Waco...Questions But No Answers

It is more than a little troubling.  The more I look into the events and stories surrounding the Waco tragedy, the more ominous things appear.  There is a familiar, consistent pattern that is being repeated again in Waco.  So many questions remain unanswered, and don't make sense compared to the way things normally have happened over the years.  At least, not without some major spin-work going on.

I keep going back over  the facts that Waco PD was given 'intelligence' about a brewing war between the Bandidos MC and the Cossacks MC, from an unnamed outside law enforcement agency.  Already that has at least one red flag raised.  Anytime law enforcement tends to refer to 'intelligence' from an anonymous agency, it has in my experience been highly suspect.  If not completely, at least partially fabricated by the "outside agency".

I am not a law enforcement officer, but I have friends and family who are career law enforcement.  I also have some military background, and am a life long student of history.  Here is the first question I have, that I have yet to be given, or been able to find, an answer to:
If the Waco PD, and the Texas Department of Public Safety were worried about a problem between the Bandidos and the Cossacks, where was the police vehicles following or helicopter surveillance that usually follows a large pack of 1%er Club members?

I mean the reports are between 50 and 70 Cossacks just rode into town and no law enforcement was following them?  Even though approximately two dozen officers were waiting at the Twin Peaks restaurant in case there was a violent incident?  One would expect law enforcement to at least want to have knowledge of the direction and number of possible participants in any expected confrontation.  But no, as far as I have been able to uncover, there was no surveillance of the Cossacks pack as it rolled into Waco.

Here's another thing that seems quite strange to me.  In this day and age of omnipresent security cameras, and phone cameras, no actual video showing the parking lot where the confrontation took place has come to light.  Part of this can be explained by the fact that 170 people were arrested, and their phones were seized.  No doubt any images or videos have been viewed by law enforcement.  As have their address books within the phones.  Law enforcement could easily acquire any footage showing the parking lot and restrict it due to the "ongoing investigation".

A third odd detail, is the Washington Post story quoting, in detail, a high ranking officer of a Cossacks chapter that was in the heart of the fighting.  What seems most odd about this, is the fact that if he was in the center of the fire fight, he didn't get wounded, and most oddly, didn't get arrested.  Did he somehow flee and elude arrest, while people who were already on the other side of the building were rounded up and incarcerated?  The possible reasons he wasn't picked up are many.  Including, he wasn't there, he wasn't actually a Cossack, he was a law enforcement informant, or worse yet, an undercover member of law enforcement (which would explain the way his side of things  sounds so much like a police report).

There isn't enough evidence one way or the other to discuss the events that led up to the shooting.  Including who fired the first shot, how long after it began did Waco PD open fire, how many of the dead and wounded were shot by law enforcement, etc.

What I do want to make a few points about is what has happened after the shooting.  Law enforcement knew this was a Texas Confederation of Clubs & Independents meeting.  So they knew it would be well attended by the Club community.  The fact that the security cameras inside the Twin Peaks showed police with "assault rifles" entering the front door within two minutes of the confrontation starting shows just how prepared they were.  They seized every person wearing a cut and a patch that was at the scene.  Each was charged with participating in organized crime activities, and given a $1 million bail.

These last two facts are the most disturbing.  But in my mind for different reasons.  This is the familiar pattern used by law enforcement when they are desperate to create a major case, and their evidence is limited.  The Federal authorities are the most practiced at this, but many local agencies have learned the lesson well.  It can be very profitable for law enforcement, and who doesn't love a load of money?  What is the pattern?  Create a situation, where there becomes a reason for an arrest.  Then overcharge the defendant, and set a punitively high bail.  Then after putting the pressure on while incarcerated, offer a plea agreement.

When you look at even a partial list of the Clubs that have members being detained, it seems as if ministers and veterans are an especially heinous threat to law and order.  Not exactly your typical "organized crime" types.  Not to mention the community service and family oriented clubs caught up in this.  It has been eleven days now, as I write this, and no one has been released or had their charges dismissed.  Something just isn't quite natural about not even one dismissal out of 170 Americans arrested.

Here is what I think, and this is solely my personal opinion, the COC&I meeting is where this all went down.  Experience has shown the government over decades it is difficult (though not impossible) to get a 1%er patch holder to turn rat and testify against his Club.  The vast majority of those arrested were not 1% Club members.  Could law enforcement be trying to squeeze some testimony from a member of another Club that could be leveraged against all of them, or just the COC itself?  If enough people cave in to a plea agreement and state they ran drugs for such and such a Club, or committed any number of offences (whether they did or not) it is possible that this could be used to bring the entire COC nationwide under some similar legal issues as the Mongols Nation is currently fighting against.

Whether this is happening in Waco, I cannot say.  But it certainly shows all the usual traits of a Federal based case building investigation.  Not about a shooting, or the deaths of nine Americans, or the injury of eighteen others.  But someone in law enforcement trying to prove that all motorcycle Clubs are illegal street gangs.  Whether they have to violate law, and shred the Constitution in the process.  Take a look at what is going on in Waco, and think about it.  Do you  REALLY believe 170 people all went to the Twin Peaks restaurant to participate in "organized crime activities" that were publicly promoted as a political meeting to discuss legislation and laws that affect the motorcycle and particularly the Club community?  Something just doesn't smell right.  With Waco PD in control of any news coming out on the story, the spin is still off track and suspicious.  Research this for yourself, and then you decide for yourself.  The Right to peacefully assemble, and to freely associate is a fundamental Right guaranteed under the First Amendment of the US Constitution.

Think it over, I am waiting to hear what you think too.

Catch you on the road sometime...