Ex-vice cop among bikers arrested in deadly Waco gang brawl

AUSTIN, Texas — More than 1,000 weapons have been recovered from the scene of a fight between rival motorcycle gangs on Sunday in the central Texas city of Waco that left nine people dead, a police spokesman told broadcaster CNN on Wednesday.

The weapons ranged from pocketknives to an AK-47 rifle, Waco Police Sergeant Patrick Swanton said in an interview with CNN.

EX-VICE COP ARRESTED IN WACO BIKER BRAWL

A 62-year-old who posts images of his ailing mother with her pooch in one Facebook post and raunchy sex jokes in the next.

A man who poses alongside his son, middle finger to the air, then lauds his work with special needs children and extols the blessing of healthy grandchildren.

Much like the black-and-white goatee he has been rocking since at least 2013, Marty Lewis represents a dichotomy.

Lewis is one of the 170 bikers arrested and charged with engaging in organized criminal activity after a brawl and shootout at a Waco, Texas, restaurant left nine bikers dead. He remained in the McLennan County Jail on Wednesday with many of his biker brethren, unable to post the $1 million bail set by a judge.

The chaos in Waco began when motorcycle gangs converged on the Twin Peaks restaurant for a Sunday meeting and an uninvited gang showed up, police say. An altercation spilled from the bathroom to the bar to the patio to the parking lot as the bikers beat, stabbed and shot each other before turning their weapons on law enforcement, according to police.

Just over a decade ago, Lewis could have been the one putting folks in cuffs.

He was a detective and worked in the vice unit at the San Antonio Police Department for 32 years, retiring in February 2004, according to a police statement.

“As far as my office is aware, he was a vice detective. Our vice unit primarily investigates prostitution, gambling, and liquor violations. At this point, we don’t have info that he was ever assigned to infiltrate a gang,” San Antonio police spokesman Sgt. Javier Salazar told CNN.

Police have not announced the gangs involved in the deadly violence, but it’s been widely reported that the Bandidos and Cossacks were the principal participants in the shootout. While the U.S. Justice Department casts the Bandidos as a criminal enterprise involved in drug production and trafficking, longtime member Jimmy Graves told CNN that isn’t the case.

“We are not a gang. We do not do gang things. We are not affiliated with gangs,” he said.

Older photos on Lewis’ Facebook page show him wearing the logos of Texas’ Los Patrons Motorcycle Club with a few Bandidos patches, such as the acronym S.Y.L.B., short for “support your local Bandidos.”

At some point in 2014, he traded in that black leather vest with the braided trim for a suede, button-up vest bearing only the trademark red-and-yellow patches of the Bandidos.

His most recent images show him in another black vest with red trim and red-and-yellow patches, including one that says “Valerosos,” the Spanish plural for brave, and another that says, “FTW,” which can mean “forever two wheels” or “f*** the world.”

His likes on Facebook include motorcycle outfitters and other clubs, and he boasts dozens of friends posing alongside their choppers or using Bandidos logos as their profile images. Many have blacked out their profile images in what appears to be a response to the deadly Waco shootout.

Lewis talks on Facebook about being a 1%er. Some say it is a reference to a decades-old American Motorcycle Association assertion that 99% of bikers were law-abiding and family-oriented, but the AMA disputes ever making the statement. Other self-proclaimed 1%ers say it simply signifies a nonconformist attitude toward society.

The Bandidos website says, “We are a 1% motorcycle club. We live our lives without excuses and give respect where it is earned. You can say anything you want about us as long as it’s the truth.”

Alongside the selfies at Bandidos shindigs — many with Lewis shooting birds at the camera — and the jokes about boozing, masturbation and sex toys are plenty of posts about family and Christmas, including one about how the Temptations’ rendition of ” ‘Silent Night’ takes a brother back.” He also jokes about a 16-cent check he received from his Harley-Davidson stock holdings.

“Drinks on me,” he quipped.

He also posted several photos of his mom and her beloved dog and days later added an image of an elderly white woman showing off her “f*** the police” chest tattoo.

In February 2014, he thanked his friends who had texted or called with “words of comfort” after his mom’s death a few days earlier.

“Mom I Love You and I’ll finish by say’n “Well Done,” he wrote.

In October, responding to a woman sharing the news that her daughter had just had a baby, he shared a warm congratulations.

“That is a bless’n,” he wrote. “I work with special need kids everyday and folk don’t know how lucky they are to have healthy children…These kids just warm your heart and makes me realize that I’m so lucky to have had all my kids and grands born healthy.”