Earlier this month a member of the Scimatars Motorcycle club filed a lawsuit over his arrest during the deadly Twin Peaks shootout.
Today that biker, 30-year old Matthew Clendennen, surrounded by family and his lawyer, talked about the May 17th events and the troubles that he and many of the bikers arrested that day are going through during a press conference in Hewitt. He says he spent 2 weeks at the Jack Harwell Detention Center without knowing why he was jailed.
"Why is there not some resemblance of justice here for the innocent," Clendennen said. "I was nothing more than a witness that day which I didn’t really even witness anything. I heard gunshots, I heard a verbal altercation but beyond that I was just there."
Clendennen – who operates a landscaping franchise – says his bond was reduced from $1 million to $100,000, which his family helped him cover. Dallas-based attorney Clint Broden, who is representing the Scimitars Bike Club member says he filed a judicial complaint against justice of the Pete Peterson and filed a request with the Justice Department to determine whether civil rights violations occurred in this case. Broden says they’ll also be adding Waco Police Chief Brent Stroman’s name to the complaint filed.
"It is obvious from his statements that the Waco police – and he leads the Waco police – are not properly trained to determine what probable cause is," the attorney said. "The fact that he is still unapologetic for what happened gives some indication that the policy makers in the city of Waco have a long way to go in training their police officers properly."
Broden’s partner, Michael Snipes says the arrest warrants used in these cases were so-called fill-in-the-blank warrants.
"That is the only thing that is individualized on these warrants in these cases, was the names of the various defendants. The rest of the probable cause is exactly the same," Snipes added.
Several lawyers were at the press conference today, representing their clients – some of whom are still jailed.