Never A Good Idea II...

[Lord Jim]

to have five rival biker gangs meeting up in the same place (at least the knuckle draggers only killed each other):

Police: 9 dead in Texas shooting all members of biker gangs

WACO, Texas (AP) — A shootout among rival motorcycle gangs at a popular Central Texas restaurant left nine bikers dead and 18 injured, and it sent panicked patrons and bystanders fleeing for safety, a police spokesman said Sunday.

The violence erupted shortly after noon at a busy Waco shopping center along Interstate 35 that draws a large lunchtime crowd. Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton said eight people died at the scene of the shooting at Twin Peaks restaurant and another person died at a hospital.

The nine killed were all members of biker gangs, he said, as were the 18 people who were taken to hospitals with injuries that include stab and gunshot wounds. Some victims are being treated for both, he said.

"This is probably one of the most gruesome crime scenes I've ever seen in my 34 years of law enforcement," Swanton said, later adding, "I was amazed that we didn't have innocent civilians killed or injured."

At least 100 people have been detained for questioning, Swanton said late Sunday night.

Swanton said at least five rival gangs gathered at Twin Peaks for a meeting that he said focused on turf and recruitment, two areas where the groups have often clashed. Preliminary findings indicate a dispute broke out in a bathroom, escalated to include knives and firearms and eventually spilled into the restaurant parking lot, he said. There were 150 to 200 gang members inside the restaurant at the time. Shots were fired inside and outside the restaurant, he said.

McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara, whose office is involved in the investigation, said all nine who were killed were members of the Banditos or Cossacks gangs.

Swanton described the interior of the restaurant after a Sunday night walk-through, saying it was littered with bullet casings, knives, a club, bodies and pools of blood. Authorities would be working the rest of the night to process the reams of evidence, he said.

Police were aware of the meeting in advance, Swanton said, and at least 12 Waco officers in addition to state troopers were outside the restaurant, part of a national chain that features scantily clad waitresses, when the fight began.

"We've been made aware in the past few months of rival biker gangs ... being here and causing issues," Swanton said.

Officers shot armed bikers, Swanton said, adding that the actions of law enforcement prevented further deaths. It was not known if any of the nine dead were killed by police officers.

Swanton said that the restaurant's operators also were aware of the meeting in advance, and he described the management as uncooperative with authorities in addressing concerns.


"Apparently the management (of Twin Peaks) wanted them here and so we didn't have any say-so on whether they could be here or not," Swanton said.

A statement sent Sunday night on behalf of Jay Patel, operating partner for the Waco franchise, said, "Our management team has had ongoing and positive communications with the police," and added that the restaurant was cooperating with the investigation.

Swanton addressed Patel's statement late Sunday night, calling it a "fabrication."

Rick Van Warner, a spokesman for the Dallas-based corporate franchisor, said the company is reviewing the circumstances surrounding the shooting and is "seriously considering revoking" the Waco location's franchise agreement.

http://www.denverpost.com/breakingnews/ ... g-shooting

[BoSoxGal]

Hope they made enough $$$ from the event to pay for cleaning up after the carnage . . . idiots!

[MajGenl.Meade]

Their liquor license has been pulled and the Twin Peaks corp. has indeed cancelled the franchises of this and all the other restaurants owned by the franchisee.

[BoSoxGal]

Apparently they arrested 170 people - I have to say I'm impressed that law enforcement was able to deal with so many folks I'm thinking they knew about the meeting and had lots of help from other agencies on standby.

[Econoline]

But...but..."An armed society is a polite society!"




Imagine the carnage if they hadn't been quite so polite....

[Scooter]

Why aren’t violent bikers in Texas labelled ‘thugs,’ when looters in Baltimore are?

WASHINGTON—The prevailing images of protests in Baltimore and Ferguson, Missouri, over police killings of black men were of police in riot gear, handcuffed protesters, tear gas and mass arrests. The main images of a fatal gun battle between armed bikers and police in Waco, Texas, also showed mass arrests — carried out by nonchalant-looking officers sitting around calm bikers on cellphones.

The firefight in Waco is raising questions about perceptions and portrayals of crime in America, considering the vehement reaction that the earlier protests got from police, politicians and some members of the public.

