The Roybal Federal Building in downtown Los Angeles is a polished granite tower in a three building complex called the Roybal Federal Center. The Center also features a brutalist-modern jail decorated with garlands of razor wire and long lines of sad women. The least of the buildings is a place veterans go to bind up their wounds in red tape.
The Roybal is named for the most successful politician in the history of the Eastside; who must never be forgotten; so everything is named for him. The Institute of Gerontology at USC is named for him. So is a Los Angeles hospital. So is the most expensive high school ever built in Southern California – constructed over an underground lake of toxic and explosive gas. Roybal remains so revered even in death that signs all over the Center for Disease Control and Prevention in far off Atlanta shout out his name.
Eventually the Washington Monument will be called the Washington Roybal. Mars will be called Roybal Four and there will be a spirited, scholarly debate over whether the big dust bunnies out beyond Roybal Eight are actually Roybals at all or merely Roybaloids. Don’t fight history. Get used to it. Let the river push you. Roybal. Go ahead. Say it loud and proud.
Funny though the word Roybal might seem this official place is bleakly immune to satire because the Roybal is the justice casino. And all the games are crooked. And, no matter how hard I try I can’t make that funny. So this is going to be a very long, very bleak story. And, by long I mean about a sixth of a book. That long. And, mostly bleak.
So, let’s give mockery and sarcasm one more little romp while there is still time.
A Few Words About Art
When plans for this monument to freedom (freedom being just another word for Roybal) were announced in 1985, the Federal Building alone was estimated to cost $150 million. No one will ever know how much it really cost. No one cares. It was built with free money from the free people by way of the irresistible government and so now it is ours. It is here for us – as gullible children are taught that the law is the will of us. And, we are all free to enjoy the public art which decorates the Roybal’s meticulously barren fields of fire – if we dare.
These absolutely indispensible examples of the painted word were commissioned in 1986 by the General Services Administration – the bureaucracy that signed the checks – with the twin goals of drawing visitors from the nearby and then new Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and also to create “a feeling of place.” Not many of the arterati drift over from what is now debt-plagued MOCA but this art does betray this place and the feelings it compels. Look.
“The New World” by Tom Otterness delights esthetes, fluttering pigeons and tout les miserables with what appears to be either an alien or a human woman in chains. Possibly, what Otterness was striving to depict here was a woman who once was human before she lost at a justice casino game. Similarly, Joel Shapiro’s mysteriously titled “Untitled” allows the observer a startling vision of the last, terrible passion of Gumby: As Gumby, drawing his final claymation breath before he turns to stone, must renounce even the possibility of the existence of truth or justice.
Molecule Man
And rising over all the little people and all the little pigeons and all the little art is Jonathan Borofsky’s stupendous “Molecule Man,” which is so wonderfully subtle that it may or may not be three prisoners, shot full of bullet holes, fighting it out on the yard at Lompoc. So allusive is this creation that other critics may glimpse the machine gunning of a rugby scrum. Borofsky told the GSA that these holes are supposed to be molecules of water. Which the GSA eagerly bought because the original, government specifications for this project contained a clause that it had to include “a water element.” So, you know…voila! Water molecules.
Although, “Molecule Man” is actually a duplicate of a statue, also called “Molecule Man,” which Borofsky sold to the Allianz Corporation in Berlin.
And of the German statue, Borofsky has said, “For me, this hundred-foot tall aluminum sculpture composed of three figures meeting in the center, not only refers to the lightness inside our own solid bodies, but also the figures joining in the center, referring to the molecules of all human beings coming together to create our existence.”
So, if not even the artist who made this thing can decide from one copy to the next what his statue means it might be possible that it means what the capricious winds that blow through it mean, what a roll of dice means, what a roulette wheel means. Personally, when I look at “Molecule Man” I see the rage that might linger like a bad ghost even after three, battling convicts have been shot full of holes.
Revels Now Are Ended
Outside is as funny as the justice casino gets. I have to go inside to witness a hearing for one of the defendants in the current Mongols case. A guy named Harry “Face” Reynolds, a former President of the Las Vegas chapter of the Mongols Motorcycle Club, has been trying for months to have his case tried separately and to discover all the evidence against him: Evidence that the government claims would prove he is actually guilty. And also evidence the government holds and has overlooked, or that the government has innocently forgotten about or that the government is brazenly hiding that would actually be exculpatory – that would prove that Harry Reynolds is innocent. And even possibly, evidence that might prove that the government has known that Reynolds is innocent all along.
I know. Everyone knows. Reynolds has only what – in the bad, old, racist West – used to be called “a Chinaman’s chance” of winning his case but he is already on the threshold of accomplishing something that only one in 25 federal defendants attains – an actual trial. In the decade ending in 2008 ninety-six percent of all federal defendants pled guilty. Not that a trial isn’t just another rigged game. The overwhelming majority of the four percent who demand a trial because they think they are innocent end up being judged guilty. And, after they are convicted they get the book thrown at them – for not cooperating.
Good citizens who have never actually crossed swords with an authority that can build $150 million tributes to itself might wonder why a simple case against a Vegas stone mason is so complicated that 400 days after his indictment much of the evidence against him must still be concealed. And, if they know what is good for them, none of these citizens better utter their wonder out loud. Everyone must cooperate.
The Justice Casino
Harry Reynolds is accused of two seemingly straightforward crimes. First, he is accused in Count One of an 86 Count, 177 page indictment of “conducting” and “conspiring to conduct and participate in the conduct of the affairs of the Mongols through a pattern of racketeering activity.” Whatever racketeering is supposed to mean? Violating the Mann Act, possibly? Conspiring to fix a casino game? And secondly, Reynolds is accused in Count Fourteen with “with conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and Cocaine.”
Senators, Presidents and reality show contestants who experience the world mostly through the medium of a cathode ray tube or a plasma or LED screen might think it all boils down to a simple matter of whether Reynolds actually did what he is accused of doing or whether he did not. But criminality in America is no longer, if it ever was, black or white or even a continuum of grey. In post-modern, mass-media America there is no longer any absolute black, white or even grey. Criminality is now determined by subterfuge, ambition, gamesmanship and public relations. That might be the only thing the Mongols case has proved to this date.
The ATF
The case against the Mongols Motorcycle Club was created by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The ATF has improbably evolved from the Revenuers to the Fireworks police and then into the right-wing militia police and finally into the motorcycle club police. Along the way the Bureau has survived by creative exaggeration. Today that exaggeration has evolved into an expertise in public relations that borders on sorcery.
