Among the many unanswered questions surrounding the deadly shootout between cops and Texas biker gangs is who fired the fatal shots.
Some of them may have come from police. A Waco police spokesman acknowledged as much on Tuesday, when he said that three or four police officers were believed to have joined Sunday afternoon's firefight — sparked by a brawl between rival gang members at a Twin Peaks sports bar in the central Texas city.
But that will be impossible to determine until the autopsies of the nine dead gang members are finished, and investigators are able to compare bullets to guns, Waco Police Sgt. Patrick Swanton told reporters.
The Waco Justice of the Peace later Tuesday released the names of the nine dead as Richard Vincent Kirshner Jr., 47; Jacob Lee Rhyne, 39; Wayne Lee Campbell, 43; Daniel Raymond Boyett, 44; Charles Wayne Russell, 46; Jesus Delgado Rodriguez, 65; Richard Matthew Jordan II, 31; Manuel Issac Rodriguez, 40; and Matthew Mark Smith, 27.
Preliminary autopsies say most of the men were wounded in either the head or torso.
Another 18 bikers were hurt, and more than 170 were arrested in the melee. Many of the people involved "are not being honest with us," Swanton said.
It may be weeks, or months, before authorities fully understand what happened, he added.
But some pieces are coming together. Swanton said investigators have determined that the bar was hosting a meeting of a coalition of several motorcycle groups. A gang that wasn't invited came anyway. "When those individuals showed up, there was a disturbance in the parking lot," Swanton said. The fight then continued inside Twin Peaks, he said.
According to criminal complaints made public on Tuesday, members of the Bandidos, one of the nation's largest biker gangs with a large presence in Texas, confronted members of the rival Cossacks, a smaller, regional gang.
The two gangs had been feuding over turf for months, according to law enforcement officials.
Combatants on both sides pulled all sorts of weapons, including guns, knives, batons, clubs, and brass knuckles, the court documents say. The gang members then opened fire on one another.
"Members of the Waco Police Department attempted to stop the alteration and were fired upon by Bandidos and/or Cossacks," the charging documents say. "Waco police officers returned fire, striking multiple gang members."
The nine who died were members of the Bandidos and the Cossacks, authorities and gang experts have said.
Swanton said the fight may have started from a dispute over a parking space, and may also have do to with "someone having their foot run over," he added.
Dozens of cars and motorcycles have remained at the scene, held as evidence, Swanton said.
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