Media critics, columnists and civil rights activists are complaining that there appears to be little concern from society about the gunplay at a restaurant in Texas, whereas politicians, including President Barack Obama, described violent looters in Baltimore as “thugs,” and the media devoted hours of television and radio airtime to dissecting social ills that affect the black community.
On Twitter, #wacothugs and #whiteonwhitecrime were trending, with columnists around the U.S. debating the differences.
“So the mainstream media refuses to talk ?#?WacoThugs, huh? No panel discussion on their childhood? Fatherless homes?” radio and TV commentator Roland Martin said on Facebook. The Atlantic’s Ta-Nehisi Coates tweeted sarcastically, “Why won’t America’s biker gangs be more like Dr. Martin Luther King?”

The shootout at a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco left nine people dead and 18 injured. About 170 bikers have been charged with engaging in organized crime, with bond at $1 million for each suspect. Mugshots show an array of suspects: white, Hispanic, a white woman and a man who looked black.

Police said the fight started because a vehicle rolled over a man’s foot. That caused a dispute that continued inside the restaurant, where fighting, then shooting began, before the violence spilled back outside, they said. About 50 weapons were confiscated, mostly knives and firearms. However, police said a final count could show there were more than 100 weapons.

Officials said the nine dead were members of the Bandidos and Cossacks motorcycle gangs, ranging in age from 27 to 65. Preliminary autopsy results showed all nine were killed by gunshots. Police have acknowledged firing on armed bikers, but it was unclear how many of the dead were shot by gang members and how many were shot by officers.

There were no deaths during the Baltimore and Ferguson protests, yet people immediately stereotyped all of the protesters as criminals, said Nicole Lee, a human rights lawyer who worked with protesters in both cities.

“Nine people were killed in Waco, and yet you have not heard the level of disgust and dismay as you did over fires burning in Ferguson and in Baltimore,” Lee said.

“One of the things the protesters always said was that, while many of them disagreed with the property destruction, that you can rebuild property. But you can’t bring back people, and yet you’re not hearing an equal amount of disgust from the media and from people over what happened in Waco.”

Civil rights attorney Charles F. Coleman Jr. said only minority communities get blamed for violence, while no one blames white families or white communities for fatal violence by white men, instead characterizing such events as “isolated incidents.” This despite the fatal school shooting sprees in Newtown, Connecticut, and Columbine, Colorado, and rioting by college students celebrating victories or upset at sports losses, Coleman said.

“But when you look at Ferguson, or you look at a Baltimore, when you look at these sorts of incidents, we have a tendency vis-a-vis the media to actually question why it happened to the victim, and we go further and then we impute liability on the entire community and sort of do this systematic victim blaming of black America,” he said.

Texas Monthly’s Dan Solomon wrote in a column Monday that comparing Waco with Baltimore or Ferguson “was probably not an apples-to-apples situation.”

“But it’s nonetheless difficult to imagine that if a shoot-out involving dozens of young black men that ended with nearly 30 casualties had happened in a strip mall in Waco, it would be perceived as an isolated incident involving only the people who drew their guns — or that police would be chatting and friendly with people in the area in gang attire afterward,” Solomon wrote.

Try "impossible to imagine". I hadn't thought about it in terms quite so stark before, but it is true - a bunch of white guys commit mass murder, and no one is dissecting what it is about their upbringing as white people or the failures of the white communities from which they come to forestall violence that caused so much death. But a few store windows get smashed, and it's open season to label all black people as animals.

[Long Run]

Just need the right law enforcement officer in charge:

[oldr_n_wsr]

Apples and oranges
Maybe the Waco narrative is different because it was two gangs (thugs in gangs if they like that better) fighting each other and not going after innocent people, their property and livelyhood (aka businesses).

Thugs in Baltimore and Fergussen ransacked, looted and burned down innocent peoples property and livelyhood. And I do believe some were thre only for that aspect of it.

A closer situation would have been if (in Baltimore or Fergussen) one group of protestors fought with another group of protestors leaving the surrounding neighborhood as undammaged as possible.

[Scooter]

But even just sticking to the Waco thing, is it even remotely believable that if those involved were almost exclusively black that it would have been commented on as just a gang war, and no attempt would have been made to point to their race?

[MajGenl.Meade]

Who gives a shit?

[Econoline]

Who gives a shit?

(1) Young black male victims of racial profiling, and (2)others who object to such profiling?

(Just a wild guess.)

[BoSoxGal]

In all fairness, I think most mainstream Americans see biker gangs & gang members as contemptible degenerates in real life - even though they might enjoy watching them glorified in Sons of Anarchy, etc.