Only a tiny portion of the ATF’s work involves motorcycle clubs. Mostly the Bureau investigates illegal gun and dynamite sales, cigarette and fireworks smugglers and occasionally schemes for avoiding alcohol taxes by calling whiskey a “bio-fuel” and so on and so forth. But motorcycle clubs are sexy. The public at large vicariously enjoys the sex, thrills and power, the refusal to cooperate with authority and the unrestrained depravity the ATF attributes to the outlaw world. And, because motorcycle clubs are inherently anti-social and secretive tribes the ATF can demonize them as much as they want and the bikers will hardly ever talk back.
And then, for a complex or reasons, the ATF may be more inclined than other federal law enforcement agencies like the FBI, the Secret Service and the IRS to attract agents who might actually be insane – whatever “insane” means.
For example, the ATF decided to infiltrate and investigate the Mongols in “Operation Black Rain” because, at least in part, an ATF Agent named John Ciccone was not as personally and professionally satisfied as he had hoped he would be by an earlier investigation of the Mongols code named “Operation Ivan.” Ciccone has said as much himself, publically, on this web site.
T-Dogg
Last June Ciccone, commenting here under the alias “T-Dogg,” expressed his contempt for and hatred of the Mongols in several immoderate comments.
“Bottom line is I still have my patch and proudly wear it everyday wherever I want like any real patch-holder, you can’t do that anymore can you,” Ciccone taunted. “Who’s the nobody now? I’m just sayin…T-Dogg”
The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club and the Mongols Motorcycle Club have been avoiding each other’s parties since at least March 11, 1977 when a nasty brawl broke out between the two clubs at a swap meet. And, T-Dogg tried to slip his knife into that crack. “First off, you say that the Mongols have earned the respect of the one percent clubs. I am a member of a major one percent club and every one percenter that I know views the Mongols as gangbanging bitches pretending to be bikers.
“Second, you say that the Mongols didn’t lose any respect for throwing their patches in the garbage at Laughlin. Bullshit!!! What legitimate patch holder would do this??? You didn’t see the HA do this! Why? Because, like I said before these Mongols are just pretending to be bikers and they didn’t earn their patch in the first place! T-Dogg”
And, T-Dogg also played to my comprehension of the narrative – the dramatic arc – of this story I held at that time. Last June I was just starting to pitch a proposal for a book called Out Bad.
Rebel The Writer
( I was simultaneously pitching a travel book titled Sixty Strip Clubs in Fifteen Cities in Five Days; an adventure called Bugs In Yer Teeth and a learn to read I called Topher and His Dad Run From The Police. When The Heat Sweated Tuscany was the young adult. I called the adult contemporary romance Earning Sarah Her Property Of Patch and the chick lit was Sex in South Jersey With the Pagans. My how-to-business was Big Hugs and Well Constructed Pipe Bombs: Rebel’s Fully Illustrated Step by Step Guide to Beating Your Competition and my financial advice for these troubled times was tentatively titled The Magic of Putting Everything in the Name of Your Motorcycle Club. For entrepreneurs I was pitching Gun Shows and Border Crossings: A Miscellany of Little Known Ways to Earn Tax Free Cash. My cooking book was Let’s Make Meth! And for the horticulture niche I proposed Rebel’s Secret Garden in a National Forest. So far no luck with any of them. My main talent is for offending important people.)
I was calling the Mongols book Out Bad because it seemed to me to describe both what had happened to former Mongols President Ruben “Doc” Cavazos and what was about to happen to the club. I no longer see this unfolding drama the same way. But I did then and Ciccone was eager to agree with me.
A Medal For Ciccone
“Well this is no surprise!! The Mongols MC is dead because they were infiltrated by a (Doc) no good gangbanging beaner rat. As a one percenter, I can say I am sorry to see the Mongols dismantled but that happened ten years ago when Doc came around the Mongols. Before that they were a real MC. Now they’re just a bunch of gang-banging bitches who have zero understanding of loyalty, honor, respect & brotherhood.
“Doc’s ‘Mongols’ have taught us that if you do stupid shit and involve your club, the Feds will pull your patch. That said if you are outlaw motorcycle club and behave like it, while the cops will still be a pain in your ass, your club & culture will survive! There is no brotherhood in business. T-Dogg”
Ciccone even took time to explain how his own thinking about the Mongols had evolved over time. “Luckily for the Mongols, Billy Queen was only average as an undercover agent and John Ciccone was not nearly as smart and wily as he is now and the Mongols escaped relatively unscathed. That’s right I said John Ciccone. I hate giving cops any sort of recognition, but John Ciccone has chosen the lifestyle he believes is for him, he is committed to it and works hard towards what he believes is the greater good and appears to have maintained some integrity. T-Dogg”
For the sake of argument, let’s assume that Ciccone is not crazier than Captain Queeg. Let’s ignore T-Dogg’s references to his club and his patch and pretend that it is not at all weird that, for example, the Los Angeles County Sheriffs frequently refer to their police force as “the baddest gang in LA.”
Propaganda
I still can’t help noticing, in a disinterested and existential way, Ciccone’s brazen use of propaganda and lies to help him achieve what he thinks will be a “victory” over a group of bikers. Who cares whether ATF shot-callers are rational? What does matter is that Bureau decision makers are impressively sophisticated about propaganda and they have been since way before last June. An attorney in the Mongols case complained last year about the Bureau’s “considerable media sophistication.”
The ATF routinely manipulates print and electronic mass and niche media in order to glorify the “accomplishments” of its individual agents. Many of those agents are then able to cash in that glory for dollars and cents. Arguably that process is corrupt but it is not the ATF’s invention. It has been going on at least since Wyatt Earp turned his reputation into dollars. But, it is still, arguably, corrupt.
And, part of this lucrative publicity process is the routine demonization of the Bureau’s victims. And, it is a very quick sled ride from spinning the criminal justice process to cooperating with other federal agencies to intentionally obfuscate the criminal justice process. Because really, what is justice other than making sure the bad guys lose and the good guys win?
Let’s Ask An Agent
I still do not know if the ATF is any worse at this propagandizing than any other big bureaucracy. I asked a former ATF Undercover Agent point blank, “What’s wrong with the ATF?”
“Cowardly leadership,” he said, “and an institutional predisposition to go after any weak person or entity that criticizes them…. We have a perfect storm of managers who are insecure, jealous, incompetent, cowards and have no problem lying.”
