GRAND JURY INVESTIGATION – LET’S HAVE ONE, JUST FOR DRILL
“I THINK IT’S BEN TOOMBS,” SAID FORMER CHIEF DEPUTY MATT CAWTHON WHEN ASKED WHO THIS DUDE IS TOTING THE UNUSUAL FIRING PIECE, A FN P90, 5.7X28MM (.22) FULL AUTO RIFLE WITH 50-ROUND MAGAZINE. IT WAS NEVER TESTED, ALONG WITH 11 OTHER FIRING PIECES THE COPS USED AT TWIN PEAKS
REPORTING: Paula Carroll Swann
STORY: The Legendary Jim Parks
Six Shooter Junction – Paula has questions; she can’t get the answers. They’re all about who shot who – with what weapon – at Twin Peaks Restaurant on May 17, 2015, and thereby prevented a political meeting by activist bikers because of the colors of the patches on their jackets.
The cops protected the public. This way, the public might never had had to learn that the State of Texas collected $13.5 million for motorcycle safety, and then refused to release the funds for the Texas Department of Public Safety to use for the stated purpose they had been collected for a number of years at the rate of $5 per motorcycle registration fee.
Make sense? Just saying. The truth is – as hard to believe as it is – they never tested the weapons fired by DPS officers at Twin Peaks.
Let’s talk about it. After all, we’ve got plenty of time. Looks like the next witness won’t be called until after the elections – oh – what – eleven months from now?
Maybe the expert witnesses will spend a couple of weeks telling us all about how Marlon Brando and Lee Marvin starred in a film about “outlaw biker gangs,” or the hit satellite tv series, “Sons Of Anarchy.”
Just saying. After all, when they picked the jury that ultimately turned Bandido Jake Carrizal loose in a mistrial because they just couldn’t see the case as presented, a sizable number of them told the judge they were so in fear for their lives they couldn’t give their voir dire testimony in open court.
What was it the Ph.D of Gonzo Journalism, Dr. Hunter S. Thompson always called it? Fear. Loathing. The G is good about producing flicks about all that. They get then aired on the telly, including motion pictures of people getting killed.
And they say there is no such thing as a snuff flick, that’s it’s just an urban myth, dreamed up by a bunch of sickos and wild-eyed weirdos. Avanti.
Voir dire. Fifty dollar lawyer’s Latin phrase for “Speak the truth.” Nothing like a dead language and some red tape and a gold seal to dress things up and make them official, now, is there?
Why did the people of the venire say that? Because 54th Criminal District Court Judge Matt Johnson asked them. That’s why.
Maybe they wrote something on their jury questionnaire form. Maybe we’ll never know. How do I know? I was there. I am Legendary Jim.
Just saying.
He took them, one by one, along with the prosecution, defense, the court reporter, and defendant behind the closed door of the jury room to hear them explain if they could – just as matters lay at the moment – return a fair and impartial verdict based upon the facts as presented.
They all wound up on the jury.
Just saying.
Though it was previously reported, just saying.
But, then, there’s this pesky problem regarding evidence that Carrizal and 154 other people did then and there, on May 17, 2015, knowingly and willingly take the life of a human being, or inflict serious bodily harm by engaging in organized criminal activity or directing the activities of a criminal street gang.
Hang on tight. This is going somewhere, but it’s like a string of empties, headed back to the coal mine; there’s no big rush. After all, this all happened about one-third of a decade in the past. What’s the hurry? Speedy trial guarantee found in the U.S. and Texas Constitutions? Oh, pish, posh, and fiddle faddle. Let’s not get all legal about this.
Let’s start with who shot who – with what?
The cops and the prosecution have so neatly jigsawed around that issue, it’s worth mentioning the facts that have received no attention in court, according to Paula Carroll Swann.
The cops only tested three rifles of three SWAT officers who killed four people. She keeps saying it, and there’s a reason for that. Most people have to hear something a minimum of seven times before you really get their attention. Paula knows that.
That’s way less than half of the 9 who died. Just like votes, each one counts as one. Think about it. That’s only 20 percent of the 20 wounded by gunfire on that bloody day.
Paula is a lady from Houston who now lives in south Texas. She got interested right away. It didn’t sound like anything Paula Carroll Swann ever heard about growing up in the household of a Houston Police Homicide Detective.
Those old boys diagram the scene, where the bodies fell, count the shell casings, catalog the evidence, photograph the scene. They build a Bible on the case, based on the evidence.
They confiscate the guns. Have them test-fired, compare the bullets recovered from bodies, walls, furniture – with the test-fired bullets.
If the cops fire their guns, they have ballistics tests performed on their guns. All the cops. All the guns. So far, so good. We’re talking about personal knowledge, here. Personal experience.
“All of the 44 casings recovered came from firearms of 14 law enforcement officers. Twelve of the 44 casings recovered were fired by three Waco police officers using patrol rifles that fire .223 caliber rounds. Those rounds killed 4 people. They are Officers Bucher, Jackson & O’Neal.
