HOUSTON — A shootout among members of several rival motorcycle gangs in a busy shopping plaza in the Central Texas city of Waco on Sunday left at least nine bikers dead and 18 others injured, creating chaos in a sprawling parking lot packed with afternoon shoppers, law enforcement officials said.
The gunfire erupted about 12:15 p.m. outside a Twin Peaks Restaurant, where members of the motorcycle clubs had gathered. The fight spilled into the parking lot, initially involving just fists and feet, but escalating quickly to chains, knives, clubs and firearms. Waco police officers were already at the scene when the confrontation unfolded because they had anticipated problems as hundreds of bikers from at least five groups gathered at the shopping plaza.
“There were multiple people on the scene firing weapons at each other,” Sgt. Patrick Swanton, a Waco Police Department spokesman, said at a news conference. “They then turned on our officers. Our officers returned gunfire, wounding and possibly killing several.”
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Law enforcement officials said the shootout was the worst violence in Waco since the siege on the Branch Davidian compound in 1993 that left 86 people dead. On Sunday, eight members of motorcycle clubs were killed at the scene and another died at a hospital, Sergeant Swanton said. The injured were taken to hospitals with gunshot and stab wounds.
No officers, shoppers or bystanders were injured. The authorities said their decision to place officers outside the restaurant before the gunfire erupted most likely saved lives.
“There were so many rounds fired from bad-guy weapons here, it is amazing that innocent civilians were not injured here,” said Sergeant Swanton, who added that investigators expected to recover about 100 weapons. “In 34 years of law enforcement, this is the worst crime scene — the most violent crime scene — that I have ever been involved in. There are dead people still there. There is blood everywhere.”
The police did not identify the groups involved, but photographs of the members who were arrested showed a number of them in leather jackets bearing the names of at least three motorcycle clubs: Bandidos, Cossacks and Scimitars.
Hours after the shooting, police officials were still issuing messages on social media warning people to stay away from the shopping plaza, the Central Texas Marketplace, saying that it was closed because it was unsafe. “Officers are continuing to arrest individuals coming to the scene with weapons,” one of the department’s Facebook postings read. “This is not the time to sight see as we are dealing with very dangerous individuals.”
The police detained numerous people involved in the fight, Sergeant Swanton said, and arrested three bikers who were carrying weapons and tried to reach the scene after the fighting had quieted down. He said they would be charged with engaging in organized crime. Late Sunday, Sergeant Swanton said the police were holding at least 100 people for questioning.
Dozens of officers and medics from local, state and federal agencies converged on the Central Texas Marketplace. A spokeswoman for the F.B.I. office in San Antonio said agents were assisting the Waco police in the investigation.
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