It is not the answer I am expecting to hear. I am not sure how I can use that quote because, at least partly, I think the former agent is very naïve for a decorated, tough guy, career cop. I sort of take it for granted that official lies are now part of the background noise of American life. But, I think where the ex-agent and I may be able to agree is that the ATF is better at lying than any other big bureaucracy. And the ATF is the bureaucracy that routinely, and often anonymously, explains the “motorcycle club menace” to virtually every public voice in the world.
“ATF is tasked with investigating violent crime specifically involving firearms and explosives,” the same agent psittacinematically explains. “The biker gangs are a perfect fit and some of our operatives have developed expertise in that area.” It is the official line. The former agent could be reading from a book. Except he has already memorized the book. He is a parrot in a movie. The ATF has become the “go to source” for all the authors and writers and reporters and producers in the world who want to tell a story about motorcycle outlaws but are too frightened to go look for themselves. And, the little price these “opinion makers” pay for access to ATF sources is merely complete gullibility.
America’s Most Wanted
For example, Ciccone has appeared on the popular Fox Television true-crime series America’s Most Wanted and he looks good on television. He is a self-assured and fit young man. He can’t grow a decent mustache but he does wear a little goatee and he comes bearing theatrical properties. The set of the Fox show has been decorated with paraphernalia stolen, or if you prefer “seized,” from Mongols club members. And, in return for unquestioning acceptance of ATF allegations, and because a lot of the people who fret over the America’s decline watch this show, AMW has been given “exclusive access” to the Mongols Investigation.
“Wednesday, November 5th, 2008 turned out to be a banner day for agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and their ongoing effort to take down the Mongols biker gang,” the show’s host, an obviously well-intentioned man named John Walsh, said a year ago. “AMW profiled several members of the Mongols who had eluded capture during the October raid called Operation Black Rain…. Although the ATF had rounded up more than 70 Mongols when AMW profiled the case on November 1st, there were still 11 fugitives in the wind. Thanks to AMW’s viewers, the ATF scratched three more fugitives off their list….”
“These are bad guys,” Walsh assured millions of viewers. And, so the possibility that any juror might think of any Mongols defendant as an innocent guy became slightly less likely.
Writers Who Are Not Rebel
One of the reasons why so few insightful books about motorcycle clubs get published is because the authors must either be “participant observers” – like John Hall, or the Canadian anthropologist Daniel R. Wolf or Edward Winterhalder or Sonny Barger – or “professional” authors who must have the cooperation of the ATF.
In the first place, any story a professional writer will tell about outlaw bikers is a story that the ATF has already outlined. Secondly, professional writers as a rule are afraid of outlaw bikers. Third, even the brave writers can’t get outlaws to talk to them. They don’t frequent environments where they might learn something about bikers. So professional writers always depend on police sources to hand their story to them. Then all the writer has to work at is making the words pretty. It is a good deal for writers who know better than to offend important people. But the result tends to be professionally written police propaganda.
Well known “biker authority” Julian Sher, for example, is an authority mostly because the ATF says he is. Sher is a bright, vivacious man who knows how to fill up a page. He is certainly smart enough that he could find something interesting to say if he ever bothered to look. But he seems willing to look only as far as the easiest source. So Sher has become an official mouthpiece. Which partly explains how, a couple of years ago, Sher came to quote a prison psychiatrist who flatly proclaimed that all outlaw bikers are “psychopaths.”
Motorcycle Gangs Courses
Sher has even played at being a “biker authority” before audiences of gullible cops. Cops love to take outlaw motorcycle gangs courses. There must be a million of the things. Just attending one of these courses can be a little adventure for all the bored Barney Fifes who must give suburban mommies traffic tickets day after day. So they take these courses for their “professional advancement.”
And, who knows when real bikers might show up at one of these masquerades to pillage, vandalize and maybe even rape? Ooh, la, la! Rape. Maybe even gang rape. Fears of an outlaw biker invasion at one course called “Behind the Cuts” were so acute that the brochure warned, “the exact class location will only be given out with paid registration.”
“Behind the Cuts” lasted eight hours, cost $125 to attend and featured “ATF Supervisor John Ciccone (Supervisor of ATF numerous Major Undercover Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Investigations for ATF) and Julian Sher.”
“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity!! You will be able to speak one on one with these experts and ask questions,” the promotional brochure explained. And, I have seen examples of both John Ciccone’s and Julian Sher’s prose. So when I noticed the multiple explanation marks in the “Behind the Cuts” brochure I wondered which one of them wrote the advertising copy. And, I also wondered if Ciccone wants Sher to call him T-Dogg.
Biker True Crime
ATF approved, armchair biker experts have another professional advantage over participant observers. Major publishers insist that their “true crime” titles must be “fact-checked.” And the ATF understands this. So, in the sub-genre of “biker true crime” the ATF has become the ultimate verifier of facts.
Random House published a factually verified book “written by” “average” ATF Agent William Queen in 2005. Under and Alone, the story of Queen’s harrowing adventures amongst the Mongols, was actually written by a professionally respected true crime writer named Douglas Century. Century has published three credited books, is impressively represented by International Creative Management and his words have appeared under his own name in The New York Times, Details, Rolling Stone, Men’s Journal, Radar, Blender, Vibe and The Guardian. But despite Century’s impeccability and Queen’s official heroism every review I have ever heard an actual Mongol give of this book has included the word “bullshit.”
So far the Mongols have been miraculously spared the movie. Mel Gibson’s production company, Icon, bought the rights to Under and Alone. But then Gibson got drunk and uttered some unfortunately anti-Semitic remarks during a traffic stop one night in Malibu. The financing for Under and Alone fell through and Gibson wound up making Apocalypto instead. The project is still out there, however, and sometimes the actual accomplishment of these major motion pictures takes a long time.
Another former ATF agent named Jay Dobyns published an enthusiastically promoted and verifiably true book titled No Angel. Dobyns book was written with the assistance of promising true crime writer named Nils Johnson-Shelton and published by Crown in January 2009. No Angel got rave blurbs from William Queen and Douglas Century as well as biker authority Julian Sher. Raise your hand when you spot the pattern, okay? Movie rights were snapped up by 20th Century Fox Studios and the book has been republished in England and Germany.
Gangland
The History Channel series Gangland has also helped the ATF make its version of persons and events the verifiable, consensual truth. Former Mongols President Ruben “Doc” Cavazos, who bears at least some responsibility for the club’s current distress, appeared on that show. Part of a transcript from that appearance has actually been entered into evidence in the Mongols case. Which raised, considering the ATF’s media sophistication, an obvious question for me. Maybe it has also occurred to you.
