Waco, Texas – The Waco Twin Peaks biker massacre case just took an extremely ominous, and seemingly corrupt turn. A police detective for the Waco Police Department was selected to serve as the head of the 12 person grand jury, which is likely to decide who gets indicted in the case.

Detective James Head, a 26-year police veteran, was wearing his police badge and pistol when he was sworn in Wednesday, according to the Waco Tribune-Herald.

When asked by the Waco Tribune-Herald if he had played a role in the Twin Peaks investigation, Head responded, “Not really.” With Head going on to admit that his selection was kind of “unusual.”

The extreme conflict of interest shown by the selection of Head to the grand jury – let alone serve as its foreman, reveals a blatant disregard for even the appearance of legitimacy in this case.

“This has created a whole lot of problems for both sides of the bar in McLennan County, and for anyone one going in front of a grand jury and expecting to get a fair shake out of the grand jury,” said Bob Gill, a Fort Worth attorney representing two of the bikers. “This detective is going to know and be familiar with a lot of the people involved in the cases and the facts of a lot those cases. There’s an inherent conflict with anything that comes in front of that grand jury, at this point.”

The implications resulting from this decision are huge, as 177 bikers being charged with engaging in organized crime in the first-degree and facing life in prison as a result of the Twin Peaks massacre on May 17, which left 9 dead and 18 wounded.

The facts of the case are disputed with many insisting that the slain bikers were the victims of police violence, while police claim to have simply intervened to avert more bloodshed. The judge in the case has refused to allow surveillance footage of the killings to be shown to the media.

What’s certain is that not all 177 bikers arrested and incarcerated were involved in the violence that took place at Twin Peaks, with many being witnesses to the events of that day.

One has to seriously question why potential witnesses to murder were arrested simply because they had a vest on and if there was potentially an ulterior motive to locking up so many witnesses?

Could it perhaps be that police are attempting to coerce testimony from witnesses, under duress, to forward a narrative that would less implicate police in the biker massacre that took place?

As for the selection of Head, McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna told the Tribune-Herald, “That’s the system. He was chosen totally at random, like the law says.”

The judge in the case, Ralph Strother, claimed in a phone interview with WFFA, that the police officer was selected out of the 100 people summoned and that he sees no problem with the situation.

“We took the first 12 people who were qualified,” Strother said. “They weren’t hand-picked. It was a completely random process. And a Waco police officer was among those, and so he was seated, just like any other citizen. […] Suppose if there’d been someone who was a member of a biker club, what do you think kind of criticism we would have received if I said, ‘No, no you can’t be on the grand jury, sorry.'”

The absurdity of the judges comments are clear!

Had a Cossack or Bandito member, which wasn’t at the restaurant the day of the incident, been one of the 100 random members summoned, the judge would have never seated them on the grand jury.

This case has been approached with very little in the way of transparency, since the beginning. Judging from the way this case has been handled thus far, it would seem that in Waco, Texas, the fix is in.

One thing is certain; the corrupt judicial system has no regard for the legal legitimacy of this case, nor the constitutional rights of the 177 people jailed illegitimately.

Jay Syrmopoulos is an investigative journalist, free thinker, researcher, and ardent opponent of authoritarianism. He is currently a graduate student at University of Denver pursuing a masters in Global Affairs. Jay’s work has previously been published on BenSwann.com and WeAreChange.org. You can follow him on Twitter @sirmetropolis, on Facebook at Sir Metropolis and now on tsu.