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CNN Live Event/Special

Biker Brawl: Inside the Texas Shootout. Aired 9-10p ET

Aired May 16, 2016 - 21:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

[21:00:02] ANDERSON COOPER, CNN ANCHOR: That does it for us. Thanks for watching. "BIKER BRAWL: INSIDE THE TEXAS SHOOTOUT", starts now.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Get your hands up!

ED LAVANDERA, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Mayhem and murder.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sounds like a gun fight at the OK corral. Bang, bang, bang, bang, bang. One right after dozens.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Went from have a couple of drinks to complete chaos so fast. It was a nightmare.

LAVANDERA: A nightmare in brought daylight as a restaurant in Texas becomes a battlefield.

JAKE CARRIZAL, BANDIDOS BIKER: I hear the shots going off, whizzing by me.

LAVANDERA: The bloodbath sparked by two rival biker clubs.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: These are the worst of the worst, the baddest of the bad.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: They're not here to drink beer and eat barbeque.

LAVANDERA: When the bullets stop flying, nine men are dead, 177 arrested.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It is ridiculous. I was just in shock.

LAVANDERA: How could this have possibly happened, and could it mean an end to these outlaw gangs?

Do you think these investigators just come after you guys?

CNN penetrates the world of dangerous motorcycle clubs with exclusive access to the rival bikers.

You still think you have a target on your back?

DEAN: I do.

LAVANDERA: Tonight "Biker Brawl: Inside the Texas shootout." UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Palo Pinto County 911, state your emergency.

LAVANDERA: It's a Sunday afternoon in this small town of Gordon, Texas.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I need the cops at Bar-B truck stop, please. Somebody's getting the hell beat out of them.

LAVANDERA: A member of the Cossacks motorcycle club, humping gas at this trucks stop is jumped by several Bandidos. The rival biker's rip-off his jacket and beat him with a hammer, so brutally, say witnesses, that he almost loses an eye.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: He's bleeding really bad, and he can barely stand up. The guys have already left.

LAVANDERA: To understand why the deadly shooting erupted in Waco between the Bandidos and Cossacks, you have to know what happened at this truck stop. How violent things were getting. And what makes these bike gangs different.

MATTHEW HORACE, FORMER ATF AGENT: These are people, that are worst of the worst, the baddest of the bad.

LAVANDERA: Former ATF Agent Matthew Horace investigated outlaw motorcycle the gangs for years. He says these gangs have a violent rep for good reason.

HORACE: Both of them are well known and well documented of what we refer to in government as outlaw motorcycle organizations. Not every member of the organization is an outlaw, but certainly they are members in the organizations that report and commit criminal acts.

LAVANDERA: The majority of America's motorcycle clubs preach camaraderie and the love of riding. But in some clubs there's a more sinister side.

PETER "BIG PETE" JAMES, FMR. PRESIDENT OF THE NOTORIOUS CHICAGO OUTLAWS: This has got nothing to do with do gooders and philanthropists or choir boys, but on the other hand, it is not this great, huge criminal enterprise that everybody thinks.

LAVANDERA: And Pete James would know for 16 years he was President of the Notorious Chicago Outlaws. On the street, he goes by Big Pete.

JAMES: The Cossacks, I can sum that up in one sentence. Who are they? The Bandidos are way too big to even deal with the Cossacks. The Cossacks are like mosquitoes, they can't hurt you like they pester you. The Bandidos are one of the largest clubs in the world, they have chapters all over. They are a powerful club, and they're one percenters.

LAVANDERA: One percenters like the Bandidos believe the rules that apply to 99 percent of us don't apply to them.

One percent of Biker Clubs are considered outlaws. There bikers hardly ever talk. But we have managed to get exclusive access to the two rival clubs involved in the Waco shootout. The president of the Bandidos lives in this rural neighborhood North of Houston, behind this trees and this Iron Gate. He's never allowed cameras inside until now.

JEFF PIKE, BANDIDOS' PRESIDENT: Come here you guys. Are you hungry? Come on.

LAVANDERA: Its interesting to come out here, this is like peaceful a little quiet out here. And a lot of ways your life is not peaceful and quiet right now.

PIKE: Not right now, it isn't but it has been for a decade.