So I asked Alan Nevins, Doc’s former agent, just how it was that Doc came to appear on cable TV talking about “wars” with the Hells Angels and the Mexican Mafia and all that sort of thing. And, Nevins replied that he honestly does not recall if Doc approached Gangland or the show approached him. “He approached me,” Nevins explained about his professional relationship with Cavazos. “Someone recommended him to me.” Nevins did not know who.
Gangland is a “reality-based” crime series that airs on the History Channel in the United States. A website explains the premise for the show: “They rob, kill, and terrorize, and they’ve left their bloody mark on American history. This is the world of Gangland….With exclusive interviews and rarely seen footage, this is a raw look at life inside these gangs – from those who live it and the agencies that are working to stop them.” The ATF, one of the agencies “working to stop them,” is undeniably, a primary source for all the Gangland episodes that depict the robbing, killing, rape, mayhem, and terrorizing done by the modern menace posed by motorcycle clubs.
A self-alleged participant in a recent episode about the Vagos Motorcycle Club told me, “All info comes directly from ATF according to her (a Chicago based producer named Jill.”) And undeniably, the story Gangland always tells about motorcycle clubs is the story the ATF wants heard.
Charles Manson And Ciccone
The longer I look at the Mongols case the more Orwellian the ATF begins to seem. I wonder if Charles Manson was an ATF Undercover Agent and how the ATF got us bogged down in Iraq.
I only have to ask Cavazos’ agent two or three obvious questions before I start to wonder just who might have suggested to Doc Cavazos that it would probably be a good idea for him to write a memoir.
Honor Few, Fear None: The Life and Times of a Mongol by Ruben “Doc” Cavazos, International President, Mongols Motorcycle Club was published by HarperCollins in June, 2008. And with 20-20 hindsight it might have been one of those projects that post-modern novelist John Barth once described as “worth remarking but not worth doing.” Which also raises the question of how, exactly, did Doc get hooked up with Gangland? If not Nevins then who? And, another thing I keep wondering about is who brought Doc Cavazos to the attention of a documentary film maker at HBO? How did Cavazos become the kind of egomaniac who would crave all this risky publicity?
Was somebody employed by the United States whispering in this guy’s ear? Or is that just me wondering if Manson worked for the ATF back in the day?
Click Click Click
The authoritative, factually verifiable book about Operation Black Rain has not yet been published. Although, for all I know, right this minute Douglas Century is click, click, clicking away. Whoever writes it, I know it will be a “compulsively page turning,” “absolutely amazing,” “fascinating true story,” of “brave,” “real American heroes,” that will take “us into the deepest and most dangerous part” of a “dark and twisted world.”
My guess is 2011. Kerrie Droban’s book about the Pagans is coming in 2010 and biker true crime is a niche market so my guess is the next Mongols book will be published early in 2011. And, my other guess is that when the book is published the excesses of ATF employees will be whitewashed while the enemies of the ATF – aren’t the enemies of the ATF really the enemies of all that is decent and American and good – will be tarred for doing exactly the same things the ATF agents have done.
Dirty Tricks
The ATF has always been the Bureau of Dirty Tricks. Twenty-three years ago, an ATF Special Agent named Kenneth Faderley – pretending, incidentally, to be a biker named Gus Magisono – convinced an impoverished and alienated Vietnam Vet named Randy Weaver to saw the barrels down on a couple of shotguns for money to feed his children. Weaver, who mostly just wanted to be let alone, was subsequently indicted and besieged in his mountain cabin and his wife was killed by a sniper.
In 1991, an ATF Agent named Steve Martin begged a member of the Warlocks Motorcycle Club in Florida to supply him with guns so he would not be murdered by “Columbians.” And, gun running then became one of the principal charges leveled against the Warlocks in that investigation.
In 2007, an ATF Agent named Gregory Gaioni begged a Mongol named William Owens for methamphetamine. He needed the methamphetamine, Gaioni told Owens, to repay a debt. And, it was a big boy debt. Nils Johnson-Shelton might not be able to imagine such a debt. If he couldn’t obtain the drug, Gaioni claimed, he would be killed. So Owens, a recovering meth abuser, got his club brother the crank he needed to live. And last October Owens was charged with conspiracy to distribute and distribution of that packet of that drug.
Nor was the amount of the drug Gaioni begged for arbitrary. It was just enough of the drug to ensure that Owens would be faced with a mandatory ten year sentence. The Owens-Gaioni transaction was a classic example of what lawyers call “sentence entrapment.”
But so what? The only way an entrapment defense can be argued is at a trial. And, one of the government’s prime goals in this case is to make sure that neither Owens nor any of the other Mongols in this case ever actually stands trial. In prosecutor heaven everybody cooperates.
Sentence Reform
The United States Attorney’s office, holds all the cards which is the main reason so many federal defendants cooperate and confess whether they did what they confess or not. After “sentencing reform” in 1984, near the height of the cocaine panic, sentencing discretion was taken away from judges and given to prosecutors. That is not what was supposed to happen. No one ever intended to give that power to prosecutors. The idea was to crack down on liberal judges who were “soft on crime.” But every action has a reaction. And, the only constant in life is irony.
So Federal District Judges no longer have broad discretion about what sentence to impose on a criminal who pleads guilty to some particular charge: Say, hypothetically, a defendant pleads guilty to selling his annoyingly stupid friend and club brother an amount of an illegal drug that club brother claims to need to avoid getting himself killed. Sentence reform put an end to the actual amount of judgment a judge might exercise when he judges a situation like that.
Prosecutors, on the other hand, are perfectly free to use a couple of lawyerly strategies called “plea bargaining” and “charge bargaining.” Judges must impose certain sentences for certain crimes. Judges must read a piece of paper called a “sentencing table,” put their finger one a particular spot and read the prison sentence that appears there – like playing a board game. But, prosecutors get to decide which crimes the “bad people” are actually charged with.
It works like this: You can be arrested and detained for selling drugs, and talking about that drug sale, and talking about that drug sale on the telephone, and culminating that drug sale in your garage where you keep your gun and so on through however many charges the government wants to pile on you. But your wise and good prosecutor has the power to charge you with any or none of those “crimes.” If you cooperate, if you “take responsibility,” the prosecutor can charge you with something else. And, then you can plead guilty to that.
