WACO, Texas (AP) – Bullets ricocheted around the parking lot of Twin Peaks, the Waco restaurant where a motorcycle gang shootout left nine dead, minutes after Theron Rhoten pulled in on his vintage Harley chopper for a regional motorcycle club meeting, according to Rhoten’s wife.
Katie Rhoten told The Associated Press that her husband, a mechanic from Austin, called her from jail and said that he and two other members of a motorcycle club called Vise Grip ducked and ran for cover amid the violence that also left 18 injured.
The three were arrested along with about 170 others at the scene and are each being held on $1 million bonds.
Officers took into custody all sorts of “nonviolent, noncriminal people,” Katie Rhoten said.
“He’s good to his family,” she said. “He doesn’t drink; he doesn’t do drugs; he doesn’t party. He’s just got a passion for motorcycles.”