WACO Bikers, Not Guilty by Stand Your Ground?

    By NCD on Tue, 05/19/2015 - 1:17pm |

    I am not a fan of gun battles like the recent biker shootout in Waco, but they may be an inevitable, and possibly legal occurrence in a 'stand your ground' state.  The first biker to threaten another biker or his property with harm, if found, may have broken the law.

    After that initial disturbance, a chain of 'stand your ground' actions, self-defense actions seem to have occurred. It is legal under Texas law, see below, to use lethal force to protect yourself, other threatened persons, or property. There is no requirement in the law to back down or retreat, anywhere, even a public place.

    At this point a defense of stand your ground by most involved may be difficult to disprove in court. The Waco gun battle was a torrent of stand your ground events, comparable to the neutron cascade of an atomic bomb, which, fortunately, none were armed with.

    According to Texas Stand Your Ground Law, Penal Code Chapter 9,

    JUSTIFICATION EXCLUDING CRIMINAL RESPONSIBILITY:

    Sec. 9.32. DEADLY FORCE IN DEFENSE OF PERSON. (a) A person is justified in using deadly force against another:

    (1) if the actor would be justified in using force against the other under Section 9.31; and

    (2) when and to the degree the actor reasonably believes the deadly force is immediately necessary:

    (A) to protect the actor against the other's use or attempted use of unlawful deadly force; or

    (B) to prevent the other's imminent commission of aggravated kidnapping, murder, sexual assault, aggravated sexual assault, robbery, or aggravated robbery.

    Sec. 9.33. DEFENSE OF THIRD PERSON. A person is justified in using force or deadly force against another to protect a third person if:

    (...2) the actor reasonably believes that his intervention is immediately necessary to protect the third person.

    Sec. 9.42. DEADLY FORCE TO PROTECT PROPERTY. A person is justified in using deadly force against another to protect land or tangible, movable property:

    A question is why did the police intervene, when bikers could be argued as exercising their rights under Texas laws, defending themselves, their buddies or their property?

    'Stand your ground' actions are sanctioned in Texas. The first action by an individual which triggered a perceived threat reaction by another individual reportedly was in a bathroom where others could not witness the event. Establishing who was legally standing their ground as the threats and reactions multiplied may be very difficult to determine.

    NO RETREAT FROM CONFRONTATION IS LEGAL IN TEXAS LAW.

    Even in a public location.

    The bikers could be argued to have acted within their rights as Texas citizens.

    A Democrat in Texas noted problems with the law which would be applicable to this case, and presented legislation (which didn't pass) in February of this year, that the "no retreat" right should not be legal when the other person has a right to be where the confrontation happens, as in this case at a highway restaurant. Proposed (failed) revision of the law:

    Texas' existing “Stand Your Ground” provision allows a person to use lethal force in self-defense with no duty to retreat when the person has the “right to be present at the location where the force is used.” Coleman's bill allows that broader, no-retreat right only “in the person's own habitation,” which includes their home and property. 

    So there is no legal requirement to stand down or retreat from a gun battle in public locations in Texas, and for this reason, it may be a tough row to hoe to convict all those charged.

    Comments

    Florida's law is used often in drug related shoot outs.  Criminals do get off from killing other criminals with this law.  


    by trkingmomoe on Tue, 05/19/2015 - 6:42pm

    At least in the shootout at Tombstone's O.K. corral, one side was the law !

    Doubtful the Republicans who pass these laws envisioned a 170 strong stand your ground biker war at a highway restaurant !

    But then, Republicans brain power is usually expended finding excuses for past lies or screw ups, or thinking up new abortion laws or ways to make it easier for criminals to get guns.


    by NCD on Tue, 05/19/2015 - 8:37pm

    If two armed people stand their ground against each other, one of them or both of them  are going to end up lying on the ground.

    God, what an era we live in!

    Guns for all and legal protection to use those guns?

    It is like we are living in the old Dodge City and there is no Wyatt Earp.


    by Richard Day on Wed, 05/20/2015 - 3:54pm

    Gun carry was, of course, banned in the Wyatt Earp days in Tombstone, AZ.

    "You could wear your gun into (Tombstone) town, but you had to check it at the sheriff's office or the Grand Hotel, and you couldn't pick it up again until you were leaving town," said Bob Boze Bell, executive editor of True West Magazine, which celebrates the Old West. "It was an effort to control the violence."

     Earp was what you would call an old fashion conservative.


    by NCD on Wed, 05/20/2015 - 5:19pm

    A question is why did the police intervene, 

    Because they wanted too?. 

    It was reported, that the police were already in place at the scene, prior to the melee. 

    Did the police have sniper units ready?

    Was the instigator of the confrontation, a police plant; whose sole purpose was to spark a confrontation; to be set off at a time of the authorities choosing?

    For the purpose of elimination / removal. of certain members of society, along with their hierarchy of command and control, of those who could resist, what the sheeple will not.

