they would be free to go. ‘‘The police were doing
this correctly at fi rst,’’ says Looney, the defense
attorney. Between witness testimony and video
and forensic evidence, cases might have been built
against specifi c men responsible for the violence.
Lanning later said that he found Reyna and
his fi rst assistant D.A., Michael Jarrett, walking
around the crime scene. Reyna, he said, initially
told him that ‘‘he felt all of the bikers wearing col-
ors should be charged,’’ then later narrowed that
to Bandidos, Cossacks and their affi liates. (Reyna
has disputed the fi rst part of that account.) Lanning
didn’t think that would be appropriate, and neither
did two other assistant chiefs and a sergeant he
consulted. He called Stroman, the chief, in Bos-
ton and told him, as Stroman would later recall,
something ‘‘to the eff ect that he’’ — Reyna — ‘‘was
wanting everyone arrested.’’ Stroman said it was
Lanning’s call. ‘‘But I told him I was not going to
make that decision,’’ Lanning said. ‘‘Or, if I did
make that decision, it would be not to arrest.’’
So Stroman called Reyna, who assured him
there was probable cause for a mass arrest and
that ‘‘he could stand in front of a jury and prose-
cute everyone that we arrested.’’ (Reyna disputes
this portion of Stroman’s account.) Stroman told
Lanning to make the arrests.
The bikers were transferred to the Waco Con-
vention Center, where police offi cers separated
them based on the colors on their vests, placing
them in diff erent rooms with their hands zip-tied
behind their backs. Many ended up spending the
night there, sleeping on the fl oor while restrained.
Cody Ledbetter, a Cossack who grew up in Waco,
remembered the convention center as the site of
car shows and tattoo expos. He wasn’t taken to
Highway 6, the county jail, for booking until 10
the next morning, and wasn’t placed in a cell at
Jack Harwell, an ICE detention facility, until 2 the
following morning.
Lanning was still prepared to conduct a capital
murder investigation. But at the convention cen-
ter, he was informed by a member of the district
attorney’s staff that a more appropriate charge
would be ‘‘engaging in organized criminal activ-
ity,’’ defi ned by a Texas statute used to prosecute
criminal gangs — in this case, by linking all the
bikers to a conspiracy ‘‘with the intent to commit
murder, capital murder or aggravated assault.’’
The staff was already writing up a boilerplate
arrest affi davit, which would be signed by the
lead detective working that day, Manuel Chavez.
First it described the clash and the nine deaths.
‘‘After the altercation,’’ the somewhat tangled next
paragraph began, ‘‘the subject was apprehended
at the scene, while wearing common identifying
distinctive signs or symbols or had an identifi able
leadership or continuously or regularly associate
in the commission of criminal activities.’’ An iden-
tical affi davit was used for each biker, their names
handwritten by police offi cers on a blank line at
the top. If found guilty, each faced a sentence
ranging from 15 years to life.
44 2.27.22
in Broden’s view, a weekend-warrior type who
just liked to ride, drink and hang out. He said he
researched the Scimitars before joining, wary of
being in a club with a bad reputation. He had no
criminal record and was carrying only a two-inch
pocketknife at Twin Peaks. He was on the patio
drinking a glass of water when the shots rang out,
after which his actions, Broden later wrote in a case
fi ling, ‘‘were consistent with what 99 percent of
the population would do — he immediately took
cover to avoid being struck.’’
After being transferred to the convention
center, where he thought he would simply be
giving a witness statement, Clendennen wound
up spending more than two weeks in jail, unable
to aff ord the $100,000 required for his $1 million
bond. Broden talked to the D.A.’s offi ce about
reducing that amount, but nobody seemed in
any rush to get anything done, even with somany people sitting in jail. Eventually he fi led
a lawsuit on Clendennen’s behalf, naming the
city, county and Offi cer Chavez as defendants.
He received a call from the offi ce the next day,
saying they would reduce the bond to $100,000.
