Waco shootout: who are the Bandidos motorcycle gang?

[umbertino]

The Texas-based group has 900 members across the US but one expert says that contrary to their ‘lovable outlaw’ image they are a serious criminal organisation

 

 

Raya Jalabi in New York

@rayajalabi

 

Monday 18 May 2015 18.45 BST

 

 

 

“We’re the people your parents warned you about,” reads an old Bandidos motto.

 

After the biker gang was one of five involved in a shootout in Waco, Texas, which left nine dead and 18 injured on Sunday, your parents are probably not the only people warning you to steer clear of the Bandidos’ path.

 

The shootout, which began shortly after midday in a shopping center, involved 200 gang members, nearly 100 weapons – including guns and knives – and hundreds of shell casings left behind on the blood-stained parking lot floor.

 

Though police aren’t specifically naming the groups involved, the McLennan county sheriff, Parnell McNamara, whose office is involved in the investigation, said all nine who were killed were members of either the Bandidos or the Cossacks gangs.

 

“Bandidos pride themselves on being the baddest of the bad,” Julian Sher, an investigative journalist who has written several books on biker gangs, told the Guardian.

 

In the Waco brawl, the Bandidos are the most important criminal outfit, he said, with the other members local small fry who are “very meaningless on a global scale”. In photographs of the arrests, men could be seen wearing uniforms of the Bandidos, Cossacks and Scimitars biker gangs.

 

The Bandidos Motorcycle Club is considered one of the world’s largest biker gangs, with as many as 2,500 members in 13 countries, according to the US Department of Justice. They are second only to the more renowned Hells Angels in terms of their power, global reach and levels of violence.

 

In a 2014 gang threat assessment, the Texas department of public safety classified the group as a “Tier 2 threat”, the second highest. This gives the group a similar ranking to the Bloods, Crips and Aryan Brotherhood, who the report says are collectively “responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime across urban, suburban and rural areas of Texas”.

 

The US DoJ considers the Bandidos – with their 900 US members belonging to roughly 93 chapters – to be a growing criminal threat to US law enforcement, as the gang continues to actively expand, by allowing supporting clubs and members to swear allegiance to the Bandidos mother club.

 

According to Steve Cook, a Kansas City law enforcement officer who says he worked undercover in a motorcycle gang in the early 2000s, Texas is an emerging battleground for outlaw motorcycle gangs.

 

“We were pretty certain that some kind of incident was on the horizon,” Cook told Vox. Cook, the executive director of the Midwest Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Investigators Association, is due to hold a conference on Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs for local police in Waco next month.

 

The Bandidos originated in Texas, and have always been a Texas-based outfit, Sher said. According to Bandidos lore, the group was founded in March 1966 by Donald Chambers, a 36-year-old working on the docks in Houston, who grew bored of various Houston-area motorcycle clubs.

 

According to one of his first recruits, Chambers “wanted the badass bikers who cared about nothing except riding full time on their Harley-Davidsons. He wanted bikers who lived only for the open road. No rules, no bullshit, just the open road.”

 

In the decades immediately after the second world war, motorcycle clubs and gangs were seen as an informal means for disaffected young men to combat war trauma and alienation from the countries they left behind, according to William L Dulaney in the International Journal of Motorcycle Studies.

 

Motorcycle clubs and biker gangs have been accused of flouting laws since at least 1947, when 4,000 motorcyclists flocked to Hollister, California, and were found to be drunk and disorderly, gaining national attention. The Hells Angels were founded one year later.

 

The founding ethos of the gang may have been, “just the open road”, but the Bandidos have grown into one of the largest domestic crime syndicates in the US. Bandidos are involved in transporting and distributing cocaine and marijuana, according to the DoJ, and are involved in the production, transportation and distribution of methamphetamine. A 2013 FBI report linked the Bandidos to Los Zetas, the notorious Mexican cartel.

 

The Waco shootout is but the latest in a long list of public violence involving biker gangs. Don Chambers was arrested in 1972 alongside two other Bandidos for killing two drug dealers in El Paso. He was sentenced to two consecutive life sentences, as part of a wave of imprisonments of bike gang leaders in the 1970s.

 

But the past three decades have seen bursts of biker gang violence. Almost every major bike war involved the Bandidos. More than 160 people were killed over several years in the Quebec biker war of the late 1990s and 2000s, and in the Great Nordic war of the mid-1990s, in which Hells Angels fought Bandidos in Scandinavia, 12 people were killed and hundreds injured. A violent shootout in Australia, which came to be known as the Milperra Massacre, killed seven and wounded 28 near Sydney in 1984.

