Waco is still trying to punish all the wrong people for the Twin Peaks Mass Murder 1661 days ago on May 17, 2015. The latest scapegoat is a former Waco fire fighter named Bill Dudley.
Dudley spent 13 years working for the Waco Fire Department before Fire Chief John Johnston indefinitely suspended him in October 2015. Dudley was expelled from his job because he knew some Bandidos, he was in the wrong place at the wrong time and consequently his name wound up on a list.
At an arbitration hearing last Tuesday to try to get his old job back, Dudley admitted that he once belonged to a Bandidos support club and that he had been a Bandidos hang around in December 2014. He was in Gator’s Jam Inn the night of a brawl in which a Ghost Rider named Geoffrey Brady was killed.
At an arbitration hearing last Tuesday to try to get his old job back, Dudley admitted that he once belonged to a Bandidos support club and that he had been a Bandidos hang around in December 2014. He was in Gator’s Jam Inn the night of a brawl in which a Ghost Rider named Geoffrey Brady was killed.
Gator’s
The Gator’s brawl was widely sensationalized. Eventually Howard Wayne Baker, the president of the Bandidos Fort Worth chapter, was convicted of murdering Brady. He was convicted under Texas’ Law of Parties of ordering and directing Brady’s death. There were also members of the Cossacks and Wino’s Crew Motorcycle Clubs in the bar at the time. Baker’s trial came after the Twin Peaks but before either the trial of Jake Carrizal in Waco that fall or the subsequent trials of Jeffrey Pike and John Portillo, two high ranking Bandidos leaders who were accused of terrible crimes.
The fight at Gator’s, according to numerous sources, was over a woman but in subsequent trials the fight at Gator’s was described by prosecutors as being over Bandidos’ control of who could wear a “Texas” bottom rocker under the club patches on the backs of their riding vests. The federal investigation that coincided with the Twin Peaks murders and the Gator’s Jam Inn fight and that culminated in the Prosecutions of Pike and Portillo was slugged “Operation Texas Rocker.”
Scapegoating Dudley
Two people besides Brady were shot that night at Gator’s. One of them was Bill Dudley who was shot in the chest.
When Dudley was suspended forever, Chief Johnson wrote: “You told the deputy fire chief a person came up to you with no reason and pulled a gun and shot you and you did not know why this occurred. Because we were unaware of the Gator Bar incident and did not have any reason to doubt your statement or have enough information to ask you the right questions, you flew under the radar. It wasn’t until the internal investigation took place that we discovered there was more to your explanation than you provided. You were not forthcoming with information.”
Dudley stopped hanging around the Bandidos. Getting shot in the chest was more of a commitment than he was willing to make. But the Gator’s incident did get his name on a list of “criminal street gang:” members populated and maintained by the Texas Department of Public Safety.
The week before the Twin Peaks massacre, Dudley was stopped for a minor traffic violation in Crowley, Texas about 80 miles north of Waco. He had a pistol openly displayed on his front seat and the arresting officer charged him with unlawfully carrying an unconcealed weapon in his truck. As part of his deal, Dudley pled guilty and had his case continued for two years before it was dismissed.
That traffic stop became one of the official reasons for firing Dudley. Dudley thinks he was fired because of his passing association with the Bandidos and because the traffic stop in Crowley came so close to the Twin Peaks. There was a public hunger for explanations, Somebody had to pay. Dudley was one of hundred of people who paid. He paid with his job.
He won’t know if he will get his old job back until after the holidays. The arbiter will announce his decision next month.
