Waco, Texas, the top two leaders of the Bandidos motorcycle club were found guilty on 13 federal charges. Motorcycle Clubs need to understand this isn’t 1980’s

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By James “Hollywood” Macecari

Pike and Portillo who faced a laundry list of former ex-club members testifying against them were found guilty on 13 charges . Charges that included murder, extortion and Rico Offenses. It’s safe to say they are right now facing life in prison; Which by the looks of it, will be the ultimate outcome for Pike and Portillo.

The guilty verdict was especially stinging to a lot of people because it came on the 3rd anniversary of Twin Peaks. What I find disturbing is not the verdict. But the Media coverage of the trial. The only reports coming out of the trial were from the San Antonio Press and reporter Guillermo Contreras. It wasn’t until the guilty verdicts were announced that the rest of the so-called mainstream media came out and reported anything on the trial.

Motorcycle Clubs should consider this a wake up call

Let’s be honest. This is no longer the hey days of motorcycle clubs. Old school in principle; as a set of ideas might still exist. But clubs might want to rethink the ways they operate. Technology is more sophisticated today then it ever was back then. What people could get away with in the old days are no longer the case. What also changed is the attitudes of people in the biker scene. 1% clubs are genuinely that 1%. The 99% of biker clubs are now bucking the so-called “Protocol Code” clubs use to go by. Before you keyboard warriors start pounding on those keyboards. I don’t have an opinion either way on Protocol. I‘m an independent biker. I’m just stating the obvious what many people are seeing in the club scene.

Many can argue anyone who doesn’t follow protocol is a pop-up club or fake. The problem with that argument is they do not understand the movement going on in the club scene. Look at it from this point of view. There is more people riding motorcycles than ever before. It is right now a mainstream lifestyle. In the old days it wasn’t the case. Only the fringe use to be involved in motorcycle clubs. It’s all changed now. The Pandora box has been opened. Thanks to companies like Harley-Davidson; who were efficient marketing the image and bringing people in who have no idea what the true lifestyle was all about. Things have changed overall in the club scene.

People who come into the lifestyle now have a whole different way of thinking. Most of these people were merely kids or not even born when the lifestyle was in it’s heydays when protocol meant something. It’s also a generational type a deal as well. The more younger generation has a different outlook on what a motorcycle club should or shouldn’t do. The older guys might not like it. But again, evolution is taking place and I don’t see it changing anytime soon.

Bandidos National President Jeffrey Pike, 62, and Vice President Xavier Portillo, 58, were convicted Thursday by a jury in San Antonio after a nearly three-month trial.

Jurors convicted the leaders of the motorcycle organization of racketeering, drug trafficking, conspiracy to commit murder and extortion charges. The men face up to life in prison and will be sentenced later this year. Source CNN

Motorcycle Clubs would profit and grow more evolving with the times.

Personally, writing about the subjects of motorcycle clubs almost on a daily basis I get to see a lot most don’t get to see. I get to have conversations with all kinds of people in the club scene. What is really interesting when I talk to some of these people, especially some of those in the big 1%er clubs, many of them agree times have changed and clubs have to get away from some of the things they did in the past.

What has surprised me when talking to some of the 1%ers was they wanted to get away from the whole territorial crap. Especially when it comes to approving clubs starting up. Here is a quote from someone I had a conversation with who was a 1%er from Ohio. “Why the hell should we keep this push up on clubs being blessed by us? These clubs are doing what the hell they want anyway now. We can’t possibly watch everyone out there. Which by the way, brings nothing but heat on us. After all that Waco shit, why put the club and brothers in jeopardy over a bottom rocker or a new club popping up? Allow them fuckers sink or swim on their own. We have to worry about our own club and keep the Feds off us.”

Insane Throttle Facebook question of the day– Do you agree with the quote above from the 1%er who has over 30 years in one of the biggest dominants in the country?

Feds have 97% Conviction Rate- Two Clubs testing the odds- Kingsmen M/C trial coming to close and Bandidos M/C Pike and Portillo in jury deliberation

https://www.amazon.com/shop/insanethrottle — By making purchases through Insane Throttles Amazon page it helps Insane Throttle get it’s goals achieved to bring even better content

Off the Press from Cnn

(CNN)Three years after the deadly biker gang shootout in the parking lot of a Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, Texas, the top two leaders of the Bandidos motorcycle club were found guilty on 13 federal charges.