LAVANDERA: Jeff Pike has worn the Bandidos vest more than 35 years and his been their national president for the last 10.

[21:05:13] PIKE: The new Bandidos are not the old Bandidos. We get along with everybody except one.

LAVANDERA: That's the one we're here about.

PIKE: Correct.

LAVANDERA: He's talking about the Cossacks, a rival outlaw motorcycle gang.

Do you think of yourself as an outlaw?

PIKE: I haven't broken a law in long decades. I don't know what you're talking about.

LAVANDERA: But since the Bandidos motorcycle club formed in Texas in 1966, members have broken plenty of laws, arrested for crimes, from smuggling drugs, and running prostitution rings to assault and murder. The club's founder, Donald Chambers went to prison in 1972 for double murder. The four presidents after Chambers were convicted for violence against rival bikers, drug, and federal racketeering charges. What Pike says it's not like that any more.

Investigators talked about the one percenters. What does that mean to you?

PIKE: Not what it did 30 years ago. You didn't care about anybody. You didn't care what anybody else thought. And contrary to popular belief, it doesn't mean you shun society and doesn't mean you're a criminal.

LAVANDERA: And it's still part of the patch today.

PIKE: It is.

LAVANDERA: A Bandidos vest is a prized possession and tells a biker's story. His club name, city chapter, and mottos like this one FTW, an acronym in biker speak for (inaudible) The World. These patches aren't scraps of fabric. They're Bandidos badges of honor and they're hard to earn.

PIKE: In our prospect is four and a half months, and I got my patch in July of 1979.

LAVANDERA: Prime real estate on a biker's vest is the rocker. This is where Bandidos laid claim to their home state.

PIKE: For years the Bandidos were pretty much we're the only ones that wore that.

LAVANDERA: And it says Texas or...

PIKE: It says Texas. But over the last decade there's dozens of clubs that wear Texas bottom rocker and the Cossacks asked for it.

LAVANDERA: Ask for it by adding the Texas patch to their vest. According to some in the biking world, it was a fatal error.

JAMES: They're trying to become one percenters and show the Bandidos that we're equal to you. In the long run, it was a real tactical error. It was a blunder.

LAVANDERA: But how does a patch lead to this? Coming up, living in fear, an exclusive with a Cossack who was in the middle of it all.

You saw the first person who pull the gun?

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[21:11:58] DEAN: We take care of our own. Would I take a bullet for a brother? I have.

LAVANDERA: He's a die hard member of his motorcycle club.

DEAN: It's family. Always been that way. Someone needs a tire, someone needs some help with groceries, someone needs help with an electric bill, we do our best to help them out.

LAVANDERA: This is Dean. He asked us to change his name and his voice because Dean is worried.

DEAN: Didn't plan for any of this to happen.

LAVANDERA: He's a member of the Cossacks, a Texas biker club that claims around 200 members, mostly in small towns.

You know, the Bandidos are described as the one percenters.

DEAN: Yes, we're not one percent club. Don't want to be because that puts us into a totally different category.

LAVANDERA: One percenters believe they don't have to follow the rules that apply to the other 99 percent of bikers.

DEAN: We are a motorcycle club. We're not a gang. We don't do drugs. We don't sell it. We don't make it. And we don't intimidate people. We don't extort people. We rely on ourselves.

LAVANDERA: Do you think the Bandidos feel threatened by the Cossacks?

DEAN: Yes, because we're growing.

LAVANDERA: And eating into the Bandidos turf, says the ex-president of the Chicago outlaws.

JAMES: The Cossacks could have contained it. And, you know, everything they wanted to do and flew under the radar. You really don't have to take orders from the Bandidos, just don't get in their way.

DEAN: I think there's a lot of residual hatred there. It's just an issue that we've had for a while. It's just been brewing that we're not part of the COC.

LAVANDERA: COC or confederation of clubs are biker networks that exist in nearly every state and meet every couple months to discuss motorcycle issues. In Texas, the Bandidos insist they run the COC and make the rules. What kinds of things were the Cossacks told that they couldn't do?

DEAN: You all need to pay us dues.

LAVANDERA: So, the Bandidos wanted dues from you guys doing into the COC or just to them directly?