    BTW

    Wasn't their a recent joke, about some legislative members of the State of Texas, fearing the establishment of martial law by the Feds, in order  to control the States?   

    How convenient to destroy the command and control of those opposed or could oppose, any design by the Feds to take over control of the States

    Texas is the first test.  

    Did Waco clear this police action though the State Government or will they receive Fed money for their role in this matter? 


    by Resistance on Wed, 05/20/2015 - 6:50pm

    Standing your ground by shooting your gun, be it one person or 190 people simultaneously firing at each other in a public place, is not  a crime in Texas. The law above specifically protects that activity.

    It is as legal as walking your dog.....or 190 dogs.

    Texas cops need to know the laws of Texas on this point.

    I sincerely doubt the bikers would start shooting at cops unless returning fire in self defense. If most were killed by cops lawsuits may succeed claiming cops were interfering with the rights of the two biker groups merely seeking to stand their ground as proscribed under Texas codes.

    However, I doubt this has any connection to Jade Helm.
     


    by NCD on Wed, 05/20/2015 - 7:51pm

    I think a much bigger legal question is being missed here. I doubt that many if any of these bikers were legally carrying weapons so the SYG defense is probably moot.

    The real, strange and probably unconstitutional problem is the arrest of about 150 people who were not involved in the shootout and are being held on $1 Million bails. Even club members, there were many bike clubs there, who arrived after the shootout were arrested.


    by Peter (not verified) on Wed, 05/20/2015 - 11:01pm

    Good point on the concealed carry, they still require a permit in Texas. Surprising but true.

    The Texas legislature is working on an open carry law for Texas because 'current gun laws didn't stop the Waco incident' so....why not loosen up gun laws some more and see what happens.

    Open carry usually requires no permit. The article says Texas cops are against the open carry law.


    by NCD on Wed, 05/20/2015 - 11:31pm

    Another interesting point about the Waco biker shootings is how the media described the event. Many called the event a brawl. Nine people died. One hundred and seventy people were arrested. A brawl. In Baltimore, there was property damage but no deaths (except for Freddie Gray). The protesters were " thugs" and the morality of the entire black community came under fire. If black biker gangs had shot up a black- owned bar and killed nine blacks, we would be discussing Black-on-Black crime and lack of black morality. If the Waco police knew that five black biker gangs were meeting to resolve disputes, the Waco police would have been in riot gear and armored vehicles. Black bikers might have been searched for weapons prior to the meeting. Stand Your Ground would be a side issue.

    http://t.thestar.com/#/article/news/world/2015/05/20/why-arent-violent-b...


    by rmrd0000 on Fri, 05/22/2015 - 8:05am

    Apposite observation. Riot gear and military gear for protesting high school kids and some opportunistic thieves, nada for scores of bikers armed to the teeth.


    by NCD on Fri, 05/22/2015 - 10:40am

    It appears that some of the gentlemen of the motorcycle enthusiast group known as the Bandidos want revenge on the police. The brawlers are apparently receiving grenades and explosives to carry out their planned retaliation.

    http://www.cnn.com/2015/05/21/us/texas-biker-shooting/


    by rmrd0000 on Fri, 05/22/2015 - 12:28pm

    Hopefully just a rumor.

    All Texas needs is the Republican legislature/governor's plan (see above)  for legal open carry for handguns in Texas (which to my knowledge never requires a license permit from a state).

    I know the cops do not like open carry because concealed carry almost always requires a permit, fee, license, background check, course on safety, which criminals, or guys like these bikers almost never bother with.

    When an incident occurs, the big advantage for police of no open carry is guys with concealed guns with no permit, can be arrested.

    With open carry, they can pull the gun out of concealment stick them into their belt and be legal and the cops may have no grounds to arrest them.

    Without open carry, as in Waco, the cops found over a hundred abandoned guns from guys who obviously had no concealed carry license.


    by NCD on Fri, 05/22/2015 - 1:27pm

    Always playing the victim card?

    The bikers went after other gang members.

    The Black rioters go after the money, as long as it is someone elses money; (like innocent store clerks or taxpayers) . 

    Freddie Gray was just the excuse needed by those who would steal from others. 

    If the Waco police knew that five black biker gangs were meeting to resolve disputes, the Waco police would have been in riot gear and armored vehicles

    I''d be curious to know if the three bikers who were released on 50K dollars bond, weren't working for the police all along and were released, in order to keep them from associating with the general jail population, who might have discovered the police had planted and planned an ambush in WACO  

    The armored vehicles probably not to far from the scene, but the snipers, with military gear were already in position outside the bar? 

    But who will cry, if the police conduct an exercise and in the process take out a few members of a MC gang. 

    A win/win for the Police State; Shoot to kill the bikers and if they fire back in self defense claim police justification.

    Then spread rumors of retaliation, to an unsuspecting public, to garner sympathy for the Police State?


    by Resistance (not verified) on Fri, 05/22/2015 - 4:30pm

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