Surveillance video acquired Thursday by NBC DFW shows the bloody shootout between biker clubs and Waco police officers that left nine people dead and injured 18 at a Waco Twin Peaks restaurant in May.
The video, which has no audio, shows members of the Cossacks Motorcycle Club gathering on the patio as several men begin fighting in the parking lot. It was previously reported that a member of the Bandidos Motorcycle Club drove over the foot of a rival club member, quickly escalating tensions at the gathering.
Moments later, while most people on the patio begin to clear out, others pull out firearms and choose to stand their ground. In the chaos, a man can be seen running from the parking lot onto the far side of the patio while indiscriminately firing a gun behind him.
A short time later, a man with a bloody face and chest can be seen running from the patio, desperately searching for cover, while others crawled to safety.
NBC 5 previously reported the Bandidos were upset at the Cossacks for wearing a Texas insignia on their jackets and planned a meeting with other biker groups in Waco, police said. The Cossacks, who threatened that Waco was their town, were reportedly not invited to the gathering but showed up anyway, taking over parts of the Twin Peaks restaurant and lining the parking lot with lookouts.
The Associated Press said the video and photographs were included in the same cache of evidence reviewed by the AP and described in a story published Sept. 18. The AP chose not to distribute the footage.
The surveillance video was first published Thursday by CNN and credited to the Waco Police Department. The Waco Police Department, however, told NBC 5 Thursday they remain under a gag order and did not release the surveillance video to anyone in the media.
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Authorities told NBC News that whoever made the video clip public could be "subject to ethical and legal issues."
Earlier this summer the Bandidos Motorcycle Club demanded Waco police release dashcam and surveillance video of the shootout, along with autopsy reports for those killed in the bloody melee.
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Lawyers for the biker clubs, who have copies of the video for trial purposes, also said they did not release the video.
After the shootout, Waco police officers recovered 480 weapons and detained 239 people. Of those detained, 177 were arrested and held on $1 million bond, accused of engaging in organized criminal activity.
Lawsuits filed on behalf of some of the club members are ongoing — none of the 177 arrested were ever indicted. Meanwhile, a grand jury was set earlier this month to consider the cases of those arrested.
"I think the Waco police went wrong when there was the mass arrest," said Dallas attorney Susan Anderson represents one of the 177 people arrested that day.
Anderson said she wanted to make one thing clear – that many of the bikers at the restaurant had nothing to do with the shooting.
"You have to have just cause in order to arrest, not 'just [because],'" said Anderson. "And it seems there was a lot of 'just [because]' going on at Twin Peaks that day. They arrested just [because] they were there."
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