DEAN: To the COC. It doesn't make sense, why I'm going to pay someone to be able to ride my motorcycle in the state of Texas.

LAVANDERA: So, that lead to those altercations that we've heard about ...

DEAN: Well yeah, and well, you're not part of COC. What are you doing in here?

LAVANDERA: Adding fuel to fire, the Cossacks started wearing the Texas patch on their vest. Traditionally, law enforcement official say, it was only worn by Bandidos. The Bandidos come back to the Cossacks and say you got to take that Texas bottom rocker patch off your vest.

DEAN: They didn't tell us we had to. But it was more like, it would be better if you did. We said, "You know what? We're Texas-based. We've been around almost as long as you all have. So we're going to put the Texas on."

LAVANDERA: Bandidos President Jeff Pike says the patch has nothing to do with the feud.

[21:15:02] PIKE: We gave them the patch. They even thanked us on Facebook.

LAVANDERA: So what is this battle or this issue between the Bandidos and Cossacks all about?

PIKE: I have no idea. All of sudden the things just went nuts.

LAVANDERA: The things went nuts in 2013 when the animosity escalated into full throttle aggression.

HORACE: There was incident after incident after incident progressively violent behavior. There were a couple of assaults. There were a couple of beatings. There were a couple of stabbings.

LAVANDERA: In Abilene, Texas, a bloody knife fight outside a steakhouse sparked by Cossacks wearing the Texas bottom rocker, according to a police.

LYNN BEARD, ABILENE POLICE: We know there are people that were in the restaurant eating at the time this occurred, not going to tolerate gang fights in the middle of a restaurant parking lot in the middle of the day.

LAVANDERA: A Bandido was charged with the stabbing, but later exonerated. March 2015 in Gordon, Texas, that brutal beating at the truck stop when Bandidos allegedly jumped a Cossack getting gas. Two hours later, 150 miles away retaliation when police say 10 Cossacks forced a Bandido off the highway, then beat him with chains and metal pipes. No one was arrested in these two incidents, but the fights were getting nasty. So nasty that on May 1st, 2015 state police issued a bulletin to law enforcement agencies warning of escalating tension between the Bandidos and Cossacks.

HORACE: If we start to see that there's a ratcheting up or an increase or an expansion in violence and it's with the same people that are involved with the same organizations and that tells us that this is something we should be paying attention to.

LAVANDERA: FBI agents had picked up intelligence as well that the Bandidos were planning to go to war with the Cossacks. When we come back, their greatest fears are realized.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Waco 911.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes, I need police out here now.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[21:20:59] UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You are under arrest.

LAVANDERA: Waco, Texas.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: This standoff is over.

LAVANDERA: 23 years ago, the scene of a violent showdown between the branch Dravidians and law enforcement. Now, another confrontation is brewing, this time between bitter rivals, the Bandidos and Cossacks. The FBI and police fear their increasingly violent feud is headed for all out war. SGT. PATRICK SWANTON, WACO POLICE: It was our intelligence that told us they were headed this way, and were trying to get some pay back whether it was against us or rival bike members, we don't know.

LAVANDERA: Dozens of police officers moved quietly into place near the restaurant, Twin Peaks.

HORACE: Officers of one of the sheriff's offices communicated to Twin Peaks that they were going to be having over 400 members at this meeting.

LAVANDERA: It's a meeting of the Confederation of Clubs where bikers gather to discuss and resolve issues. The Cossacks are the first to arrive. Strange, says Jeff Pike.

PIKE: They really had no reason to be there that day.

LAVANDERA: He's the national president of the Bandidos biker gang. He wasn't in Waco that day, but his club runs the Texas COC.

PIKE: The Cossacks are not a member of the Confederation of Clubs. They came on their own to do whatever they wanted to do.

LAVANDERA: They wanted a truce and believed it was an open meeting says this Cossacks biker who asked us to mask his identity.

You guys were there to make peace?

DEAN: We were there to talk to them to say, "Let's stop this," you know, "every time you turn around, we go to a bar or we go to a restaurant, some of your guys are getting stupid and picking fights. Let's see if we can't find a common ground to where you all leave us alone and we leave you all alone."