Come On Baby Let’s Take A Chance
Most of the charges alleged in the Mongols case almost fourteen months ago were filed in order to advance two cynical goals. First the charges were meant to publicize the motorcycle menace against which the ATF is selflessly protecting all of us. And also, the long list of charges – all carrying draconian punishments that not even a compassionate judge can mollify – were calculated to intimidate the defendants into cooperating. Consequently, many Mongols have acquiesced.
So far, all but one of the defendants who have pled guilty have pled guilty to Count One of the indictment. They have all confessed to “conspiring to conduct and participate in the conduct of the affairs of the Mongols through a pattern of racketeering activity.” And, the sentences imposed for this “crime” so far have ranged from probation to, in a couple of cases, as much as ten years. In every, single case cooperation has been rewarded.
Because every defendant has been charged with Count One, every defendant has faced up to twenty years in prison. Count One is in the indictment, because the last time “John Ciccone was not nearly as smart and wily as he is now and the Mongols escaped relatively unscathed.” The idea is that this time the Mongols will not escape unscathed.
The possibility that last time “the Mongols escaped relatively unscathed” because the last time the Mongols were relatively innocent does not even seem worthy of wondering out loud. I am not sure who even bothers to wonder if the indicted Mongols are guilty or innocent. The story line the ATF seems to have successfully promoted is that this case is really “the Mongols versus the civilized world!”
Count One, meanwhile, is a dog chasing his tail. The Mongols Motorcycle Club is criminal conspiracy because prosecutors have convinced defendants in this case to confess that they were part of the Mongols Motorcycle Club criminal conspiracy. So if Fifty-six guys “freely” confess to this, it must be true. A dog that is beaten until he learns to quack must be a duck because if it quacks it is a duck.
Let Us Go Then You And I
That is what happens in the justice casino.
Watching these confessions, one after another, week after week may be the single, most repellant public spectacle since Stalin. It makes me yearn for the lady and the donkey shows down in old Tijuana. Those spectacles were disgusting but at least they were disgusting in an interesting way. These guilty pleas are all disgusting in the most banal way.
I don’t know how the lawyers can stand it time after time. I don’t know how the judge can stand it. “How far did you advance in school,” the judge asks sweetly as she begins to verify the “competence” of the confessed.
And before he answers the wise defendant always whispers something to his lawyer. And, only after the lawyer whispers back does the defendant dare to say, “High school.” Or, “Ninth grade.”
“And, are you aware that you may be giving up certain of your rights, like the right to vote or own a gun or serve on a jury?”
Whisper, whisper. “Yeah, probably astronaut is also out of the question,” the lawyer advices confidentially.
Whisper, whisper, nod. The defendant answers the judge, “Yeah, right.”
“And are you in fact actually guilty?”
Whisper, whisper. Bitter, little laugh. And then the slight smile that means that the defendant is about to turn forever to stone. “Yeah. Guilty.”
The casino never pays off in justice because the casino does not need to dispense justice in order to survive. The prosecutor is not seeking justice. The prosecutor is an advocate for the ATF. This is not an equal “contest.” The prosecutor has all the time and all the money he wants. The prosecutor is not just dealing all the cards. The prosecutor own the card factory. The justice casino is not about justice. The casino is about feeding the beast. And, it all runs much more efficiently when the losers simply cooperate and negotiate in advance how much of their lives they are willing to lose.
“Thank you, your honor.”
“Thank you, your honor.”
That’s always my favorite part. As the Deputy Marshalls lead the “convicted” man away. As the opposing sides stuff files back into their expensive leather cases. Before they go out into the hall to smile about last summer in Rome or on the Costa del Sol. My very favorite part is when the lawyers thank the judge.
Harry Reynolds
This is the spectacle Harry Reynolds has decided to challenge and this is the challenge I have come to Room 750 in the justice casino to see. Reynolds, through his attorney, has entered a motion that asks to be separated from the Mongols criminal conspiracy trial because, while he was a Mongol, he was never part of any Mongols criminal conspiracy.
“There are some bad actors among this group of men who are charged,” a lawyer for another defendant in the case complained to a judge last year, “and then there are some actors who are good or who are not bad or who are certainly not criminals.” The argument did not work a year ago but maybe it will work now.
Reynolds has been specifically charged with knowing about and watching a drug deal that conveyed no actual drugs and that was transacted between an ATF Undercover Agent pretending to be a Mongol and a confidential informant employed by the ATF. The government argues that because most of the people who witnessed this theatrical spectacle were Mongols it was crime committed on behalf of the Mongols “criminal conspiracy.”
Reynolds has replied that he was just there at the request of the ATF Agent who he had thought at the time was his friend. Reynolds and the other Mongols were there to make sure that their friend was not robbed. Reynolds even brought another man who had absolutely no connection to the club to help Reynolds protect his friend, the ATF Agent, from being robbed. And, none of the events that night had anything to do with Mongols club business so Reynolds wants to be tried separately.
Petitio Principii
Lawrence S. Middleton, the Assistant United States Attorney who wrote the reply to Reynolds’ motion, argues that “the firmly established rule (is) that generally, co-defendants should be tried together.” It still strikes me as a dog chasing his own tail. In Latin it is called petitio principii which means that the conclusion of an argument is contained in one of its premises. In the Mongols case it goes something like: The Mongols MC is a criminal conspiracy; therefore all the members of that conspiracy should be tried together; therefore Harry Reynolds should be tried to determine if he was a member of that conspiracy with all the other members of that conspiracy.
I want to see what the judge makes of that and I want to see what the judge makes of Reynolds’ other motion. Almost fourteen months after his arrest, Reynolds wants his lawyer to see: The “government’s witness list, expert witness materials, impeachment materials regarding any informants and cooperating witnesses in this case, and grand jury
transcripts.” Reynolds also wants the six plea deals that remain sealed to be unsealed.
The government objects to this, it seems, because to do so might make this case fairer than it should be. I am not a defendant in this case so I think the way the government has manipulated the discovery, or disclosure, of evidence in this case is hilarious. It would be less funny if one of the defendants was me.
So Tired, Tired Of Waiting
The trial of this case has been scheduled for four dates: December 16th, 2008; July 21st, 2009; November 24th 2009; and now April 13th, 2010 for the simple reason that not all of the defendants have yet been convinced to cooperate. The United States Attorney who brought the case, Thomas O’Brien, has quit and gone on to defend white collar criminals. The District Judge who has presided over this case, Florence-Marie Cooper, will retire a month before the next trial date. But the zombie prosecution refuses to die.
