A TALE OF AMBUSCADE – TWICE TOLD – IN SUPPORT OF A WAR
THE MYSTERIOUS MAN IN KHAKIS AND A BLACK WINDBREAKER
If an injury has to be done to a man it should be so severe that his vengeance need not be feared. – Niccolo Machiavelli
Waco – The State of Texas targeted Los Bandidos, the alleged outlaw criminal organization so designated – not once, but twice – at drinking establishments in Ft. Worth and Waco in December, 2014, and again in May, 2015.
In both cases, the nature of the assaults carried out are so precisely similar in execution and the people used to do the dirty work, their personal characteristics, and their behavior in the aftermath, are so much the same, the true circumstances are astonishing to behold.
In war, a man is limited only by his ability to pay attention to details – tiny details – the matters that shape his ability to survive the organized violence coming down on him.
Surely, in three and half years’ time, one may begin to apprehend the nature of civil war. That is, organized violence carried out by government to enforce its will on the people of the nation is not just a tableau of brutish and purposeless bloodshed.
Far from it, the nature of the civil war is that of horror – terroristic tactics played out for the benefit of a people who are allowed to see only what the most powerful elements of society will allow them to behold. Their perceptions of what is happening on stage are as carefully managed as those who witness an opera.
That is the state of the art of brush fire warfare – tribal, secretive, irrational, and always abundantly violent, swiftly vindictive, absolutely inscrutable as to the motives of those who pull the strings from above.
So, what is on trial here? The very ability of a man or woman to defend themselves against the organized criminal violence of the state acting in combination with other criminal organizations – that’s what.
The legal underpinning of this phase of the war is known as RICO – racketeer influenced criminal organization – a body of federal civil and criminal law aimed at what the banditti have always relied upon to establish their control of redoubts untouched by the feudal lords and ladies, that is, their association with others.
Long before the feds had a name for that, their enemy, the banditti from the hills far away in a country where they turned back time, called themselves “the combination” in honor of their status. They considered themselves men of honor, and they still do today.
Acting in combination with two or more others, the prosecutorial goal throughout the history of jurisprudence was always to prove beyond a reasonable doubt they had influenced the people who operate in places high and low to bend to their will through means just a quarter bubble off kilter, thereby enriching their coffers with coin either untaxed or unearned – or both.
Thus, RICO, latin slang for rich, or the nickname of Enrico – Henry – the dude the Anglos call Hank.
To make the RICO laws work in court, one must first prove predicate offenses, serious crimes such as the five classic felonies – murder, rape, robbery, mayhem, arson.
One such predicate is to prove that the outfit thus targeted is a criminal street gang, and that is why the ambush is so important in the eyes of we the people.
If one is proven a member of any such outlawed clique, then it is illegal to defend oneself through any means because it is considered illegal for a person sentenced to the status of an outlaw to bring violence into the arena, and then claim he was only defending himself.
Thus, the true nature of outlawry, and that is an ancient concept prohibited by our Texas Constitution in Article 1, Section 20.
To be proven “out law,” one must have been a person, group, or thing excluded from the benefits and protection of the law, a person under sentence of outlawry.
How is that done today? It’s done he same way it was done in medieval times – without due process of law. One need only be proven to fit the criteria printed in a manual published by the Department of Justice, or the Texas Department of Public Safety.
Having proven that, the authorities are then disposed to charge a jury with finding the facts of a murder, aggravated assault, kidnapping aggravated or simple, sexual assault, continuous sexual abuse of children, solicitation of a minor, forgery, deadly conduct, assault punishable as a Class A misdemeanor, burglary of a motor vehicle, unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, gambling, promotion of prostitution, unlawful manufacture, delivery, dispensation, or distribution of a controlled substance or dangerous drug, unlawful manufacture, transportation, repair, or sale of firearms or prohibited weapons – and the list goes on, and on, and on…
Possible sentences include life without parole, life or for any term not more than 99 years or less than 30 years in the case of continuous smuggling of persons, or life or any term of not more than 99 years or less than 15 years if the most serious offense is an offense punishable as a felony of the first degree…and so forth.
Serious business. Indeed.
NOT LONG BEFORE THE DECEMBER NIGHT IN 2014 when Bandido Howard Baker, the “Drifter,” and his compadres rode into an ambush at the Gator’s Crowd Inn on Race Street in the Riverside District of Cowtown, he suffered an injury in a collision while riding his Harley that nearly severed his foot from his ankle.
Drifter, who was President of the Ft. Worth Bandidos at the time, is doing a long stretch in the penitentiary.
He refused to give his permission to have the foot amputated, so when he arrived at the bar following a card game at the Bandidos Club House on a Church night, he was a little slow on the uptake. It took him a hot minute to dismount, get his cane situated, and start the laborious progress toward the door for his trip through the bat wings.
He never made it. The Bandits who went in the door came right back out, stumbling backward in a hail of bullets.
Folks say one Bandit made it through the back door and circled around the building, hollering that they were shooting in there.
Members of the Ghost Riders and Wino’s Crew had arrived only a half-hour before and lay in wait with their guns unlimbered and ready to go to work.
Conventional wisdom has it that Wade and Megan Smith persuaded their customers at the 2500 Club to split that scene at the bar they owned, closed up shop, and headed to the Gator’s Inn for a nightcap.
No one has figured out how the coincidence occurred, that the people most likely to be so glad to run into one another would just happen to bump at such a precisely timed juncture, but there it is.
“Drifter just always kind of pissed Wade off, and vice versa,” said a reliable source. “No one really knows exactly why.” The world is filled with mystery.