LAVANDERA: By 11:00 a.m., Cossacks bikers are sipping beers and shooting the breeze, seen here in surveillance video obtained by CNN. Outside the restaurant police dash cams captured the scene in the parking lot as a line of Bandidos bikers roll up.

CARRIZAL: I was the first one to pull in there.

LAVANDERA: Including Jake Carrizal, who was riding in with his dad and uncle and looking for a place to park.

CARRIZAL: As we turn in the bike parking, I see 50, 60, 70 Cossacks there, you know, it caught me off guard. As soon as we pulled up, I back in and they were surrounding my bike.

LAVANDERA: John Wilson, the president of the Cossacks Waco chapter was sitting on the Twin Peaks patio with his son.

JOHN WILSON, COSSACKS WACO CHAPTER PRESIDENT: The lead guy, when I looked out, I was watching, he deliberately steered into one of our prospects and hit him, you know, I mean, he wasn't going real fast, but he deliberately run into him with a motorcycle enough to, you know, knock him down. LAVANDERA: Carrizal says not quite.

CARRIZAL: I didn't run over anyone's foot. I think they come up with different scenarios to try to justify what happened.

LAVANDERA: And what was that mission?

CARRIZAL: I know without a doubt they were there to confront us.

LAVANDERA: Clifford Pearce, the prospect assigned to guard the Cossacks bikes in the lot is caught in the middle.

CLIFFORD PEARCE, COSSACKS BIKER: Anyhow, a bunch of squabbling went on about them blocking the bikes in.

LAVANDERA: That's Pearce talking to investigators.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You got your foot run over?

PEARCE: Actually, I didn't get my foot run over, but I was in the way out there, I didn't get out of the way fast enough.

WILSON: And of course when that happened, you know, everybody rushed over there in both clubs. It wasn't really a fight at that point, it was just, you know, some shouting back and forth, some verbal altercation.

LAVANDERA: As the shouting match quickly escalates, you see Carrizal with a yellow helmet right here in the middle of it. He says a Cossack threw the first punch.

CARRIZAL: We were hit so quick, but I didn't even have time to take my gloves off nor my helmet.

LAVANDERA: Fists are flying, then far worse.

PEARCE: I heard a gunshot, so I just hit the dirt.

[21:25:00] DEAN: And then someone pulls a gun, pops off three rounds. Then someone else pulled one, someone else pulled one, then suddenly there's gunfire coming from all different areas.

CARRIZAL: I remember yelling for my dad because I knew he was there somewhere. I had never been that scared in my life.

LAVANDERA: Carrizal is taken to the ground. He's in an all out brawl with several Cossacks. He doesn't realize it then, but you can see a biker emerging from the chaos, pointing a gun and looking for a target. But suddenly, the biker's head snaps back and he drops to the ground.

Did you hear the shots?

CARRIZAL: I hear the shots going off whizzing by me. I had guys all over me. I had one that I had taken to the ground. And I was kind of using him to block me from the rest of them. LAVANDERA: He stumbles and looks for cover as another biker takes aim. You actually see four plumes of smoke come out from him. And he is pointed right at you?

CARRIZAL: Oh, yeah.

LAVANDERA: Boom, boom, boom and then you fall to the ground. You didn't get hit?

CARRIZAL: No. It looks like a cop, you know, may have taken him out and ...

LAVANDERA: He dropped. And he fired four times.

CARRIZAL: Yeah. Wow

LAVANDERA: One biker brazenly runs across the patio shooting wildly into the parking lot. Terrified customers and waitresses run for cover. This twin peaks waitress didn't want to be seen on camera.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: There was a lot of screaming. We just like we hear all this, oh my god, what's going on, like just start screaming and take off running to the back.

LAVANDERA: She and others reach a walk in refrigerator and call for help.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Waco 911. Where are you?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Twin Peaks Restaurant. There's a shooting outside. Get in the cooler, get in the cooler, guys, get in the cooler.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: We actually have the racks to move in front of the door to kind of barricade ourselves.

DEAN: It was a lot of carnage. Lot of carnage.

LAVANDERA: Did you go down to the ground too and crawl out or?

DEAN: I didn't have a chance but to go to the ground. I got shot. I seen the person that shot me.

LAVANDERA: You did?

