(NEWSWEEK)Video footage and photographs have surfaced that appear to show the inside of a restaurant in Waco, Texas, during a motorcycle-clu...
The material, along with more than 2,000 pages of documents, was obtained by CNN. The footage appears to show the shootout on May 17 between rival biker gangs at the Twin Peaks restaurant. It allegedly involved the Bandidos and Cossacks clubs.
Authorities continue to investigate what happened as bikers gathered for a regularly scheduled meeting that eventually led to the shooting. Nine people died and more than a dozen others were injured.
Neither the Waco Police Department nor the McLennan County District Attorney's Office released the material to the media, Sergeant Patrick Swanton said Thursday in a Facebook post. The department remains under a judge's gag order, which restricts officials from releasing additional information about the investigation.
"CNN has stated that 'they' put the Waco Police Department graphic at the top of the video which indicated we released it,” he said. “Again, we did not. They have now removed that graphic as the video is not attributed to us and CNN is in the process of updating their sites." Swanton added that only a small group of individuals, including defense attorneys, had access to the information.
Warning: graphic content The video shows the restaurant patio filled with members of the Cossacks club, who had been at the restaurant for more than an hour before the Bandidos arrived, according to CNN. The Cossacks reportedly believed the Bandidos ran into one of their members, which instigated the fight. But it remains unclear who fired first.
The footage appears to reveal how quickly the patio descended into chaos as restaurant staff and patrons run out of the area. As several Cossacks bikers are seen taking cover and then crawling on the floor of the patio, others quickly walk sideways while pointing guns into the air. One biker climbs over a fence onto the patio.
In the video, a biker running across the patio fires a gunshot toward the fight scene in the parking lot. At one point, the footage shows a man with a bloody face.
Bikers hid in other areas of the restaurant, including the kitchen and bathrooms, until the fight ended. Officials recovered more than 150 weapons from the scene, including guns, knives and brass knuckles. Some of the weapons were recovered from toilets.
The photos—many of them deemed too graphic to show by CNN—revealed bodies scattered throughout the parking lot.
Police arrested 177 bikers and charged them with organized criminal activity. In the more than five months since the incident, all of the bikers have been released on bond. Some of the material is evidence a Texas grand jury is using to determine whether to indict the individuals. No one has been indicted or charged with murder.
Shortly after the incident, a representative of the Twin Peaks franchise presented the Associated Press exclusively with video footage that showed just one of the dozens of bikers recorded firing a gun from the patio.
Defense attorneys argue that many of the bikers arrested were innocent bystanders. But the police remain firm in their decision to arrest the individuals.
"They're not here to drink beer and eat barbecue," Swanton told CNN on May 18. "They came with violence in mind and were ready for it."
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