A Twin Peaks biker refused to show up for a motorcycle safety proclamation at a Waco City Council meeting. He took issue with Waco PD’s characterization of the bikers as criminals and said it was Waco PD, not the bikers, who put others in harm’s way.
The proclamation had been set-up prior to the shootout at the Twin Peaks Restaurant in Waco, Texas.
The Waco City Council issued the proclamation designating May as “Motorcycle Safety and Awareness Month” just two days after the Twin Peaks restaurant shootings in Waco, according to a report on ABC News. The proclamation was to have been presented to Steven Cochran, a leader in the same group that had organized the Twin Peaks meeting.
Cochran declined to attend the council meeting on Tuesday. He had been one of the organizers of the meeting of the Texas Confederation of Clubs and Independents, a meeting which had been publicly announced.
Contrary to initial reports, the “criminal meeting” of the bikers, was actually an organized gathering to discuss political issues, according to a report by Breitbart Texas.
Dallas lawyer and biker William A. Smith said this meeting was a regularly scheduled meeting to discuss legislative and safety issues. He said “They happen about every other month,” and added there have never been any issues of violence.
Sandra Lynch was to have accepted the proclamation with Cochran but she was in jail at the time. Lynch was one of the 170 people arrested after the shootout at the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco.
The Waco City Secretary, Esmeralda Hudson, told the Associated Press that the city issues the proclamation every year.
A copy of the proclamation posted by the Waco Tribune can be found here.
Cochran posted a copy of the proclamation on his Facebook page and said that he would accept the proclamation in absentia.
The biker took the opportunity to challenge the Waco Police Department’s account of the bikers at the Twin Peak meeting on Sunday.
He stated “I felt it was prudent to not have a public display at the city counsel meeting after all being hardened gangsters according to the Waco PD we didn’t want to put anyone in harm’s way quite unlike the local police department did at Twin Peaks.”
Breitbart Texas reported that a biker website called “The Aging Rebel” published an alternate account of what happened during the Twin Peaks shootings in Waco.
The article entitled The Waco Police Massacre essentially claims that the incident was a police ambush. The article also gives a number of details not previously published, including the names of the biker clubs in attendance.
The writer of the biker article claims there was a shoving incident in the restaurant bathroom which brought bikers to spill into the parking lot.
He writes there were at least 22 law enforcement officers in the parking lot, including a SWAT team.
The biker’s account is that the altercation became a knife fight and several men were stabbed. He said when one of the bikers in the fray pulled a gun, the SWAT team opened fire with automatic weapons. He claims that multiple sources told The Aging Rebel that all of the nine dead were killed by police.
Breitbart Texas’ Managing Director Brandon Darby and contributing writer Lee Stranahan, reported that facts initially reported by Waco PD were later called into question.
On Wednesday after the shootout, Waco police released information that “1,000 weapons” had been found at the scene of Sunday’s shooting. After the story received wide exposure, the police department significantly revised that estimate and stated, “We stand corrected.” Waco PD later reported they had counted 118 handguns, one AK-47 rifle, and 157 knives. In addition, four of the nine dead had no criminal records in Texas.
Breitbart Texas reported that one of the dead bikers was a 65-year-old Vietnam veteran who had received a Purple Heart and had no prior criminal record in Texas.
Breitbart News reported that Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton from Waco PD stated the police department has received information “that we were going to have rival biker gang members come in and either assault officers here, or try to get a little payback to some of the bikers that were involved in the melee that occurred at Twin Peaks.”
Lana Shadwick is a contributing writer and legal analyst for Breitbart Texas. Follow her on Twitter @LanaShadwick2
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