DEAN: But I won't really get into that right now. I still remember the, the blood coming out of me, the pain, the people around me being shot. So, it's just not good.

CARRIZAL: I remember seeing my dad face covered in blood, he got shot in the back. They got the bullet out and he's doing all right.

LAVANDERA: But dozens of other lives are hanging in the balance. When we return, the unthinkable, watching your friend die right in front of you.

WILSON: He bled to death. And I would have to think that proper medical attention and I could have saved his life.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[21:31:31] LAVANDERA: Cossacks, Bandidos, angry, dangerous and bitter enemies. Months of rage and violence have led to this moment. And all out battle in the parking lot of a favorite biker hangout. Hundreds of bullets have been fired as armed police officers are nearby watching. Dozens are down, wounded or dead and the bloody clash shows no signs of stopping.

CARRIZAL: There would be a pause in gunshots and then you'd hear a few more go off.

LAVANDERA: Seconds into the showdown, surveillance video shows this biker running from the Twin Peaks patio covered in blood.

WILSON: It was pretty horrific. There were guys getting hit, falling, and I realized that I needed to get away from where I was.

LAVANDERA: Biker John Wilson did get away. You ca see him inside Twin Peaks ducking for cover. But this man seen in the red bandanna was not as lucky. He hits another biker in the throat with what looks like a chain, they wrestle to the ground, then he's struck several times in the head. He is stomped on at least once, and looks to be shot by a third biker. He seems lifeless as the men he was fighting walk away.

Then another fight breaks out. Look closely as the highlighted biker is shot in the leg during the skirmish. Cossack Richard Kirchner stumbles to the curb and collapses. When the area is secure, members of the Cossacks carry him away for help. Both bikers die at the scene. By now, Waco Police SWAT Officers armed with rifles are firing from the perimeter.

SWANTON: The shooting at individual bikers from bikers turned towards us. Our officers took fire and responded appropriately returning fire.

LAVANDERA: When the guns fell silent, the Twin Peaks parking lot was a frozen bloodbath. Pools of blood smeared everywhere, shell casings scattered across the ground.

SWANTON: In my nearly 35 years of law enforcement experience, this is the most violent, and most gruesome scene that I have dealt with.

LAVANDERA: Dead bikers lie among toppled Harleys, other man cling to life nearby like Richard Kirchner.

WILSON: Look at there he was shot the lower abdomen and the right somewhere. It turn out he was shoot and he broke his legs but he was bleeding real badly.

LAVANDERA: Wilson says he begged police to help his dying friend.

WILSON: I started asking the police, police bring the ambulance in. I was told that the area wasn't secure yet. Three of the dead were still alive 30 minutes afterwards. It was shocking and disturbing to me.

LAVANDERA: Do you think there was a chance to save them?

WILSON: Yeah. Sure, we'll never know, but I mean I have think so. That he bled to death.

LAVANDERA: The Waco Police Department declined our request for an interview and wouldn't comment about the timing of the aid to the wounded citing a gag order. But former ATF Agent Matt Horace says the officers responded correctly.

HORACE: This is ultimately an active shooter situation lying in wait because we don't know which one of the bad guys have guns, so we don't put our attention to the injured often times, we put our attention to the threats and the danger.

[21:35:09] LAVANDERA: Like a twisted scavenger hunt, police search the crime scene, and find weapons stuffed between bags of flower and tossed on the floor of the restaurant. Nearly inside the bathroom, you can still hear the country music blaring as an investigator films the aftermath, blood spilling out onto the sink and floor.

As the officer moves into the stalls, he discovers handguns tossed in toilets. Police recover a staggering 480 weapons, 151 guns, knives, brass knuckles, chains, clubs, batons, hammers, even a machete and tomahawks.

SWANTON: I think you can see by the number of weapons that we have recovered from here today, they didn't come here to eat and have a good time with their family.

LAVANDERA: By night fall Sunday, Twin Peaks is secure but the damage is done 18 are wounded and 9 bikers dead.

SWANTON: The bodies have all been removed and silhouette for forensics and for autopsy results.

LAVANDERA: When we return, the bloodshed is over. For survivors, the nightmare has just begun.