 

The Waco incident will not tarnish their image, Sher said. It might even help bolster their recruitment. According to Sher, the Bandidos’ recruits, like other similar biker gangs, are young men (women are barred) in their 20s, who are mostly white and often racist.

 

“If you join the Bandidos, even if you’re not a criminal, you’re going to be hanging out with criminals,” said Sher. “It’s a criminal network.”

 

Though gang leaders routinely got arrested, biker gangs, unlike the mafia, did not have a pyramid structure, Sher said. “They have leaders but each chapter is very autonomous. The shooting won’t affect other chapters around the country or the world.”

 

He added: “Bandidos are calling themselves bandits. They saw the Hells Angels as ‘too soft’. They are criminals and we should be taking people for what they are.”

 

Sher decried a certain “romantic appeal” that seemingly imbues popular American perceptions of biker gangs, particularly in movies and television. From the 1953 Marlon Brandon film The Wild One to Sons of Anarchy, a hugely popular television show which centers on a California motorcycle club, motorcycle gangs have long been a part of the American cinematic landscape.

 

“Bikers fit into the narrative of the ‘lovable outlaw’, the Clint Eastwood loner or rebel, the Easy Rider,” Sher said. “It’s a big part of the American tradition. Whereas in Europe and Canada, bikers are seen as criminals, in the US, they are seen as rebels who are occasionally involved in criminality.”

 

But “biker gangs are America’s crime export to the world”, Sher said.

 

The Bandidos did not immediately return a request for comment.

 

 

A member of the Bandidos motorcycle gang, who pride themselves on being the ‘baddest of the bad’. Photograph: Dean Lewins/AAP

 

 

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/18/bandidos-motorcycle-gang-bad-boy-reputation-waco-shootout

 

[MyLadiesDaddy]

Who are they?

a bunch of low life scumbag thugs.

[bigwave]

"thugs"

 

You said a bad word.lolol

[Whatshername]

I'm kinda of the opinion that if thugs want to kill each other... Let them!

[SnowGlobe7]

I was so alarmed a few months back when I was running errands and I was a moguls biker with the rocker of TULSA on his vest!

 

So I came home and googled it...THEY HAVE THEIR OWN WEBSITES!!!

 

http://mongolsmc.com/chapters/usa/oklahoma

 

I was in shock. 

[dog53]

For every 1 outlaw biker club there`s probably 20 clubs that are legit non criminal and do good things for their community. I know of at least 5 in my area.

Some old vets. some new vets. Dress like any other bikers but nothing to be afraid of.  More media Hype lets turn on every biker you see now.

 

Never judge a book by its cover.  

[SnowGlobe7]

Hey I am with you Dog...My Papa is a patch holder in one.  They have his back..and I am glad for it. They have helped one another like families used to back in the day...help with medical bills,  help repairing homes after tornados ect.

 

I was just shocked at the large ones...know for being outlaws...that have websites..recruit on the internet, post pictures ect.

[easy]

For every 1 outlaw biker club there`s probably 20 clubs that are legit non criminal and do good things for their community. I know of at least 5 in my area.

Some old vets. some new vets. Dress like any other bikers but nothing to be afraid of.  More media Hype lets turn on every biker you see now.

 

Never judge a book by its cover.  

 Agreed dog, been riding 35+ years, know people on both sides of the fence. I have more trust in some of the bikers I know, than people I know at church.

[RodandStaff]

After attending a biker church for a few years I would agree with Dog and easy...some of the kindest, biggest hearted, generous folks I've ever met wear leather and are covered in tattoo's!!! Yup...there are those who really are bad arss...but for the most part if you wanna find someone who understands being misunderstood or being looked down on...bikers are your best bet!!! ;o)

[Markinsa]

Outlaw biker gangs like those in Waco shootout prize ‘1 percenter’ status

 

 

 

Among the patches worn by a Bandidos gang member is one identifying him as a “1 percenter” — as opposed to the law-abiding 99 percent of motorcyclists.

 

By TRISTAN HALLMAN thallman@dallasnews.com

Staff Writer

Published: 18 May 2015 11:19 PM

Updated: 18 May 2015 11:50 PM

 

They are the “1 percent” — not the wealthy Wall Street types in pressed suits, but tattooed biker gang members who consider themselves above the law and out of touch with the 99 percent of law-abiding motorcyclists.

 

And they prefer to be called “1 percenters,” not gangs, experts say.

