At a news conference on Thursday, the Associated Press reports, defense attorneys, representing bikers arrested after a shootout at a restaurant in Texas, said that they are being denied access to evidence because they have refused to sign an agreement with the district attorney not to share it with media.

Meanwhile, a different set of defense attorneys, the Waco Tribune reported on Wednesday, representing six of the 177 bikers arrested at the Twin Peaks in Waco, have filed civil rights lawsuits in Austin federal court, against Waco and McLennan County officials.

Nine people were killed and 20 injured in the May 17th shooting. According to the AP, on Thursday, attorney Susan Anderson said that the agreement the district attorney is demanding violates Texas’ Michael Morton Act, which states that prosecutors must permit defense attorneys access to evidence, without conditions, “as soon as possible.”

The civil rights lawsuits, which name McLennan County District Attorney Abel Reyna, Waco Police Chief Brent Stroman, Waco police Detective Manuel Chavez, and an unnamed Texas Department of Public Safety trooper as defendants, alleges that investigators conspired to arrest all 177 bikers on identical engaging in organized criminal activity charges, violating the bikers’s rights to due process under law.

The lawsuits were filed on Tuesday and Wednesday, by two Dallas attorneys, Clint Broden and Don Tittle, on behalf of Matthew Clendennen, Robert Bucy, George Bergman, Noe Adame, John Vensel and Jorge Salinas. From the Tribune:

Vensel, of Collin County, is a member of the Vaqueros Motorcycle Club of Dallas County, the lawsuit says.

Adame, of Dallas County, is a security officer and a member of the Desgraciados Motorcycle Club of Kaufman County.

Bergman, of Dallas County, is also a member of the Desgraciados Motorcycle Club, the suit says.

The Vaqueros and Desgraciados are support clubs of the Bandidos.

Clendennen, of Hewitt, is a Scimitar; while Bucy and Salinas, of Ellis and Lampasas counties, respectively, are both Cossacks, according to the lawsuit.

The Scimitars are a Cossacks support club.

“Rather than investigating the incident and relying on actual facts to establish probable cause,” the suit alleges, “defendants theorized that a conspiracy of epic proportion between dozens of people had taken place and willfully ignored the total absence of facts to support their ‘theory.’”

Photo via AP Images. Contact the author of this post: brendan.oconnor@gawker.com.