Since the arrests in October, 2008, the amount of evidence discovered in this case has roughly doubled. The stated reason why the case has been rescheduled three times is that it is “so unusual and so complex.” Really, the reason why it has not yet gone to trial is that the prosecution has done everything it can to keep the case from getting there.
In its reply to Reynolds motion, the prosecution even threatened Reynolds’ attorney with what is called an “evidence dump:” Which is to say the prosecution threatened to dump so much previously withheld evidence on Reynolds attorney, evidence which the prosecution has already carefully sorted and examined, that Reynolds’ attorney would never be able to make sense of it all in time for a trial.
In fact, all of the remaining defendants are threatened with evidence dumps. The prosecution, the U.S. Attorney assures the judge, will faithfully disclose all the information it is now holding about informants, Undercover Agents, secret testimony and allegations that have been made by up to six cooperating witnesses in this case “at least one week to 10 days prior to trial.”
Mistakes Were Made
The prosecution is not an advocate of truth. The prosecution is an advocate for the ATF. And, the ATF might be “embarrassed” if this case ever went to trial. Over and over again in ATF investigations of motorcycle clubs, examples of illegal or unethical behavior by Undercover Agents have been exposed. Usually by the time the book is published or the Gangland episode airs, a way is found to spin this misconduct or laugh it away.
For example, Agent Blake “Bo” Boteler did not assault a drunk with a deadly weapon during his infiltration of the Sons of Silence in 1998. His weapon “just missed” and the victim “fell over because he was drunk.” Boteler did not knock the man out cold. The victim only “passed out.” During the same investigation, Agent Jay “Bird” Dobyns did not assault a member of the Sons. Rather, entirely without provocation, that biker threatened to kill Dobyns and Dobyns’ family.
During the “Operation Ivan” investigation Agent William Queen won the club’s respect by beating up patrons in a bar. In an interview Queen explained he had to do it. “They (the Mongols) had that violent reputation. They’re all about violence…. They’re about violence. John Ciccone wanted to stop them…. If I had to fight I had to fight. The Mongols liked it. That’s the game that I had to play.”
So when the Mongols were violent they had to be stopped. When Queen was violent he was just playing a game.
Queen also very famously did not snort a line of crank in a motel room in Laughlin. Rather, at just the right moment Queen pretended to snort and brushed the drug onto the floor with his hand.
During “Black Biscuit,” the Angels investigation in Arizona, Dobyns famously did not sleep with a groupie a patch holder introduced to him. And, that case also largely fell apart because the government refused to disclose records of possibly illegal or unethical behavior on Dobyns part and the part of other agents and informers in that case.
Among the evidence the government has concealed in the Mongols case is the identities and histories of the informants who created this case. One to six of those informants are cooperating witnesses who, as part of their plea deals, have agreed to offer evidence against their fellow defendants. Only one of those former Mongols, Lars Wilson, is unequivocally cooperating with an ongoing investigation. The other five former Mongols who have sealed plea deals may actually be cooperating or may only be pawns in an ATF disinformation campaign to spread as much paranoia among the remaining defendants as possible
At least six, paid, confidential informants also participated in the investigation and it might be interesting to see how some of them hold up under cross-examination.
Rat One
I have been told that Confidential Informant One is a former officer in both the Camarillo and Cypress Park chapters named T.J. Stansbury. Stansbury’s cooperation actually started Operation Black Rain in June, 2005 after he was arrested for mail fraud.
Ciccone used what are widely described to be his most excellent people skills on Stansbury and convinced the man to become a paid informant. Besides monetary compensation, the mail fraud charges against him were also dropped. “This informant,” according to public documents, provided “background information for both the organization and its members. CI-1 has also provided information regarding the organization’s structure, and the criminal activities engaged in by its members and associates.”
This first informant also, according to a statement made by Ciccone, introduced three ATF Agents to “various members of the Mongols OMG. CI-1 used the undercover ATF agents as conduits to conversations regarding narcotics and other illegal activity. Additionally, all three of the undercover agents made purchases of narcotics and firearms, observed the purchase of narcotics and firearms by Mongols members, and/or observed illegal firearms possession by Mongols members and associates.” In another words, in return for money and a get out of jail free card, rat number one told the ATF what the ATF wanted to hear.
Kaos Kozlowski
Confidential Informant Two was known in the club by the name “Kaos,” and he is by far the most interesting of the informants. For at least four months, I have tried to find the connection between Kaos and an ATF Agent named Darrin P. Kozlowski.
Kaos claimed to be a former Chicago gangster. “We didn’t have a name, nothing,” Kaos explains on one wiretap. “We were just fucking selling dope. You know? Fucking dope organization.” Wire tap evidence exists that Kaos overtly tried to criminalize the Las Vegas chapter of the Mongols and that this attempted criminalization was opposed by other members of that chapter including Harry Reynolds.
Kaos, Rat number two, became according to a public document, “a documented ATF informant in or about October 2005,” about three months after Confidential Informant One. “At the time, CI-2 was a prospect of the Mongols Las Vegas chapter. During the period between October 2005 and February 2008, CI-2 became a ‘full-patched’ member and held the position of Sergeant-at-Arms.” After Harry Reynolds expelled Kaos from the Las Vegas chapter, “…CI-2 transferred from the Las Vegas chapter to the Las Vegas, Henderson chapter….”
“In May 2006, CI-2 introduced a fourth ATF undercover agent,” who told the club his name was J. Hollywood. This undercover agent’s legal name is John Carr. The conduct and behavior of all of these informants was flamboyant enough to attract attention in the club. According to a knowledgeable source, in 2008 Harry Reynolds remarked, “Hey, I think Kaos is a rat. And that dude Hollywood is a cop.” Carr was the Undercover Agent who had earlier invited Harry Reynolds to take part in a drug deal.
Three Four Five
I have never been able to confirm the identities of Confidential Informants Three and Four. CI-3 was paid by the ATF to inform on the Mongols San Diego East County chapter from March 30, 2006 until March 28,2007. CI-4 was not a member of the Mongols but arranged to purchase methamphetamine and a gun from two patched Mongols named Ricardo Gutierrez and Jaime Flores. CI-4 also introduced Confidential Informant Five to members of the club.
I believe that Confidential Informant Five was a Montebello, California Police Officer named Chris Cervantes and that Cervantes aspires to join the ATF. Cervantes was paid for his work by the ATF and he frequently posed as a criminal associate of Agent John “Hollywood” Carr. Cervantes, I have been told, was the other half of the multi-kilo cocaine transaction with which Harry Reynolds is now charged.