MATT CLENDENNEN, SCIMITARS BIKER: I had to post $100,000 bond to get out of here. It just unreal.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[21:40:32] SWANTON: We have wounded inside. We have people stabbed. We have people shot and we have people beat.

LAVANDERA: The carnage tells the story of one of the goriest chapters in biker history. As the shooting spree ends, SWAT teams move inside Twin Peaks to round up the bikers. Cossacks John Wilson was there.

WILSON: Very quickly, the Waco PD came running in the front of the building, hollering to everybody to get down and what not, hollering their commands and which we did. LAVANDERA: One of the first Waco cops on the scene describes it later in his police report. I asked anybody who had a gun to raise their hand. At the time it appeared to me that nearly everybody in the crowd raised their hand.

WILSON: And then they promptly got us up, had us put our hands on top of our head and walked us out of the building.

LAVANDERA: In surveillance footage, you can see a parade of bikers along with Twin Peaks employees and customers leaving the restaurant with their hands up.

SWANTON: At last count, we have 170 individuals that we have arrested.

LAVANDERA: The count grows to an unprecedented 177 bikers arrested.

CLENDENNEN: I believe in the 16 days.

LAVANDERA: Including Matt Clendennen who says he took cover in the bathroom during the melee.

CLENDENNEN: Why would they feel the need to take over 170 people and put us behind bars just because we were there and we were riding motorcycle? It makes no sense to me.

LAVANDERA: There were so many bikers arrested, they had to bring them here to the Waco convention center. Police divided rival bikers into separate rooms where they were processed and held into the middle of the night.

WILSON: Of course there was zip tied and lie in the floor of the convention center, and stay zip tied for 18, 19 hours, I was just in shock.

WILLIAM ENGLISH, BIKER: When there's tearing me up even worse, not knowing what's happening with my wife.

LAVANDERA: William and Morris English say they went to Twin Peaks for a biker meeting, now they're being questioned in a massive criminal investigation.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: It's more than money?

MORRIS ENGLISH, BIKER: It's one that understand in my head, what did I do wrong, why are we being held like this?

LAVANDERA: But Waco police say few of these bikers were innocent bystanders.

SWANTON: This is a criminal element that came in here and killed people. They're not here to drink beer and eat barbecue, they came with violence in mind.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Sort of weave our way through here, right through here. LAVANDERA: Video and audio clips obtained by CNN capture the chaotic scene inside the convention center as police interrogate biker after biker.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Did you physically yourself see anybody shoot?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: So there was no idea this was all going to happen today.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: No clue.

UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: Do you think anybody knew?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I'm certain they did.

LAVANDERA: Some bikers are belligerent. Other's it seems or in shock.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I rode in with Rick Kirshall he's actually his in the hospital at this moment.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Does he have a nickname?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bear.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Bear?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yes. Could you tell me how he's doing?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Do you want me to tell how he's doing?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: He's dead.

LAVANDERA: The story this biker tells is about his own son.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I shut them off, as soon as the guns stopped, going back because my son was shot in the head bleeding next to me. And I started trying to deal with him.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: OK, and was that one of your brothers?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: My son.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your son?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Your son got shot. I'm sorry man, I did not know.

LAVANDERA: And this man reaches a boiling point.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: I don't have no (inaudible) information.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What's your cell phone number? UNIDENTIFIED MALE: What? Can't call me. I don't understand why my phone is being confiscated when I didn't do nothing?

LAVANDERA: After the interrogation interrogations, a sea of mug shots are released, then bikers are taken to jail and slapped with $1 million bonds.

CLENDENNEN: A million dollar bond. Everybody in the room same thing, you know, and everybody just ...

[21:45:04] LAVANDERA: Did you look around? What was the look on people's faces?

CLENDENNEN: It was just it was silence. Everybody was in shock.

LAVANDERA: Clendennen spent more than two weeks locked up.

CLENDENNEN: I had to post $100,000 bond to get out of here. It is outrageous. There's families that are suffering, there's businesses that are suffering, you know, it is just unreal.

PAUL LOONY, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: What happened in Waco that day is absolutely the most un-American thing I have seen the criminal justice system participate in on American soil ever, anywhere.

LAVANDERA: Defense attorney Paul Loony represents three of the arrested bikers.

