Authorities say Sunday's confrontation between biker gangs in Texas which left nine people dead and 18 injured began as a dispute over a parking space. Police in Waco arrested nearly 200 people in connection with the incident yesterday.
At least five rival gangs were involved, but According to the Los Angeles Times, the Bandidos and Cossacks caused the bulk of the carnage:
Sunday’s confrontation in Waco also appears to have started as a result of a dispute involving the Bandidos, one of the world’s largest motorcycle clubs, with as many as 2,500 members in 14 countries, and one that’s engaged in distribution of heroin, cocaine and methamphetamine, according to the Justice Department. One of their mottoes: We’re the people your parents warned you about.
They were once the terrors of Texas, so fearsome that when a rumor spread through a town that they were coming, people literally headed inside their homes and locked their doors, Skip Hollandsworth wrote of the Bandidos in Texas Monthly in 2007.
In this case, the Cossacks biker gang appears to have decided to engage with the far larger Bandidos, according to accounts from some of those familiar with the gathering.
Twin Peaks, the restaurant where the incident took place, was expected to be closed for at least a full week. CNN reports that the company has revoked the Waco restaurant's franchise deal, closing it because managers "[ignored] the warnings and advice from both the police and our company, and did not uphold the high security standards we have in place to ensure everyone is safe at our restaurants."
[via Los Angeles Times and CNN]