A more apt comparison is when white folks riot over sports and nobody says they must be from fatherless homes, etc.

[MajGenl.Meade]

Who gives a shit?

(1) Young black male victims of racial profiling, and (2)others who object to such profiling?

(Just a wild guess.)

I meant about bikers killing each other... as long as they keep it intra-mural

[Lord Jim]

A few thoughts:

no one is dissecting what it is about their upbringing as white people or the failures of the white communities from which they come to forestall violence

A more apt comparison is when white folks riot over sports and nobody says they must be from fatherless homes, etc.

Yes, and nobody says they're rioting because of racist cops, or poverty, or lack of jobs, or high incarceration rates etc. either...

If you're going to have a discussion about "underlying social causes" (which in the case of Ferguson and Baltimore was initiated largely by liberal media pundits and activists; white and black) then it's fair game to discuss all of them...

In all fairness, I think most mainstream Americans see biker gangs & gang members as contemptible degenerates in real life

I think that's absolutely correct...

I also think that the average American is just as likely to cross the street if they see a group of biker gang types walking toward them down the sidewalk as they are if they see a group of urban black gang members coming their way...

(I know I would)

Apples and oranges
Maybe the Waco narrative is different because it was two gangs (thugs in gangs if they like that better) fighting each other and not going after innocent people, their property and livelyhood (aka businesses).

Thugs in Baltimore and Fergussen ransacked, looted and burned down innocent peoples property and livelyhood. And I do believe some were thre only for that aspect of it.

A closer situation would have been if (in Baltimore or Fergussen) one group of protestors fought with another group of protestors leaving the surrounding neighborhood as undammaged as possible.

Excellent points. To which I would add that in Ferguson and Baltimore race and racism were central issues to the facts of what happened and the violent reactions that ensued, (they were used frequently by apologists for the rioters). There's no indication that race or racism had anything at all to do with what happened in Waco.

One big difference I noticed in the media treatment was this:

The day after the gang fight in Waco, a montage of the mug shots of all 170 arrested was put together like some sort of high school year book picture, and then scrolled across the screen to show every face, on every cable news channel, over and over for hours...

With all the arrests for violent behavior that took place in Ferguson and Baltimore (over 200 were arrested in Baltimore just on the Monday night of the riot) I don't recall seeing the mugshot of a single one of those arrested ever being shown on cable news, let alone a collection of over a hundred of them running on a continuous scroll...

[oldr_n_wsr]

Speaking of Fergussen, found this article the other day.
http://news.investors.com/blogs-capital ... g-paid.htm

Ferguson 'Protesters' Are Now Protesting That They Didn't Get Paid
BY JOHN MERLINE
05/20/2015 06:41 PM ET

Were the Ferguson protests a spontaneous expression of community outrage or an orchestrated campaign with paid "protesters"? It's looking more and more like the latter.

Early on, there were signs that protests over the shooting of an unarmed black man by a white cop were less than meets the eye.

In December, IBD noted that most of the protesters getting arrested weren't local residents but people bussed in from groups like the New Black Panthers, the U.S. Human Rights Network and the ANSWER Coalition.

Later, after the riots in Baltimore erupted, Fox News reported that as many as 50 social media accounts were tied to both those and the Ferguson protests, suggesting the presence of "professional protesters."

Now some of the "protesters" themselves are complaining that they never got paid.

In mid-May, Millennial Activists United organized a sit-in at the Missourians Organizing for Reform and Empowerment offices. The reason: MORE owed the protesters money.

The group complained that MORE "created a joint account in which national donors from all over the world have donated over $150,000 to sustain the movement," but "the poor black people of this movement ... have seen little to none of that money."

A letter posted by the group went on to claim, "Organizers and protesters depleted $50,000 of the available funds and dispersed it among the people in the movement in no particular order." They even started a Twitter hashtag to encourage MORE to cough up the money: #cutthecheck.

There's nothing wrong with protesters getting paid. It's a free country, and they have to make a living, too. But maybe these protesters should think about joining a union before they hit the streets next time.

[rubato]

Not enough guns!

Waco police initially estimated that investigators recovered more than 1,000 weapons from the restaurant. Police revised that number Wednesday afternoon, saying their count had reached 318 weapons, including more than 100 handguns and more than 100 knives.

If those boys had taken the extra time to arm themselves properly they would all have been better behaved and none of this would have happened.



yrs,
rubato