Waco Biker Shooting Suspect Caught In Louisiana
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WACO (AP) - A man wanted in the deadly shootout involving rival motorcycle gangs earlier this year in Texas was arrested in northwest Louisiana on Wednesday, Bossier City police said.
Police spokesman Mark Natale said Phillip Ray White, 38, of Eddy, Texas, was arrested without incident at a casino in Bossier City. The U.S. Marshal's Violent Offender Task Force, Bossier City police, and Louisiana State Police were involved in White's arrest. He was arrested at the Diamond Jacks Casino, and taken to the Bossier City jail.
White was later transferred to the Bossier Parish Maximum Security Facility where he awaiting extradition back to Texas. White was wanted by the McLennan County Sheriff's Office in Waco on a warrant charging him with engaging in organized criminal activity specific to murder.
A member of the Cossack Motorcycle Club, White was indicted by a grand jury for his role in the May 17 shootout at the Twin Peaks Restaurant in Waco that left nine dead and 20 wounded.
Authorities rounded up 177 people at the time of the shooting. Of the 106 indictments, nine were sealed because the defendants were not among the 177 and have not been arrested yet.
Prosecutors will likely be pushing for plea bargains, according to one legal expert not involved in the case. Sandra Guerra Thompson of the University of Houston Law Center said that's at least partly because of the sheer number of cases in a small jurisdiction.
"I imagine that they're going to try talking defense lawyers into negotiating pleas with a lot of these folks, and in so doing, line up folks to testify as witnesses," she said.
The penalty for engaging in organized criminal activity is 15 years to life imprisonment, according to the Texas Penal Code.
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