Police in Waco, Texas, have released video of the biker shootout that left 9 dead, 18 injured, and reportedly involved 5 different gangs.
CNN acquired the video, captured on security cameras at the Twin Peaks bar where turf tensions erupted in violence, after a freedom of information act request.
177 were arrested in the aftermath, and the mens' lawyers say the video proved that the crackdown was excessive, as most were clearly trying to escape rather than participate. More than 1000 weapons were found in the roundup, however, which police say belies the claims of a peaceful gathering gone awry.
The principal rivalry in the region is between The Cossacks and The Banditos, reports CBS.
Though the Cossacks have been in Texas since 1969, they didn't claim Texas as their territory on the patch known as a "bottom rocker" until last year, according to Peter Edwards, a Toronto star reporter and author of "The Bandido Massacre: A Story of Bikers, Brotherhood and Betrayal," a book about the 2006 slaying of eight Canadian members of the Bandidos.
"For them [Cossacks] to do something like this, to know how much it would enrage the Bandidos, it's really provocative," said Edwards, who has researched and written extensively on the Bandidos and biker culture. "They'd have to know they'd get a strong response."
The patch is the bottom of three worn on the backs of those in motorcycle clubs, and it's taken very seriously in biker culture, according to Edwards. Stronger motorcycle clubs sometimes threaten to take the "bottom rocker" patch off the backs of weaker clubs as a sign of humiliation.
Wikipedia explains.
[via Gawker]
