanding that time served would take care of the sentence. That would be a tempting deal to take. And pleading guilty to disturbing the peace would preclude a lawsuit for being arrested without probable cause while saving police and prosecutors from looking like they harassed innocents.

That alternative explanation may not be correct, but it's plausible enough to justify concern. And the change in leverage between prosecutors and criminal defendants applies whether or not it is motivating authorities.

A final question law enforcement should be forced to answer, as the many criminal and civil lawsuits likely to stem from this case are adjudicated, is how many undercover cops and informants, if any, were present at Twin Peaks that day, and what role, if any, they played in altercations between various motorcycle riders. (My confidence in the Waco Police Department's performance was not enhanced by the news that one police officer reportedly present at the scene has since been put on leave for allegedly assaulting a Waco resident in an unrelated matter.)

Scores of likely innocents arrested, suppressed video, clear conflicts of interest in the courts, and the possibility that multiple shooting victims died at the hands of police––the aftermath of the Waco shootout ought to be a prominent part of the ongoing national conversation about a criminal-justice system that routinely victimizes innocents. And by the time the truth outs, perhaps that will come to pass.

[Vashta Nerada]

Most of the wounds described in the autopsies are consistent with wounds inflicted by M-16s and FN P90s
http://www.agingrebel.com/13301 

Cellphones Returned by Waco Police "scrubbed" of Data.
http://www.wacotrib.com/news/twin-peaks-biker-shooting/biker-objects-to-postponement-of-trial-says-da-has-no/article_a548cb37-4c2a-534b-b39f-a8716da6bcdb.html

[heironymouspasparagus]

The old guy at about 47:45 is "telling" the cops off....shame ya can't hear what he is saying...