Coconut Dan
I have also concluded that Confidential Informant Six is a guy named Dan “Coconut Dan” Corrigan. And, I can understand why the prosecution would want to keep him off a witness stand. A source has described Corrigan as a man who “cannot read or write, is addicted to pain pills and thinks he talks directly to God.” The prosecution, however, convinced the Grand Jury that Corrigan was a credible spy. In a sworn affidavit late last year, Ciccone explained:
“In or about November 2006, I learned that ATF in Reno, Nevada had debriefed a CI (hereinafter ‘CI-6′) who agreed to become an informant for ATF in Reno. CI-6 has also been compensated for his cooperation. Since November 2006, CI-6 has been assisting ATF in Reno, Nevada and Los Angeles, California, by providing intelligence information and by documenting the criminal activity of members of the Mongols OMG. CI-6 has also purchased drug and firearms and has made introductions of ATF undercover agents in Reno, Nevada. Initially, CI-6 was the Sergeant-at-Arms of the Carson City chapter of the Mongols, but he later transferred to the Central chapter of the Mongols (Reno) and was appointed as President – a position he still holds. During the past year, CI-6 was also appointed as the Mongols ‘World chapter Sergeant-at-Arms.’ However, that position no longer exists.”
Actually it never did. The World Chapter seems to have been one of Doc Cavazos’ grander delusions. Frankly, six months ago when I started to pitch Out Bad, it was easy to think of Cavazos as a narcissist. But as bits and pieces of Operation Black Rain come together like a jigsaw puzzle, it is starting to look like even the World Chapter might have been suggested to Cavazos by employees of the United States government.
What Makes An Agent Tick
I have tried for at least a year to try to understand or even sympathize with the ATF Undercovers. After all, even outlaw bikers find joining a motorcycle club to be a life changing experience. So it is no surprise that it seems to be a life changing experience for federal cops, too. In countless public statements, to cite an obvious example, William Queen has bluntly described how loved he felt by the men whose lives he then tried to ruin. “They became my release,” Queen said a little more unguardedly than usual in an interview. “They became my buddies.”
But, I still do not get the joy in being Judas. I even asked Jay Dobyns to bare me a little of his soul. I asked even though I already understood that Dobyns is not the world’s most self-examined guy. About every two or three months, depending on whether or not I have something else to write, I accuse Dobyns of being crazy. So that is one of the first things Dobyns wanted me to know. That he is not crazy. No ATF employed psychiatrist ever diagnosed him as crazy.
“No shrink ever judged me crazy. ATF’s psyche doc did a post-case analysis of me. His conclusions were that I was fine. Those conclusions remained private and protected. Some ATF bosses who wanted to burn me down thought there might be a smoking gun there. They extorted my medical records from the Doc hoping to establish their argument but, I got the last laugh because when they got them, the Doc’s opinion was that I was healthy.”
So there went my intention to try to supervise with these guys by offering them an insanity defense.
Chatting With Jay
“What about Operation Black Biscuit,” I wanted to know. “Was it good for the ATF? Was it bad for Jay Dobyns?
“It was great for Jay Dobyns in a bad way,” he explained. “I spent my entire adult life working undercover. I became very good. I was the master of deception. I was intoxicated by walking into a lions’ den and convincing the lions I was one of them…someone to be trusted. Had I not been threatened, and had ATF not then begun fucking me over, I don’t think I could have pulled myself out of the role of Bird.
“ATF took it away from me because they knew it was something that I loved. That is what they do…. But, it was great for Jay Dobyns because it forced me free of Bird and I have mostly returned to who I was twenty-plus years ago – a goofy, silly, joking, fun loving, carefree person…. Not quite as lighthearted as I once was but closer.”
I still do not understand how the Undercovers do the hoodoo they do. I try to relate. I am often, personally, shy. I find it hard enough to be myself without pretending to be someone else. So I wonder, “During Black Biscuit did you ever feel ridiculous?”
“Ridiculous, no.”
“Did you ever believe the role you were playing?”
“Believe in the role, yes. I had to. If I didn’t believe the bullshit I was putting out then I couldn’t expect anyone else to.”
“Did you ever feel like you were in a movie? I am just asking you questions based on how I have felt in certain dramatic times in my life. Like leading men in combat. Did you ever get stage fright?”
“Movie, no. Nightmare, yes. Stage fright? Sure, I was always nervous. I just learned how to conceal it. Not unlike butterflies before an athletic event. I was not, am not a biker investigator. There are many of my peers who likely would have hurt the HA worse had they been selected for my role. I always played a thug and I just converted that role into a biker.”
Failure To Communicate
It is no use. I do not understand Jay. I never detect the slightest hint that anything he has ever done might have stained him with shame. I think Dobyns is much more proud of his life than I am of mine. So then I stop looking backward at how the ATF has done things in the past.
I begin to see that I cannot understand the Undercover ATF Agents who took part in Operation Black Rain by looking at the agents who investigated other operations. And, then a couple of things I have learned come roaring back up from the black hole in my head where forgotten things go.
“Luckily for the Mongols, Billy Queen was only average as an undercover agent and John Ciccone was not nearly as smart and wily as he is now,” T-Dogg wrote.
“I was not, am not a biker investigator,” Jay Dobyns told me. “There are many of my peers who likely would have hurt the HA worse had they been selected for my role.”
So I stop trying to sympathize with the Agents who the ATF thinks are better and improved over Agents like Dobyns and Queen. I start thinking of them as my least favorite animal. I start thinking of them as Cobras.
Kozlowski
One of the “peers” Dobyns might have had in mind was Special Agent Kozlowski. Kozlowski, according to a usually informed source, joined the ATF in 1993 and if there is “senior biker investigator” in the ATF it is probably him. In his book about Operation Ivan, William Queen wrote: ” I’d watched with admiration and some awe as Koz worked the Vagos. I’d watched his backup agents bust their butts as they tried to keep up with him as he flew by the seat of his pants time and again. I’d heard his tales of uncanny, split-second thinking when the Vagos tried to rope him into criminal activity or get him to do drugs. I’d also watched as his investigation turned lethal.”