 

“It’s the same reason a burglar doesn’t want to be called a burglar or a rapist doesn’t want to be called a rapist,” said Greg Knox, director of the National Gang Crime Research Center in Illinois.

 

But they are undoubtedly criminals, Knox and other experts say. They are major players in drugs, theft, vice, prostitution and extortion, and they are far more organized than the average street corner gangs.

 

Law enforcement officials and experts say the eruption of violence that left nine bikers dead Sunday at a Waco restaurant underscored the territorial disputes that pop up between outlaw motorcycle groups. In this case, it was the Bandidos, a nationally known group, and the Cossacks, a smaller one that appears to be trying to stake its own claim to Texas.

 

“There’s been trouble brewing between these biker gangs for a long time and it appeared to boil over,” McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara said.

 

Attacks on rivals

 

Waco police spokesman W. Patrick Swanton said the Cossacks have some reach throughout the state. But they are the smaller group.

 

The Bandidos, however, run the state within the biker gang subculture. The FBI recognizes them as one of the biggest outlaw biker gangs in the country. The Texas Department of Public Safety considers the gang among a select few criminal groups that are “responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime across urban, suburban and rural areas of Texas.”

 

The Bandidos have been involved in several attacks against some rivals recently in and around North Texas, and experts say the violence has been racheting up as the Bandidos try to hold territory.

 

A Bandido leader was arrested in 2013 in Abilene in connection with the fatal stabbing of a Cossacks gang member there.

 

On Dec. 13, 10 Bandidos burst into Gator’s bar in Fort Worth and “without saying a word started punching and attacking” members of another motorcycle gang, according to arrest affidavits obtained by KXAS-TV (NBC5). Three men were charged with murder after a biker was shot and killed in the scuffle. Other Bandidos allegedly attacked a rival biker at a Toys for Tots event in Decatur that month, but no charges were filed.

 

Experts said the Bandidos are intolerant of other gangs.

 

They’re protective of their criminal enterprises, such as providing security, and extort business owners and people living on the fringes of society. They’ve been known to associate with drug cartels and to manufacture their own drugs, such as methamphetamine and marijuana. They have drug distribution networks. They might be involved in vice industries such as strip clubs and in sex trafficking.

 

The Bandidos have a military-like structure that differentiates them from the average street gang. And they are, of course, more mobile, said Greg Gullion, a Texas Wesleyan University criminal justice professor. Gullion, who researched Los Angeles street gangs in the 1990s, said the gangs are much more about laying claim to cities and counties and states than to street corners.

 

“I talked to members of the Bloods and Crips, and they had never even left their block. These guys were in their late 20s,” he said. “If they go into the next block to a gas station, they might get shot.”

 

Law enforcement agencies received a state law-enforcement bulletin within the last few weeks warning that the Cossacks and Bandidos were in a dispute over territory and dues, and disputes between them could turn violent.

 

Knox, the Illinois gang researcher, said dues or other quid pro quo to one of the larger groups is a necessity for any motorcycle group that wants to be known as a “1 percenter.”

 

“You have to go through one of the big names that operates in your area of jurisdiction,” Knox said. “If you don’t, they will shut you down.”

 

Term’s origin?

 

Through folklore, the term “1 percenter” came out of comments often attributed to the American Motorcyclist Association after a 1947 riot in Hollister, Calif. The group supposedly claimed that 99 percent of motorcyclists are law-abiding hobbyists. The other groups, such as the Bandidos and Hell’s Angels, claimed themselves as the 1 percent.

 

But Peter terHorst, the association’s spokesman, said Monday that there is no evidence the association ever said anything to suggest 1 percent of motorcyclists are criminals.

 

“I think it’s far less than 1 percent, myself,” terHorst said. “But it only takes one or two to color the perceptions of the general public.”

 

TerHorst said the motorcyclist association has 215,000 members, and that they don’t associate with the outlaw groups. Members might be in clubs for social reasons or to help with public safety. The only bond they share with outlaw bikers is that they like motorcycles, he said.

 

“It’s unfortunate, any time a mode of transportation is used to profile anyone,” terHorst said.

 

James Quinn, a University of North Texas professor who has studied biker gangs, said the motorcycle gangs began to come about after World War II. Disaffected veterans found solace in the camaraderie and excitement of the biker gangs. But he said bikers now come from a variety of backgrounds, making a profile difficult.

 

The outlaw groups often have “1 percenter” patches, and wear three other patches on the backs of their vests: one for the group’s name, one for the group’s logo and a third “rocker” for their territory. The 99 percenters aren’t likely to have that getup.