LOONY: Everybody in our country is entitled to be looked at individually as to whether or not there is probable cause to believe that they were involved in a crime before they're held in a jail. They didn't do that but yet we're putting them through absolute hell anyway.

HORACE: It seen had to be secured.

LAVANDERA: Former ATF agent Matthew Horace says hell or not, this is how police needed to handle this incident.

HORACE: I think everyone has to understand that once gunfire erupted, this became a crime scene, and anyone who was on that scene became a potential part of the crime, and if it is 20 people, or 200 people or 1,000 people, we will take as long as we have to take to ensure our safety and the public safety.

LAVANDERA: All the bikers are eventually released from jail but almost six months pass before anyone is indicted.

ABEL REYNA, DISTRICT ATTORNEY MCLENNAN COUNTY TEXAS: We're not done. We still have a lot of work to do. We will continue to do that.

LAVANDERA: By March, 2016, nearly a year after the massacre, 154 of the 177 bikers have been indicted by a Waco grand jury on charges of engaging in organized criminal activity. One of those indicted is Cossack, John Wilson.

WILSON: To me it is ridiculous. And I think that these families are being sacrificed for somebody's political gain.

LAVANDERA: All the bikers charged, even if they took cover in the Twin Peaks bathroom face life in prison.

Your theory on what's going on with all of these indictments and all of these cases.

LOONY: Everything they have done has been seemingly peculiar. In fact, I have laughingly called it the book of Waco. If you want to know what's going on in Waco, you got to find a special book that only the Waco people have.

LAVANDERA: Coming up, the war in Waco rages on, what's next, who's to blame?

Do you think police overreacted that day?

PIKE: I think they under reacted, they sat in the shadows with their guns. They say anything different, they're lying.

(COMMERCIAL BREAK)

[21:51:46] LAVANDERA: San Antonio, Texas. This is the epicenter of the fight against the Bandidos. Here federal agents from the DOJ and the FBI have far more on their minds than what happened 200 miles away in Waco.

LOONY: The San Antonio federal prosecution, I believe, is going to be an effort to completely crush criminal behavior from motorcycle clubs.

LAVANDERA: Attorney Paul Loony represents three bikers arrested in Waco.

Do you think any of these Waco biker cases will ever see a Waco courtroom?

LOONY: No, not one. I think that the federal investigators took charge of this on the very first day. Their goal is to maintain the status quo while the federal agencies complete their investigation in the Bandido indictment out of San Antonio.

LAVANDERA: That Bandidos' indictment was underway long before Waco ever happened and likely has a different goal. Loony believes the feds are really after the big guys who called the shots for the Bandidos.

Did you know it was coming?

PIKE: Hell no, I didn't know it was coming. I'm going to wait at the gate.

LAVANDERA Big guys like Bandidos president Jeff Pike. In January, the feds came for Pike in a big way. Torching their way through his front gate in an early morning raid.

They woke you up? PIKE: Yeah, they woke me up. You know, somebody's here! I looked.

LAVANDERA: And what did you see?

PIKE: I saw an army tank looking thing with red and blue lights and I was like, that would be the cops.

LAVANDERA: It was a cavalry of around 20 federal agents.

PIKE: I guess I better get up.

LAVANDERA: That morning, Pike and two Bandidos leaders were indicted. The federal indictment included a wide range of charges, assault, extortion and murder, but no mention of the shoot-out in Waco. Pike pleaded not guilty and is out on bond awaiting trial.

The indictment against you and the others says you guys are extortionists, thieves, murderers.

PIKE: Who'd we kill?

LAVANDERA: Neither Pike nor the two men indicted with him were in Waco that fatal day when nine bikers were killed. Either way, Pike says, the Bandidos didn't start it.

Did the Bandidos declare war on the Cossacks?

PIKE: They asked me that in my interview when they arrested me. And I laughed and I said, how do you do to do that? Do you -- it's an act of Congress to declare war. So, what do we do? Write them a letter or what? I mean, I don't know what they're talking about. Evidently, somebody said it. But it's sure it wasn't me.

CARRIZAL: They were there on a mission for something. And it wasn't good. Who shows up to a Twin Peaks with a piece of chain, with batons, with brass knuckles?