Bandidos National President Jeffrey Pike, 62, and Vice President Xavier Portillo, 58, were convicted Thursday by a jury in San Antonio after a nearly three-month trial.

Jurors convicted the leaders of the motorcycle organization of racketeering, drug trafficking, conspiracy to commit murder and extortion charges. The men face up to life in prison and will be sentenced later this year.

Prosecutors have dismissed dozens of criminal cases against other bikers who were at the deadly Twin Peaks shootout in May 2015.

McLennan District Attorney Abel Reyna decided hours after the shootout to round up all the bikers and charge them with the same criminal count of engaging in organized criminal activity. But that strategy now seems to be unraveling.

Since February, the district attorney has dismissed criminal charges against 124 bikers. On May 9, a McLennan grand jury re-indicted 25 bikers who were at the shootout.

Among the new indictments were three murder charges against Bandidos bikers, as well as charges of tampering with evidence and engaging in first- and second-degree riot.

The federal investigation into the Bandidos leadership was not part of the Waco shootout investigation. The Federal Bureau of Investigation was already working with the Drug Enforcement Agency, building its case against the outlaw motorcycle gang.

The Twin Peaks shootout was the violent ending to a boiling feud between the Bandidos and the Cossacks biker clubs. Cossacks bikers have told CNN that they came to the Twin Peaks to make peace. The Bandidos say the Cossacks showed up in massive numbers that morning to ambush them.

Nine people were killed and dozens more injured and wounded on that Sunday morning. Investigators carried out an unprecedented roundup and charged 177 bikers.

The handling of the Waco shootout cases has been highly controversial and described as “embarrassing” and a “frontal assault” on the biker’s rights.

USA Based Motorcycle Clubs kicking out or shutting down chapters overseas. Was it smart expanding into different countries in the first place?

“This incident serves as an abject lesson to prosecutors that, in America, you are supposed to investigate first and charge later; not the other way around,” attorney Clint Broden, who represented three bikers, said in a statement.

The federal case against the Bandidos leaders has loomed heavily over the Waco prosecution. Federal prosecutors alleged that Pike and Portillo sanctioned years of violence against rival biker gangs in order “to protect the power, reputation and territory of the Bandidos enterprise.”

Prosecutors also argued that Pike approved a declaration of war on the Cossacks biker club that ultimately led to carnage at Twin Peaks.

“This effort demonstrates our ongoing commitment to prevent gang violence and criminal activity from poisoning our communities. It also sends a clear message that we will relentlessly pursue and prosecute the leaders and members of these violent criminal enterprises,” FBI Special Agent in Charge Christopher Combs said in a statement after the verdict.

Pike, the national president of the Bandidos from 2005 to 2016, was featured exclusively in the CNN documentary “Biker Brawl: Inside the Texas Shootout.” In the CNN interview, Pike, who was not at the Twin Peaks during the shootout, dismissed the accusations of declaring war on the Cossacks with a laugh and said he had not committed a crime in decades.

“They (investigators) asked me that in my interview when they arrested me,” Pike told CNN. “I laughed and I said, ‘How do you do that? It’s an act of Congress to declare war. Do we write them a letter or what?'”

Pike had stepped down as national president shortly before the CNN interview.

In November, the only Waco case that has gone to a jury ended in a dramatic mistrial. The jury could not reach a unanimous verdict in the case of Jake Carrizal, the president of the Dallas Bandidos chapter.

Carrizal was one of the first Bandidos bikers to arrive at the Twin Peaks restaurant and was in the middle of the fight.

“They weren’t there to chit-chat. They were on a mission. They were there to confront us,” Carrizal told CNN for the documentary. “They were attacking. And I was fighting for my life.”

Carrizal is one of the Bandidos bikers who has been re-indicted by a McLennan grand jury and now faces a first-degree riot charge. He faces up to life in prison. His new trial is still pending.

The Bandidos are considered part of the 1% outlaw biker world. It’s a label that has repeatedly made the club’s members targets of law enforcement investigators.

Law enforcement investigators say 1% clubs, especially the Bandidos, operate as criminal street gangs and live “to instill fear and intimidation” in their rivals.