through racketeering acts including directing,
sanctioning, approving and permitting members
of the Bandidos to commit murder, attempted
murder, robbery, assault, intimidation, extortion
and drug traffi cking,’’ per the Justice Department.
Each received at least one life sentence. Pike and
Portillo had ordered the murder of Anthony
Benesh, an Austin biker who had been trying to
start a Texas chapter of the Hells Angels. Accord-
ing to Eric Fuchs, the assistant U.S. attorney who
led the prosecution, a Bandidos hit team followed
Benesh, his girlfriend and his two sons to a piz-
zeria. When the family exited the restaurant, one
of the Bandidos, parked in a vehicle about 30
yards away, ‘‘fi red a single shot from a hunting
rifl e that split his head open like a watermelon,’’
Fuchs told me. The prosecutors also provided
evidence that Portillo had declared the Bandidos
at ‘‘all-out war’’ with the Cossacks.
Fuchs declined to comment on the Waco cases,
but he said testimony during his prosecution
showed that once Bandidos prospects reach a
certain point, ‘‘someone has a conversation with
you, letting you know what this is.’’ Steve Cook, a
police gang-unit veteran from Kansas City who
runs outlaw-motorcycle-culture training seminars,
told me: ‘‘You don’t see the Kiwanis and the Lions
Club running up on each other at Twin Peaks and
getting into a gun battle, because guess what?
They’re legitimate fraternal organizations that
aren’t running a criminal enterprise.’’
Jay Dobyns, a former undercover agent with
the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms
and Explosives who infi ltrated the Hells Angels
in the early aughts, said he understood the
attractiveness of the outlaw clubs for a certain
type of ‘‘9-to-5, blue-collar guy’’ — suddenly
‘‘he’s respected, admired, feared, people want to
shake his hand, buy him drinks, give him drugs,
girls who in any other situation wouldn’t look
twice at this guy are cozying up to him.’’ But he
also said the fi ght between the Cossacks and
the Bandidos was ultimately ‘‘not any diff erent
than Crips and Bloods trying to own a particular
street corner to sell drugs on,’’ and that insisting
otherwise was ‘‘naïve.’’
Reavis — whose Texas Monthly editor let him
expense a shotgun he carried while reporting
his Bandidos article — nonetheless believes the
Mafi a comparisons are overblown. He draws
a distinction between organized crime and ‘‘a
motorcycle club that includes lots of criminals.’’
Operating like the Mafi a ‘‘would curb their
behavior,’’ he says. ‘‘It would impose a great deal
of discipline on them. I don’t think the Mafi a got
on motorcycles drunk and rode 100 miles an
hour.’’ He didn’t buy the ‘‘Robin Hood myths’’
the clubs created around things like charity
rides, but neither did he buy ‘‘the other myth’’
about criminal conspiracy. ‘‘The police are drag-
on killers,’’ he says, ‘‘so they’re going to make the
dragon look as bad as they can.’’
Even among the dragons, though, Twin Peaks
has left a nagging sense of justice undone.
Manuel Rodriguez, a Bandido killed in the fi ght,
was standing beside Pierson when the violence
broke out. Rodriguez was 40; his friends say his
road name, Candyman, came from his love of
candy, which he insisted prospects keep on hand.
When the D.A. dropped the last cases, Pierson
recalled: ‘‘I talked to Roxanne and said, ‘So that’s
it.’ And she’s all excited because they fought for our
rights. And I’m going, yes, I’m happy, but Candy-
man died beside me, and — no, it’s not OK with
me. It’s still not, to this day. I don’t want to say
anything that I shouldn’t. I’m not in the club, and
I’m always going to belong to the Bandidos. But it’s
a bothersome thing. You reindict me, I’ll take my
roll in court. But goddamn, fi gure out who done
this and get somebody in trouble.’’KenKen® is a registered trademark of Nextoy, LLC. © 2022 http://www.KENKEN.com. All rights reserved. 47
SPELLING BEEUnafraid (3 points). Also: Affair, afraid, dandruff, dinar,drain, farad, farina, fauna, fraud, friar, nadir, naiad, radar,radian, radii, raffia, riffraff, ruffian, unfair. If you foundother legitimate dictionary words in the beehive, feel freeto include them in your score.PARDON MY FRENCHKENKENFOR STARTERS NORINORIF
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QJ U N E A U
S N E E Z E
A D I D A S
Y E L L A T
I D L E R SAnswers to puzzles of 2.20.22C H AW WI E LD F EDS BERT
LOLA GENX E R A V OW OR EO
O U I S H A L L O V E R C OM E UN I T
USB OSCAR SA I L ATNINE
D E I SM HIC D I E U P ROC E S S
PBS D I NED TR I PE
I MP E R I L S ENS I ON SLAP
B E L L E T OW E R R OW TB I L L
I TAL I NE DIDIN L E A P TO
SAY NDA IRIS A I R C R EW
EAUFORHEAVENSSAKE
T U RN S ON E S TO ACT AVE
I RON E R CATER PO I VDAY
P ANE S DAD CESTCHEESE
S L EW ERR OK E D S LURRED
I MG A Y UNDU E E GG
L A I T T OWA S T E CAB GE I CO
I NTHAT TARE ATRE E HAN
V I SA R E I N E C A T S ANDDOG S
E TON I NDY AL EAST EPEE
RAKE P E SO PESTS WE S TPUNS AND ANAGRAMS
PRETT I EST DEEDS
R E P RODUC E R EM I T
I MHONO R E D ERASE
MA R T S AND WI NC E
ADOS AST I R EARP
L EN AN I S E E D TEE
ETTA S P I NE TS
SPHERE TEASET
L OOK I NG HI TS
UPS AN I MA L S MAG
GUT S AGAV E CAR L
F LAKE ANA VO I L A
E AGE R B AR T END E R
STEER I NTERVENE
TESTS T A I L BON E SAnswers to puzzle on Page 52Fill the grid with digits so as not to repeat a digit in any row or column, and so that the digits within each heavily outlined
box will produce the target number shown, by using addition, subtraction, multiplication or division, as indicated in the box.
A 5x5 grid will use the digits 1–5. A 7x7 grid will use 1–7.
KENKEN