LAVANDERA: Bandido Jake Carrizal was in Waco and in the middle of the brawl.

Do you think they came there to ambush you that day?

CARRIZAL: Without a doubt.

LAVANDERA: Not so, says Dean, a Cossack biker who took a bullet that day. He asked us to hide his identity.

[21:55:03] DEAN: OK, let me say here, Custer got ambushed and all his guys died. We had seven people that died. I wonder who had the most guns. Figure that one out

LAVANDERA: Dean says it was a Bandido who fired the first shot. Carizzal says that's ridiculous.

CARRIZAL: Who would be that dumb to pull out a gun and shoot three times when you're surrounded by 50, 60 guys? That's nonsense. We were ambushed in a war zone.

LAVANDERA: What did these guys die for?

DEAN: Well, from right now, the way Waco looks, it almost looks, it almost looks like stupidity. All I can say is that pride has a lot to do with everything.

LAVANDERA: Investigators continue to piece together how the melee began. The Bandidos and the Cossacks point fingers at each other, but have come together over one thing. Both clubs blame the police for escalating the violence and for killing some of their brothers.

Do you think police overreacted that day?

PIKE: I think they under reacted. They could have one uniformed police officer standing on the sidewalk in front of that place and then nothing would have happened. But they didn't do that. They promoted the confrontation. They got ready to film it. They just sat in the shadows with their guns.

DEAN: Why did you have an armored vehicle there if you weren't going to use the damned thing?

LAVANDERA: As we reported earlier, the Waco Police Department refused to answer any of our questions about their role in the shoot-out, citing a gag order. But former ATF agent Matthew Horace says there was little that cops could do.

HORACE: Biker organizations, the one percenters, have always fought with police. And at the end of the day, more guns in the room don't necessarily make it safer. And more police officers in the room when the shoot-out happens doesn't cause less death. It might cause more death.

LAVANDERA: How many of the Cossacks that were killed that day do you think or believe were killed by law enforcement that were out there?

DEAN: I'm going to say two because of the gun wounds, because of the rapid fire. Everybody in that area had handguns. You're not going to bring an assault rifle hidden under a leather vest. Those were law enforcement guns.

LAVANDERA: Full ballistic reports have not come back. But evidence from the autopsies and firearm analysis shows that some of the dead bikers were hit by 223 caliber ammunition, ammo generally used by police for assault rifles. What's not clear yet is if police gunfire actually killed any bikers.

HORACE: The police organizations on that day were carrying 223 weapons which were standard tactical weapons to be used in situations like that. So, that goes with the territory.

It's pretty clear that some of their officers did hit a number of the bikers. Once things had escalated to a point where lethal force is justified, at that point, all bets are off. LAVANDERA: And all bets are off for the bikers indicted for Waco. One year after the massacre, more than 150 of the 177 arrested bikers have been indicted on charges of engaging an organized criminal activity and could spend the rest of their lives in prison.

But so far, not one murder charge has been filed. Both clubs, the Bandidos and the Cossacks say they're done fighting.

PIKE: I wouldn't doubt if there's going to be anymore problems down the road.

DEAN: Everybody needs to go their separate ways, lick their wounds, learn frit and be better from it.

LAVANDERA: Do you still feel like you have a target on your back?

DEAN: I do. I do.

LAVANDERA: Why is that?

DEAN: For some people, this isn't over.

LAVANDERA: Is it worth it to remain a Cossack and deal with all of that?

DEAN: Yes, yes. For the brotherhood, for the family. We're a motorcycle club. We want to be left alone. We just want to ride and ride in Texas. That's where we're from.

LAVANDERA: So this is your Harley?

PIKE: Well, one of them, yeah.

LAVANDERA: Jeff Pike for the time being says he's officially stepped down as El Presidente of the Bandidos. And you want to see this go to trial?

PIKE: I'm ready to go right now, man. I have done nothing. I am very confident.

LAVANDERA: And confident that federal criminal charges won't keep him or the Bandidos off the country's roadways.

Do you think the feds are using Waco as a way of shutting you guys down?

PIKE: That's impossible. You can't just wipe out a whole organization because you don't like the way they look. They can try. But I don't think it's going to happen.