 

The Cossacks were seen Sunday wearing vests with “Texas” on their vests — effectively a claim that the entire state is their territory. That could be seen as disrespectful and competitive with the Bandidos, experts said.

 

“Claiming territory is something that is taken very seriously,” Quinn said.

 

Still, the threat to the average citizen in any territory is minimal, Quinn said. The gangs usually don’t target nonbikers at random.

 

“If you’re not involved in the kinds of activities they’re interested in, they don’t really want anything to do with you,” Quinn said.

 

Dallas Assistant Chief Cynthia Villarreal said police here are “always going to be on our high-alert status on a situation like this,” but other biker gangs have been low key in Dallas in her 40 years with the department. Two bikers were killed in a biker gang shooting in March in South Dallas. Both had criminal histories, and no civilians were hurt.

 

However, Gullion, the Texas Wesleyan professor, said he isn’t so sure that the gangs don’t pose a threat. Anyone sitting in the Waco restaurant Sunday could have been caught in the crossfire of an apparent turf war, he said.

 

“A lot of bad things could’ve happened,” Gullion said. “It’s a miracle that an innocent person wasn’t shot.”

 

Staff writer Naomi Martin in Waco contributed to this report.

 

---

 

I learned from someone that a Gang Member with a 1% Patch has actually killed someone...  

[easy]

 

Outlaw biker gangs like those in Waco shootout prize ‘1 percenter’ status

 

 

 

Among the patches worn by a Bandidos gang member is one identifying him as a “1 percenter” — as opposed to the law-abiding 99 percent of motorcyclists.

 

By TRISTAN HALLMAN thallman@dallasnews.com

Staff Writer

Published: 18 May 2015 11:19 PM

Updated: 18 May 2015 11:50 PM

 

They are the “1 percent” — not the wealthy Wall Street types in pressed suits, but tattooed biker gang members who consider themselves above the law and out of touch with the 99 percent of law-abiding motorcyclists.

 

And they prefer to be called “1 percenters,” not gangs, experts say.

 

“It’s the same reason a burglar doesn’t want to be called a burglar or a rapist doesn’t want to be called a rapist,” said Greg Knox, director of the National Gang Crime Research Center in Illinois.

 

But they are undoubtedly criminals, Knox and other experts say. They are major players in drugs, theft, vice, prostitution and extortion, and they are far more organized than the average street corner gangs.

 

Law enforcement officials and experts say the eruption of violence that left nine bikers dead Sunday at a Waco restaurant underscored the territorial disputes that pop up between outlaw motorcycle groups. In this case, it was the Bandidos, a nationally known group, and the Cossacks, a smaller one that appears to be trying to stake its own claim to Texas.

 

“There’s been trouble brewing between these biker gangs for a long time and it appeared to boil over,” McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara said.

 

Attacks on rivals

 

Waco police spokesman W. Patrick Swanton said the Cossacks have some reach throughout the state. But they are the smaller group.

 

The Bandidos, however, run the state within the biker gang subculture. The FBI recognizes them as one of the biggest outlaw biker gangs in the country. The Texas Department of Public Safety considers the gang among a select few criminal groups that are “responsible for a disproportionate amount of crime across urban, suburban and rural areas of Texas.”

 

The Bandidos have been involved in several attacks against some rivals recently in and around North Texas, and experts say the violence has been racheting up as the Bandidos try to hold territory.

 

A Bandido leader was arrested in 2013 in Abilene in connection with the fatal stabbing of a Cossacks gang member there.

 

On Dec. 13, 10 Bandidos burst into Gator’s bar in Fort Worth and “without saying a word started punching and attacking” members of another motorcycle gang, according to arrest affidavits obtained by KXAS-TV (NBC5). Three men were charged with murder after a biker was shot and killed in the scuffle. Other Bandidos allegedly attacked a rival biker at a Toys for Tots event in Decatur that month, but no charges were filed.

 

Experts said the Bandidos are intolerant of other gangs.

 

They’re protective of their criminal enterprises, such as providing security, and extort business owners and people living on the fringes of society. They’ve been known to associate with drug cartels and to manufacture their own drugs, such as methamphetamine and marijuana. They have drug distribution networks. They might be involved in vice industries such as strip clubs and in sex trafficking.

 

The Bandidos have a military-like structure that differentiates them from the average street gang. And they are, of course, more mobile, said Greg Gullion, a Texas Wesleyan University criminal justice professor. Gullion, who researched Los Angeles street gangs in the 1990s, said the gangs are much more about laying claim to cities and counties and states than to street corners.