“Fourteen officers are involved. Where are the missing 11 rifles?” asked Paula Carrol Swann. She’s still asking that question.
The Waco cops kept right on plowing ahead. They refer all questions to the Attorney General’s Office. That old boy told the defense during the trial that the prosecution concealed evidence.
“As of this release, there are a total of 44 shell casing recovered from the Twin Peaks scene,” said a Waco police statement issued by then Chief of Police Brent Stroman. “This number does not include the revolver rounds fired by non-law enforcement shooters. Those casings are still being counted. Twelve of those casings were from the rifles of 3 Waco Officers who discharged their weapons in defens of themselves or a third party. The Waco SWAT Officers’ weapons are .223 caliber rifles that are capable of full-auto fire. Officers only fired in semi-auto mode during the incident. There was no full-auto gunfire from any of the Officers at the scene. As is normal practice, rifles carried by the Waco SWAT Offiers were deployed with sound suppressors. No other Officers fired rounds from any other weapon during the incident. The Officers involved in the shooting have been assigned administrative duties pending the outcome of the investigation.”
The Southwest Institute of Forensic Science tested the three rifles. Their expert witness testified about that during the trial.
When an ATF agent took the witness stand following the testimony of a tool mark technician from the agency’s laboratory, he admitted under cross examination by Carrizal’s defense counsel Casie Gotro that he obtained his knowledge from reports prepared by the Waco cops and other agencies involved in the ambush.
She objected that the witness had no personal knowledge of the evidence, that he was prepared to testify about matters alleged by other persons, other experts in their official reports. She told the judge that’s hearsay.
No one asked why those experts were not subpoenaed to testify about the material they developed in their investigations, why the federal government was called upon to interpret their findings in contravention and abrogation of the Texas Code of Criminal Procedure.
Naturally, there’s a reason for that. The prosecution, the elected District Attorney, took their case away from them. He ordered them to arrest everyone wearing a patch of a certain color. That made him a necessary witness, the complaining witness, the one the prosecution usually leads off with, a person with a title like Detective, Inspector, Captain, Lieutenant, Sergeant, Patrolman. These flat-footed characters always qualify as to their expertise, training, years of experience – and the like. You know, the fuzz.
You would have to be a trial lawyer to understand why. To ask might just be argumentative, leading, irrelevant – something. After all, they keep it about as complicated as they can. That’s why Clarence Darrow said what he said. Court is a place you don’t want to be. Why?
“There is no justice – in or out of court,” Mr. Darrow declared. Had they not indicted you, they could have indicted a ham sandwich, etc.
Judge Johnson agreed with Casie Gotro. He sustained the objection.
He told the prosecution to call their next witness, dismissed the ATF agent, and the elected DA Abel Reyna and lead prosecutor Michael Jarrett looked very disappointed when they stacked all the reams of documents back into the tote bins in which they transported it to the courtroom.
Naturally, he told the man from the ATF to watch his step as he alighted from the hot seat. There’s a step down, you see.
It was a moment.
Though nightmarish and Orwellian, it is a moment that “resounds like a sixteen penny nail when struck by a greasy ball peen hammer, ” as Brother Dave Gardner so often said in his nightclub act.
Tee hee. Ho ho.
NOW, we’re getting somewhere, as Dr. Hannibal Lecter would say.
Why didn’t Paula Carroll Swann talk about all this before? Because she didn’t want to do anything to complicate the trial of Jake Carrizal.
Paula Carroll now wants to tell her story. It’s a good one.
Thirteen of sixteen entrance wounds were .25 inches in diameter or smaller.
FN P90s fire a round with a diameter of .224409 inches. M-16s fire slightly smaller rounds with diameters of 0.218898 inches. All but one of the victims had wounds fired from a downward trajectory. Six of the nine dead had head or neck wounds. None of the wounds contained gunshot residue, which indicates that the shots were fired from at least three feet away, and probably five feet or farther away. The absence of residue casts doubt on clams by prosecutors of ‘Bandidos executing Cossacks, and Cossacks executing Bandidos.’ Two of the dead had large wounds consistend with a 12 gauge shotgun slug. Ten of 16 wounds were in the back, indicating that the victims were running away when they died. Seven of the wounds were fired from right to left. Six were fired from left to right.
Nine millimeter bullets have a diamter of 0.35433 inches; forty caliber handguns fire a bullet that is four tenths of an inch in diameter and .357 magnums fire rounds that are about .357 inches in diameter.” – Reason.com
For the record, a .38 special bullet is .358 inches in diameter, according to “Modern Reloading,” by Richard Lee.
This is a rudimentary sketch of the L-shaped ambush the cops laid – Paula Carroll Swann
Waco Police: Bucher, Jackson , O’Neal , Vail , Ziboli, Stone, Fench, Barnham, Davis, Swanton. DPS: Frost, Lt. Schwartz, Glenn, Gerik, Dale, Overcast & Detective Rogers. One Sheriff’s Office car, officer previously unknown