groups affi liated with one or the other of the bigger
gangs. There were also members of unaffi liated
clubs, like the Christian Motorcyclists Association,
inter denominational evangelizers among the biker
community. The Vise Grips, from Austin, showed
up on beautifully restored pre-1970s Harleys.
Jacquelin Ganske, a server, happened to be on
the patio near some Cossacks when the Bandidos
arrived, with Carrizal and his uncle, the president
of the Dallas chapter, leading the pack. ‘‘I looked
across and saw it was Dallas,’’ W. told me, ‘‘and I’m
going, ‘Wait a minute, Dallas don’t normally do
C.O.C.’ I went around to my sergeants-at-arms and
said, ‘Guys, be alert, fi nd your perimeter.’ ’’ When
Ganske asked what was going on, someone told
her to shut up.
The franchise operator had nixed the idea of
having off -duty police patrol biker events. Instead,
the police positioned uniformed offi cers — mostly
members of the SWAT team — in the parking lot,
hoping their visibility might act as a deterrent.
Two of them, Michael Bucher and Heath Jackson,
arrived to fi nd between 75 and 100 bikers in the lot
behind the restaurant, many wearing Bandidos red
and gold, most with knives on their belts. Some,
Bucher later claimed, seemed to be stretching,
limbering up. When Rogers came on the radio
and said there appeared to be some tension at the
front of the restaurant, Bucher drove around and
found about 200 bikers by the patio, arranged in a
way that reminded him of a football team huddled
around a coach. He saw a Cossack push a Bandido
at the edge of the crowd.
Another server, Jessica Drewry, tried to deliver
some beers to the patio, but a Cossack stopped her.
Shaniqua Corsey, busing tables, glanced through
a window and spotted a biker in a yellow helmet
engaged in a heated argument. His face was red.
He pulled out a silver revolver with a long barrel
that reminded her of Dirty Harry’s gun. When he
opened fi re, Corsey ducked below a table. She
heard a second shot. ‘‘Then,’’ she would write in
her police statement, ‘‘it was like go-time!’’
On Bucher’s dashcam video, you see a biker
toward the right of the frame throw a punch. More
punches follow. Then the crowd pulses, like a sin-
gle organism, before scattering as the fi rst gun-
shot is fi red. Bikers run in every direction, taking
cover behind vehicles, dropping to their bellies.
As Jackson, a Marine Corps veteran, exited the
patrol vehicle with his rifl e, a round struck the door
frame. Amid the chaos, he would later report, he
saw a man calmly aiming a revolver as if prepar-
ing to execute someone on the ground. Jackson
decided to take a head shot. On the video, you can
see a man pointing a gun in the manner described
by Jackson before abruptly dropping.
Bucher, an Army veteran, was using his door
for cover as bullets whizzed past. He shot a biker
who had been fi ring a gun, following the man to
the ground with his scope. The man kept fi ring, so
Bucher shot him again, in the head. Bikers were
grappling and fi stfi ghting, stabbing one another,
42 2.27.22 Photograph by Eli Durst for The New York Times
JAKE CARRIZAL, A LEADER OF THE DALLAS BANDIDOS. A REPORTER IN WACO CALLED HIM
‘‘THE MOST EFFECTIVE DEFENDANT I’VE EVER SEEN TAKE THE STAND IN HIS OWN DEFENSE.’’running for cover. Bucher saw one walk up to
someone on the ground and shoot him, point
blank, before disappearing behind a truck.
Inside the restaurant, customers and staff were
scrambling toward the kitchen, where many hid
inside a walk-in freezer. Outside, the video caught
a big man with long hair swinging a chain, then
dropping to the ground after being shot in the leg.
Two men briefl y pummeled him before running.
The fi refi ght lasted for only about two minutes.
In the end, bullet fragments from police weap-
ons would be found in the bodies of four of the
nine bikers killed — though some also contained
fragments of bullets from other guns, making the
source of the fatal shots unclear. (A grand jury
found the offi cers not guilty of any wrongdoing
in 2016.) As police offi cers secured the scene, the
bikers raised their hands in surrender or sprawledprone with their hands on their heads. Some cried
out for help. Others tried to perform CPR on the
wounded. Rock music continued to blare, eerily,
from the restaurant’s sound system.Large gatherings of bikers have been a source of
anxiety for Americans since at least 1947, when up
to 4,000 motorcyclists showed up for a rally in Hol-
lister, Calif. The possibly sensationalized reports of
what became known as the Hollister Riot included
drunkenness, indecent exposure and the riding of
motorcycles through restaurants and bars; they
would inspire the short story that became ‘‘The
Wild One,’’ the 1953 fi lm in which Marlon Brando’s
Black Rebels Motorcycle Club terrorizes square
townies. There was a line, often attributed to the
American Motorcycle Association, reassuring the
nation that 99 percent of riders were law-abiding.