Parking Dispute May Have Sparked Biker Shootout

An argument over a parking spot may have started Sunday's deadly shootout between motorcycle gangs in Waco, Texas, the Dallas Morning News reported.

"It's like the Wild West," McLennan County Sheriff Parnell McNamara said. "These guys become very violent to each other very quickly over nothing."

Authorities say they sent warnings earlier this month that tensions were growing between two of the gangs involved in the gunfight that left nine people dead and 18 wounded.

Police say the rival gangs were meeting Sunday at a Twin Peaks restaurant so members could settle some of their differences. About an hour later in the restroom, the fighting began.

Jennifer Currier, an eyewitness, recalled, "It was really, really scary. They said people outside the doors had guns."

"In my nearly 35 years of law enforcement experience...this is the most violent and most gruesome scene that I have dealt with," Sgt. Patrick Swanton, with the Waco, Texas, Police Department, said.

Nearly 200 suspected gang members were arrested in Sunday's massacre.

Meanwhile, the FBI is calling outlaw biker gangs a "serious national domestic threat." Award-winning true crime author Kerrie Droban echoed that warning.

"I think a lot of the public is naive. They think the biker gangs are harmless. They think they're out there promoting charitable organizations, fundraising," she told KSAZ-TV.

"They're not," she said. "They're organized criminals, they are gangers, they are the mafia on wheels."