Hells Angels attacked the Bandidos with knives and bats.

The July 29, 2007, attack on the four members of the Bandidos motorcycle group was brutal. Eureka Springs police described it as an ambush where the Hells Angels attacked the Bandidos with knives and bats. It happened about 2: 30 p.m. on a Sunday as the Bandidos were riding out of town on U. S. 62. They passed three Hells Angels who waved them into the parking lot of the Gingerbread Antique building. As the Bandidos pulled in, a pickup blocked the parking lot exit, and a man jumped out with a bat, a victim told police. Isidro Zerrata said the attack happened fast — in less than a minute. He was stabbed in the heart and lost a kidney. About 15 minutes after the attack, Berryville police stopped a red pickup with a Massachusetts license plate and arrested its three occupants. Also arrested were three Hells Angels on motorcycles who were traveling with the pickup. Police seized knives from the pickup and found blood on the inside front passenger door, court records state. Pate interviewed Zerrata at Northwest Medical Center in Bentonville. Pate wrote in a report that was introduced as evidence at a later hearing that Zerrata definitively identified the attackers during the Aug. 4, 2007, interview. However, in an audiotape of the interview, Zerrata didn’t give detailed descriptions of the attackers. He said two were wearing face masks, and he didn’t describe them as wearing clothes indicative of membership in the Hells Angels, the court records state. Zerrata said he couldn’t see clearly because he was wearing a motorcycle helmet. At the January hearing, Pate testified that Zerrata said he was waved over by at least two Hells Angels in a red truck, but in the audiotape, Zerrata never mentioned the truck being red, the records state. Prosecutors failed to tell the defense about the audiotape of the interview until it was mentioned at the January hearing, the defense claimed. Epley ruled Sept. 10 that the tape should have been turned over to the defense during discovery since it contained exculpatory evidence.
Epley said he doesn’t believe Pate or prosecutors intended to mislead the defense.
“The tape was lost behind a file cabinet,” Prosecuting Attorney Tom Rogers said last week. “It wasn’t intentional.” Pate didn’t return a call seeking comment last week.
The defense said Pate tipped off Zerrata during the Aug. 4, 2007, interview that the suspects were from Massachusetts and Maine. The defense said that information helped Zerrata later identify the suspects in a photo array. During the interview, Pate asked if he saw the license plate, but Zerrata said no. Pate then told him the pickup had a Massachusetts license plate, court records state. The Arkansas State Police met with Zerrata after he was released from the hospital and showed him a photo array. He chose each of the six defendants in six photo arrays.
The defendants challenged how Zerrata could identify the suspects although two of them wore masks. They said the photos of the defendants were taken at the location of the traffic stop. Each of the photos had the same background of grass and trees, suggesting they were photographed together after being stopped by police, the defense said. Epley in February ruled the photo procedure was defective for the main reason the only sharp, clear contrast photo in each array was the one showing a defendant in the case. Robert Thomas Reynolds’s attorney, said it hurts the state’s case that they don’t have witnesses identifying the six defendants as the assailants. “The state indicated their case will be circumstantial, and I’m not aware of any witness who can say, ‘ We saw this person whose height is this and who looked like this, ’” Miliotis of Boston said. “They don’t have any of that.” Rogers said there is physical evidence in the case that is strong enough to overcome any setback from the rulings. “We’ve got physical evidence and crime lab evidence, and that will establish a clear link,” he said, declining to give specifics. There are other witnesses who’ve given statements to police after the assault, records state.
A clerk at a nearby business said she saw a red pickup with a Massachusetts license plate pull into the Gingerbread building parking lot before the assault.
Other witnesses said they saw Hells Angels and Bandidos fighting in the parking lot.
A motorist said a red pickup with a Massachusetts license plate sped past her on U. S 62 around the time of the attack, and that someone threw what looked like an aluminum bat out the window. Police found a bat nearby, records state. Parker said the defendants are reserving the right to claim selfdefense. He said one of the Bandidos victims wore surgical gloves during the assault.
“It begs the question if the Bandidos were the ones who initiated the ambush,” Parker said. Rogers said the defendants are charged as accomplices, meaning prosecutors don’t have to prove they acted directly, only that they aided or encouraged the crime. “We’re certain we have the right people, and we have the evidence to prove it in court,” Rogers said.