WACO, Texas – The jury has reportedly deadlocked in the trial of the 2015 Texas biker gang gunfight, which promoted the judge to declare a mistrial, according to the Associated Press.
The shootout on May 17, 2015 left nine bikers dead and 20 wounded at the Twin Peaks restaurant off of Interstate 35. The incident began when dozens of armed bikers from the Cossacks motorcycle club confronted the most powerful motorcycle gang in Texas, the Bandidos.
State District Judge Matt Johnson ended the trial Friday of Christopher "Jake" Carrizal after McLennan County jurors said they were hopelessly deadlocked. They had deliberated for 14 hours in the first trial.
Carrizal, president of the Bandidos' Dallas chapter, was charged with directing the activities of a criminal street gang and two counts of engaging in organized criminal activity with the underlying offenses of murder and aggravated assault.
The mistrial leaves unclear the prospects faced by other defendants charged in the shootout. Experts had been looking toward a verdict from the Carrizal trial as an indicator of how solid the government's cases against other leaders and dozens of members might be.
Investigators say the fight poured out into the parking lot as 16 police officers, 11 SWAT members and seven state police officers responded with rifle fire.
When the first Bandidos rolled in, "the Cossacks began coming off the patio. You could see the tension building up instantly," Waco Police Detective Jeff Rogers said in an affidavit that is part of a trove of evidence provided to The Associated Press.
A SWAT officer claims he saw a biker fire first, but evidence isn't clear who started the deadliest biker shootout in U.S. history. Police bullets struck four bikers, killing at least two of them.
Officers arrested 177 bikers and state authorities indicted 154. Prosecutors gave evidence to the lawyers representing the bikers showing that local and state authorities had overwhelming intelligence that violence was likely and did little in advance to prevent the meeting.
The evidence also shows that the Texas Department of Public Safety, which was investigating biker gangs, met three times with Waco police in advance of the Twin Peaks meeting and had "contingency plans," although the document simply called on officers to follow department policy before firing.
The shooting lasted just three minutes but left a scene of carnage.
No retrial was immediately scheduled.