 

“I talked to members of the Bloods and Crips, and they had never even left their block. These guys were in their late 20s,” he said. “If they go into the next block to a gas station, they might get shot.”

 

Law enforcement agencies received a state law-enforcement bulletin within the last few weeks warning that the Cossacks and Bandidos were in a dispute over territory and dues, and disputes between them could turn violent.

 

Knox, the Illinois gang researcher, said dues or other quid pro quo to one of the larger groups is a necessity for any motorcycle group that wants to be known as a “1 percenter.”

 

“You have to go through one of the big names that operates in your area of jurisdiction,” Knox said. “If you don’t, they will shut you down.”

 

Term’s origin?

 

Through folklore, the term “1 percenter” came out of comments often attributed to the American Motorcyclist Association after a 1947 riot in Hollister, Calif. The group supposedly claimed that 99 percent of motorcyclists are law-abiding hobbyists. The other groups, such as the Bandidos and Hell’s Angels, claimed themselves as the 1 percent.

 

But Peter terHorst, the association’s spokesman, said Monday that there is no evidence the association ever said anything to suggest 1 percent of motorcyclists are criminals.

 

“I think it’s far less than 1 percent, myself,” terHorst said. “But it only takes one or two to color the perceptions of the general public.”

 

TerHorst said the motorcyclist association has 215,000 members, and that they don’t associate with the outlaw groups. Members might be in clubs for social reasons or to help with public safety. The only bond they share with outlaw bikers is that they like motorcycles, he said.

 

“It’s unfortunate, any time a mode of transportation is used to profile anyone,” terHorst said.

 

James Quinn, a University of North Texas professor who has studied biker gangs, said the motorcycle gangs began to come about after World War II. Disaffected veterans found solace in the camaraderie and excitement of the biker gangs. But he said bikers now come from a variety of backgrounds, making a profile difficult.

 

The outlaw groups often have “1 percenter” patches, and wear three other patches on the backs of their vests: one for the group’s name, one for the group’s logo and a third “rocker” for their territory. The 99 percenters aren’t likely to have that getup.

 

The Cossacks were seen Sunday wearing vests with “Texas” on their vests — effectively a claim that the entire state is their territory. That could be seen as disrespectful and competitive with the Bandidos, experts said.

 

“Claiming territory is something that is taken very seriously,” Quinn said.

 

Still, the threat to the average citizen in any territory is minimal, Quinn said. The gangs usually don’t target nonbikers at random.

 

“If you’re not involved in the kinds of activities they’re interested in, they don’t really want anything to do with you,” Quinn said.

 

Dallas Assistant Chief Cynthia Villarreal said police here are “always going to be on our high-alert status on a situation like this,” but other biker gangs have been low key in Dallas in her 40 years with the department. Two bikers were killed in a biker gang shooting in March in South Dallas. Both had criminal histories, and no civilians were hurt.

 

However, Gullion, the Texas Wesleyan professor, said he isn’t so sure that the gangs don’t pose a threat. Anyone sitting in the Waco restaurant Sunday could have been caught in the crossfire of an apparent turf war, he said.

 

“A lot of bad things could’ve happened,” Gullion said. “It’s a miracle that an innocent person wasn’t shot.”

 

Staff writer Naomi Martin in Waco contributed to this report.

 

---

 

I learned from someone that a Gang Member with a 1% Patch has actually killed someone.

Are you saying to wear the 1% patch  means they had to kill someone? If so, that is not true. I have been in a motorcycle ministry for years, and Know members from all of the large "clubs" Banditos included. If i misunderstood the remark, please except my apology, the 1%er patch basically means they don"t conform to AMA standards.

Edited May 20, 2015 by easy

[Ricksterman]

Your right Easy,  I have been a biker all my life.  There is lots of untruth in the news and what many of uninformed people are saying.  I am a 2 piece patch holder BFC MM.  I minister to many patch holder 1% and other MC's.  Most of your big MC's which are mentioned here are apart of the COC&I (Collation Of Clubs and Independents) and are for legislation.  Go to txcocinews.org or texasbikerrider.org and please hear our side.  There are 170 people being held on a million dollar bail that are innocent bystanders.  There lives are being ruined because of a few, our government and the news. 

You give them respect they will give you respect.

[bohica]

There are more good bikers than bad.  Most I have seen are teddy bears once you get past the prickly outside coating.