When the gunsmoke cleared, Geoffrey Brady, a 41-year-old Arlington man, lay dead on a patio outside the building. Witnesses told how Megan Smith was seen blasting away with a .40 cal. pistol from her position in the patio area.
Bandits beat it to a neutral clubhouse, the Patriots’, and hung out to see what would happen next. The cops waited outside for nearly four hours, until the Drifter said, what the heck, let’s find out what they want.
They took note of identification, made photos and got pedigrees of all concerned, confiscated no weapons, and went on their way. They also did no ballistics tests on weapons.
Baker had no gun, and his hands tested negative for gunshot residue. When his trial came in June, 2017, his lawyer City Councilman Jim Lane, a real estate lawyer heavily involved in airport and industrial development, cross examined state’s witnesses in a desultory fashion, and when the prosecution rested, so did he. The defense called no witnesses.
Originally charged with an array of ten counts including murder and unlawfully carrying a pistol, Baker stood trial for engaging in organized criminal activity and directing the activities of a criminal street gang, indictments for which he was charged only a month previous to his trial. It was a paper ambush, that time.
Curiously, Brady died because of two wounds from a .40 caliber pistol.
Jurors recommended a sentence of 45 years, but they did acquit him for carrying a firearm. No one ever located a weapon, but one witness did say she saw him firing a gun at Brady.
Curiously, no one bothered to look into the fact that the Drifter was standing in an area where a bullet would have had to pass through the bricks and mortar of the building in order to hit Brady.
Police arrested two other Bandidos, Robert Stover and Nicholas Povendo; they are yet to stand trial.
What of Smith, the president of the local Ghost Riders chapter? He made a deal for he and his wife to serve as witnesses following their arrest for the aggravated assault of a man with a broken beer bottle.
When the Ghost Riders insisted he leave their ranks, he merely ordered new Ghost Riders patches and had his men sew the colors on their riding vests.
Back at it again.
THE CONFEDERATION OF CLUBS in two regions, DFW, and Central Texas/Austin scheduled a meeting at the Twin Peaks Restaurant in Waco.
Police cautioned the management of the theme bar not to allow the meeting, and had objected to the bike nights sponsored there in preceding months.
DPS, Waco Police and members of various local police department got the intelligence that there would be a rumble at the meeting.
Truly, a Bruceville-Eddy chapter of Cossacks led by Owen “Big O” Reeves, arrived at the restaurant after a rendezvous at the parking lot of a local shopping center on I-35 north of town, where Reeves filled in his men on the plans to go to the restaurant, located at the intersection of I-35 at Highway 6. Most say they had no idea that’s where they were headed.
They just knew they were going to a meeting.
They arrived plenty early, an estimated 85 strong, ran into the woman who had reserved the patio area for the meeting, and took up every available parking place and table, where they hung out, waiting for the dozen or so Dallas Bandidos to arrive. While they waited, they abused Sandra Lynch, whose husband Mike Lynch, president of Los Pirados, is a supporter of the Bandidos.
They reportedly called her a cunt, spit on her, and gave her no real comfort. Someone ran over her foot with a hog.
And when Bandido Jake Carrizal, vice president of the Dallas chapter, rode into the parking lot at the head of his men, they met them with loud curses and rebuked them for their choice of parking places.
Shots were fired. Two of the bullets hit men involved in the argument.
One of them suffered a through and through gunshot wound to his back; the bullet passed out of his neck. The other, who had been assigned as a prospect to watch the bikes, succumbed to a chest wound that left him paralyzed.
Neither are members of the Cossacks today. The man who survived in an ambulatory state lost his motorcycle due to an asset forfeiture. You can’t be a member unless you have a V-twin motorcycle in running condition.
The other man is unable to ride a bike, a requirement for membership in a motorcycle club.
When he was interviewed at the hospital, the man with the neck wound said he didn’t know who shot him. He later told people that he does remember seeing the muzzle of the pistol pointed at him and before he twisted away from the shot, he was able to see that the man who pulled the trigger was wearing a pair of khaki trousers and a black windbreaker.
Checking the pictures of the aftermath, the only man under arrest who is dressed that way is standing with a group of Cossacks.
One can only wonder.
The truth is, the federal government and its client states and political subdivisions, the State of Texas, McLennan County, Texas, and Waco, Texas, as well as Mexia, Waxahachie, Lorena, Gordon, Abilene, Odessa, and other environs, have their hands in this up to the elbows.
No one who rides a bike to organized biker activities can remember any killings or maimings that resulted over a parking place for a bike.
Most of the time, bikes are parked as many as four or five deep. If a biker needs to leave, it’s easy to spot the prospect in charge of watching the bikes, ask him for his help, and within a fairly reasonable amount of time, he will get the owners to come and move so a man can get his bike in the wind.
There was no good reason for anyone to die or be wounded in any way that day, and certainly no good reason why 177 persons should have been arrested, their bond set at $1 million, and each one charged with the identical offense of engaging in organized criminal activity.
What of Jake Carrizal? He stood trial for five weeks following a month-long hassle over the recusal of the trial judge for bias; the trial jury became hopelessly deadlocked when one man refused to vote for acquittal, and then an additional two converted to his side on all three counts. He will be tried again in April.
What of Big O Reeves?
He was made a Nomad, and then he sewed a 1%er patch on his vest without the authorization of the national club.
Soon thereafter, the Cossacks’ national leadership expelled him from their ranks, and he had new patches made and reorganized his Bruceville-Eddy chapter into a new organization called, predictably, the Cossacks.
So mote it be.
– The Legendary