Looney found the identical bonds and prob-
able-cause affi davits farcical on their face. ‘‘Jus-
tice is individualized,’’ he told me. ‘‘There’s no
class-action prosecution.’’ Back in Houston, he
made it his mission to replace court-appointed
defense attorneys before they could push their cli-
ents into accepting plea deals — an outcome he
was convinced had been part of the D.A.’s strategy
all along. With Avery’s help, Looney would even-
tually persuade nearly 30 lawyers to take pro bono
Twin Peaks cases. ‘‘When I called, some were like,
‘I don’t know if I have the time,’ ’’ Avery told me.
‘‘I’d say: ‘You don’t need the time. You have me!’ ’’
Still, the local justice system did not seem like
friendly turf for the bikers. W. H. Peterson, the jus-
tice of the peace who set the identical million-dol-
lar bonds, told The Waco Tribune-Herald that ‘‘I
think it is important to send a message. We had
nine people killed in our community.’’ After speak-
ing to the press, Broden and Clendennen were
hit with a gag order issued by the district judge
Matt Johnson, Reyna’s former law partner. A Waco
police detective was named the foreman of a grand
jury that could hear Twin Peaks cases. By July 10, all
but four of the bikers had been freed on bond, but
judges still ruled against defense lawyers, includ-
ing Looney, who argued that there hadn’t been
cause to arrest their clients in the fi rst place.
More stories began to trickle out, like that of
Patrick Harris. He was a graduate student in Aus-
tin who worked as a volunteer clown with Hunter
Adams, the real-life Patch Adams. Several mem-
bers of his family worked in law enforcement in
Houston, where his uncle, Raul Martinez, was the
fi rst Hispanic person to join the Police Depart-
ment. Harris had no criminal record and no con-
nection to the Cossacks or the Bandidos; his club,
the Grim Guardians, worked as advocates for vic-
tims of child abuse. He had been outside parking
his motorcycle when the shooting started, but he
still found himself swept up in the mass arrest,
along with two other friends from his club. ‘‘One
is a civil engineer for the city’’ of Austin, Harris told
me, ‘‘and the other is the foreman for a nonprofi t
that makes tiny homes for homeless people.’’ How
many other bikers rounded up at the scene, citi-
zens following the case might reasonably wonder,
had been ordinary motorcycle enthusiasts with no
connection to violent crime?Jake Carrizal, of the Dallas chapter of the Bandi-
dos, was the fi rst biker to stand trial. Jury selection
began in fall 2017, two and a half years after Twin
Peaks. Johnson, the district judge, presided.
Carrizal probably struck the prosecutors as
both a high-value target and an easy win. Since
his arrest, he had risen from vice president to pres-
ident of his chapter, and he had fl agrantly violatedBy the time Looney took on William and Morgan
English as clients, the couple had been sitting in
jail for more than a week. His fi rst order of business
was a reduction of their million-dollar bonds. He
couldn’t get anyone from the county to return his
calls, so he drove to Waco and parked himself in
the lobby of the D.A.’s offi ce, telling Avery he didn’t
plan on leaving ‘‘until somebody deals with me or
arrests me.’’ Shortly before closing time, he was
granted an audience. ‘‘And within fi ve minutes,’’
according to Looney, ‘‘we had an agreement for
a $25,000 bond.’’
Up in Dallas, Clint Broden, a lawyer who spe-
cialized in federal white-collar cases, received a
call from his then wife’s aunt, who knew one of
the arrested bikers — Clendennen, from the Scim-
itars, a 30-year-old with a wife, four children and
his own landscaping business. The local defense
bar was overwhelmed with cases, so Broden met
Clendennen at the Waco detention center. He was,LOONEY
FOUND THE
IDENTICAL BONDS
AND AFFIDAVITS
FARCICAL.
‘JUSTICE IS
INDIVIDUALIZED,’
H E S AY S.
‘THERE’S
NO CLASS-ACTION
P R O S E C U T I O N .’