A retired San Antonio police detective is one of the 170 people arrested in a bloody brawl between rival biker gangs that left nine dead and 18 injured this weekend.
Martin Lewis, 62, served 32 years with the San Antonio Police Department before retiring in 2003, according to KSAT.
It's not yet clear if Lewis is affiliated with a particular gang, but one Facebook photo shows Lewis sporting a distinctive half-black-half-white beard, and what appears to be a patch that says, "I support Bandidos MC United States."
The Bandidos were one of five motorcycle gangs involved in a gunfight at the Twin Peaks restaurant in Waco, Texas, on Sunday. Officers recovered close to 1,000 weapons from the scene of the brawl, ranging from brass knuckles and pocketknives to an AK-47 rifle, according to police.
The New York Times reported that the gangs convened at the restaurant to discuss matters of mutual interest when the meetup erupted into violence.
Waco Police said they knew that motorcycle gangs congregated at the so-called "breastaurant," which featured bikini-clad waitresses and held events catering to the bikers. Uniformed officers patrolled outside the restaurant while the bikers were inside, but that didn't deter them from violence, police said.
"We wanted our presence to be known," Waco Police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton told CNN on Wednesday. "They knew we were seconds away and going to respond. That mattered not to them."
Lewis was charged with engaging in organized criminal activity. He was held on $1 million bond, according to McLennan County jail records.
Some of the defendants in the shooting could also face murder charges, and therefore the death penalty, if they are convicted. However, some legal experts have said they expect the county to be overwhelmed with prosecuting 170 defendants, and that the county might not be able to afford it.
"The magnitude of the arrests is amazing," Michael Heiskell, president of the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Association, told USA Today. "It could break the bank in McLennan County."
Heiskell said that there might end up being a few capital charges in the end, but that there's no way the county could afford prosecuting a large number of death penalty cases. Those, he said, can cost in the "high six figures" to prosecute.
"I think the situation right now is that they don't know who did what, so they are charging everybody," defense attorney Walter Reaves Jr. told USA Today. "There will be a lot of charges dropped. There will be a lot of plea bargains. There has to be."
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