It was the kind of mayhem you’d expect in a 1960s exploitation movie: Bikers fighting with knives and chains, a chaotic shootout with police, and a crowd of suspects rounded into a convention centre because the jail was too small to hold them.
The feud between the Bandidos and Cossacks exploded into an armed shootout on Sunday at a restaurant in Waco, Tex., leaving nine dead and about 170 people charged. The two groups have roots in the Lone Star State dating back to the late 1960s, but now their long-simmering turf war has spilled into the open, adding a new stain to the image of North America’s biker culture.
What we know so far
Where it happened: Bikers were gathered for a regional meeting of the Texas Confederation of Clubs and Independents, a bikers-rights organization, at the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco.
How it started: A brawl reportedly began in the Twin Peaks restroom, spilling out into the parking lot. The clashes involved members of the Scimitars gang as well as the Cossacks and Bandidos, according to media reports. Combatants began fighting with chains, knives and clubs, with gunfire erupting around 12:15 p.m. A police spokesman said some officers were fired on by the combatants and police fired back, “wounding and possibly killing several.”
How many were hurt? Nine dead, 18 wounded. The dead consisted of eight Cossacks and one Bandido, Gimmi Jimmy, national ambassador for the Bandidos, told The New York Times. It is unclear how many of the dead were shot by bikers and how many by officers.
How many were arrested? Police charged about 170 people with engaging in organized crime linked to capital murder, Waco police said. The full list of charges will depend on prosecutors and a grand jury.
What about the bar? Twin Peaks – a national restaurant chain known for its scantily clad waitresses – on Monday revoked the franchise rights to the Waco restaurant, which opened in August. In a statement, the chain said it is suspending all “bike nights” at its corporate-owned locations and encouraging franchises to do the same during the investigation.
A history of violence
Both the Bandidos and the smaller Cossacks club originated in Texas in the 1960s, according to law-enforcement officials and gang historians. Today, the Bandidos has a membership of 2,000 to 2,500 people in the United States, according to the U.S. Department of Justice, which calls them a “growing criminal threat” due to their business in distributing cocaine and marijuana and producing crystal meth. But the Bandidos have at times sought to portray itself as a legitimate organization of nonconformists that had been unfairly targeted by law enforcement.
1966: The Bandidos are founded by Don Chambers, who models his club’s emblem – a sombrero-wearing Mexican caricature carrying a sword and pistol – after the corn chip company’s Frito Bandito mascot.
1969: The Cossacks are formed in Texas.
1990s: The so-called Great Nordic Biker War erupts between gangs aligned with the Bandidos and the Hells Angels in Finland, Sweden, Denmark and Norway. Several are killed or wounded on both sides.
2006: Canadians get their own taste of the Bandidos’ internal conflicts when eight Toronto Bandidos members are shot execution-style on on Ontario farm property, the result of a dispute involving the Bandidos’ Winnipeg and U.S. branches. Six people are convicted of first-degree murder in the case, one of Ontario’s worst mass killings.
2014-15: Signs of conflict emerge between the Bandidos and Cossacks. In March, 2014, two members of the Bandidos were indicted in connection with the stabbing of two Cossacks at an Abilene steakhouse; this past March, about 10 Cossacks forced a Bandido to pull over along Interstate 35 near Waco and attacked him with “chains, batons and metal pipes before stealing his motorcycle,” Dallas TV station WFAA reported.
The feud's origins
The Texas Department of Public Safety’s Joint Information Center issued a bulletin May 1 that cautioned authorities about increasing violence between the Bandidos and the Cossacks, WFAA reported Monday.
The bulletin said the tension could stem from Cossacks refusing to pay Bandidos dues for operating in Texas and for wearing a patch on their vest that claimed Texas as their turf without the Bandidos’ approval. The bulletin said the FBI had received information that Bandidos had discussed “going to war with Cossacks.”
“The view of the Bandidos is that Texas is their state,” Terry Katz, vice-president of the International Association of Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Investigators, told The New York Times.
Bikers: A glossary
Clubs: A term used by legal and outlaw motorcycle groups alike to describe their groups.
Patch: The identifying mark members of a specific gang wear on their jackets.
Colours: The emblems on the backs of bikers’ jackets and vests.
Support cookie: A cookie-sized patch club members have to wear to operate on another club’s turf.
1 per centers: Members of the outlaw motorcycle-gang culture. The term dates back to an incident in 1947, when a race in Hollister, Calif., descended into two days of bloody riots. The American Motorcycle Association, the race’s sponsor, responded to the coverage by declaring that 99 per cent of participants were law-abiding. (The Hollister riots also spawned The Wild One, Marlon Brando’s 1953 classic film.)
Bikers under scrutiny
Sunday’s shootout has thrust the more sinister side of biker culture into the spotlight. It seemed aberrant because the public image of many motorcycle gangs has been burnished in recent years thanks to the many largely benign bike enthusiasts who’ve co-opted some of the same clothing and style.
“I think, as a society, and to a large extent even in law enforcement, we fall into the sense that these guys are these big, rough-looking teddy bears that do blood drives and toy runs and are harmless,” says Jay Dobyns, a former undercover agent who infiltrated the notorious Hells Angels Motorcycle Club for the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. “These are people that have used the motorcycle culture as camouflage.”
Members and supporters of the riding community took to social media in defence of motorcycle clubs, mentioning charity work by organizations such as Bikers Against Child Abuse, which attend court appearances in support of child abuse victims. “There are biker clubs out there who are not criminal. Not everyone who looks ‘bad’ is bad. And not everyone who looks ‘good’ is good,” wrote Waco resident Jennifer Parsons on the police department’s Facebook page.
With reports from Associated Press, Reuters, The New York Times, The Canadian Press and Globe staff