Escalating tensions had also drawn the attention of the Texas Department of Public Safety. Two months before the Waco shootings, a warning went out from the Texas Joint Crime Information Center, an intelligence entity run by DPS. The bulletin outlined an incident that occurred in the town of Lorena, just 15 minutes south of Waco. There, a gang of up to 10 Cossacks armed with a chain, a baton and a metal pipe had beaten a Bandidos member and stolen his bike.

The bulletin also noted that on the same day, 150 miles north in Palo Pinto County, a group wearing the Bandidos’ colors (red and gold) hit a Cossacks member in the head with a hammer for refusing to remove a Texas patch from his vest. The right to wear the patch was reserved for Bandidos and their affiliates. The bulletin ended on a note of caution, saying the Cossacks were attempting to get national recognition as a club, and that tensions could “escalate at any time” between them and the Bandidos.

But despite warnings of impending violence and the potential for loss of life, it appears that police didn’t take steps to intervene. In fact, a series of text messages obtained by the Texas Standard, that were sent nearly an hour before the shooting shows that law enforcement may have ignored signs that a violent confrontation was on the horizon.

Michael Lynch was at Twin Peaks on May 17. He belongs to a local motorcycle club known as the Los Pirados. A Waco-area plumber, Lynch had done contracting work for McLennan County Constable Walt Strickland. Before the shooting started, Lynch sent a message asking Strickland to call him immediately, saying there was a “bad situation” with a large number of Cossacks and Bandidos pouring into the restaurant.





Strickland responded that he notified the Waco police department, and was told police were “unaware” of any problems at Twin Peaks. It’s unclear whether that information was relayed through the proper departmental channels, or if certain parts of the department were unaware of an undercover police presence on the scene.

But emails, operations orders and notes would show that police were already conducting a long-orchestrated surveillance operation that had already unearthed several warning signs.

Michael’s wife Sandra, who was also there that day, confirms the messages were sent. Sandra Lynch, who regularly attends biker gatherings on weekends, was setting up a table to sell t-shirts and merchandise at Twin Peaks. She says that soon after she set up shop, about 75 Cossacks entered the restaurant. Lynch said she tried to stop them from entering but she was unsuccessful.

“After they got off their bikes, about six to eight surrounded me, yelled at me for getting in their way, kicked me, spit on me, call me a c***,” she says. “I looked around for a policeman and thought to myself, ‘Where is a cop when you need one?’”

Lynch said she and her husband reached out to the constable after Michael arrived. “Walt called him back and told him that Waco [police] said it was all taken care of, they said it was under control,” Lynch says.

Moments later, gunfire erupted, leaving nine people dead and 18 wounded.

Lynch was separated from her husband during the barrage. “It felt like I was in Afghanistan,” she says. “It felt like I was in a war.”

Both Michael and Sandra Lynch, along with nearly 200 others, were rounded up and arrested. Charges for both of them would eventually be dropped. Sandra Lynch questions whether law enforcement could have intervened beforehand. That’s a question another law enforcement entity may have wondered about as well.

Kept in the dark, the TABC said “communication had broken down.”

The Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission is a law enforcement entity with jurisdiction over all matters related to alcohol sales. In the weeks before the shootings, the agency had been made aware the Waco Twin Peaks restaurant was frequented by Bandidos, and that management had grown “uncooperative” with police, according to internal notes.

The TABC could have been a natural partner with the Waco Police Department – but instead the agency was kept out of the loop.

In internal communications, the TABC highlighted its previous working relationship with the police department, which included working in parallel, to monitor previous biker nights at the same Twin Peaks location. But while the department had previously told the agency about the increased Bandidos presence at the restaurant, no mention was ever made of the impending mid-May gathering. The police department took a more administrative route initially; one Waco officer requested TABC assistance in contacting Twin Peaks’ corporate office about the growing biker presence there. But the agency lost track of whether that phone call ever happened. Even so, there was very little the TABC could do, as they noted, “there are no violations committed for allowing motorcycle clubs … inside their business.”