Kozlowski was working undercover in 1996. According to the same, usually informed source, shortly thereafter he attempted to infiltrate the American Outlaws Association in Florida. He was a member of the bogus Fort Lauderdale chapter of the Warlocks Motorcycle Club – a chapter in which every member was a cop. He has also been compensated as a speaker at outlaw motorcycle gangs courses. He knows how to get a story together. Kozlowski had a peripheral role in the investigation of the Sons of Silence. And he has been a trusted colleague of John Ciccone for more than fifteen years.
Kozlowski also seems to be totally free of the emotional after burn that afflicted “average” agents like Queen and Dobyns. In fact, Kozlowski is such a charismatic guy that Confidential Informant Two, the rat known as Kaos, actually borrowed most of his biography from Koz.
Say Kaos Koz Real Fast
Kaos claimed to be a gangster from Wisconsin by way of Chicago. Kozlowski is from Bolingbrook, Illinois and lived briefly in West Bend, Wisconsin. Kaos briefly extricated himself from the investigation after his “mother died in Chicago.” Kozlowski went home to his mother’s funeral in Bolingbrook in February, 2008.
The Mongols case is crawling like rotten meat with official mysteries. I think the connection between Kaos, the Las Vegas and Henderson patch holder and Kozlowski, the Montebello patch holder is one of the more interesting ones. To hear it unraveled I will probably have to pay $150 and flash a badge at a secret police educational event. Or maybe I will get lucky. Maybe a bright and opinionated reader named T-Dogg will shed a little light on the subject in some future comment. According to a trusted, confidential source, after his mother’s funeral Kaos “rarely came around to any events or runs. He pretty much helped get Hollywood into the club and then disappeared.”
Maybe T-Dogg or some official or unofficial spokesman for the ATF might also someday shed a little light on the murder of a Mongol named Manuel “Hitman” Martin. The mystery of Martin’s murder is enhanced by an almost magical chain of official coincidences.
Why October Ninth
After looking at the ATF investigation as a whole it seems to me that there were several logical places to have ended it. Doc Cavazos was expelled from the club at the end of August and the investigation could have ended then but it continued. A Mongol named Christopher Ablett shot and killed Mark “Papa” Guardado, the President of the Frisco charter of the Hells Angels around Labor Day and Operation Black Rain could have ended then but it did not. Instead it ended shortly after October 9th.
On October 7th, 2008 Martin and numerous other Mongols attended a party at a bar. Three ATF Agents, including Kozlowski, attended that party that night and according to multiple, reliable sources the ATF Agents spent much of that night trying to start a fight with the bar’s bouncers and other patrons.
And also, there were actually two, separate ATF investigations continuing that night in that northeastern corner of Los Angeles. Besides the Mongols, the ATF was investigating a neighborhood clique, believed to be in some way affiliated with La Eme, the Mexican Mafia. The clique is named Toonerville Rifa. (The Toonerville neighborhood was one of the last trolley lines to disappear in old Los Angeles.) And, I have also been told that a member of the Toonerville clique was in the bar where the Mongols partied that night and that he was harassed by the three ATF agents, especially by Darrin Kozlowski.
The three ATF agents left the bar early – about 90 minutes before Manuel Martin. And, as Martin, 30, of Venice, California was riding home in the early morning hours of October 8th he was shot off his motorcycle by an as-yet-unnamed assailant.
Thirteen Shots
After the shooting, the police were extraordinarily coy. The next morning Sergeant Tom Lorenz of the Glendale Police Department speculated that the shooting might have been a “case of road rage.” Lorenz went on to say “We are investigating whether or not it does involve an outlaw motorcycle gang. At this particular time, we have not confirmed it.”
Police did reveal, however, that Martin had been shot 13 times. Which would point to an execution by someone affiliated with the thirteenth letter of the alphabet, the M, or in Spanish, la Eme. The earliest news accounts were that Martin had been “shot at” 13 times. But the “news” accounts did not reveal how anyone could have known that.
All of this police account is generously leavened with new, improved, fast acting blather. Ciccone has claimed over and over in official documents that cooperating witnesses were in danger from the Mexican Mafia. Six plea deals remain sealed, the official explanation goes, because those six men are in danger from the Mexican Mafia. In the Gangland episode, Doc Cavazos claimed that a score of Mongols had been killed by La Eme. And there was actual shooting between a Latino clique named Gage Maravilla and the Mongols. Doc’s brother, Al “The Suit” Cavazos, was allegedly wounded by members of that clique. Late last Spring, the government leaked an allegation that members of Gage Maravilla had been killed by Mongols and the bodies had been burned in the desert.
That’s a great image isn’t it? If you were a writer wouldn’t you love to write that scene? But there is still not much evidence that La Eme was green lighting Mongols late in 2008.
La Eme Menace
In fact, just last week a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sergeant named Mark Bailey told the San Gabriel Valley News: “The motorcycle gang is mobile and not territorial like street gangs, and members don’t tend to have problems with each other…. About four years ago the Mongols had a disagreement over drug sales with the Mexican Mafia, a prison gang that controls Latino street gangs in Southern California. The Mexican Mafia put a “green light” on Mongols members, or a go-ahead for gang members to kill them on-sight.” But now, “The dispute seems to be over, Bailey said.”
The official story purports that a man on a motorcycle going 70 miles an hour on a Los Angeles freeway in the dark was shot not once or twice or five times, which happens to be closer to the truth, but exactly thirteen times by a man in a car that was also moving 70 miles an hour. The shooter did not merely count 13 shots. He counted the hits at 70 miles an hour in the dark and he did not stop until Martin had been hit 13 times. Who besides John Ciccone and Julian Sher actually believes that?
Kozlowski immediately told other Mongols that Martin had been murdered by Toonerville. Not every Mongol jumped to that conclusion but several Mongols remember the vehemence with which Kozlowski made the assertion. “It was like he was trying to start a war,” one Mongol told me.
Los Angeles police announced the case to be solved after nine months of silence. In early July 2009, ten members of the Toonerville clique were arrested in a series of dramatic raids. The actual killer of Manuel Martin had been arrested earlier “by another police agency,” the police account asserted. And the motive was supposed to be to an ongoing feud between Doc Cavazos, who had been expelled from the club five weeks before the shooting, and La Eme. The story was reported internationally. The dramatic and telling detail about the 13 shots was also reported internationally. And no one ever questioned whether such a feat of marksmanship with a handgun was even possible.
One thing that is undeniable about Hitman Martin’s murder is that it did bring a speedy close to Operation Black Rain. Martin died about 3 am on October 8th. The United States Attorney presented the Grand Jury with an indictment against 79 Mongols on October 9th. The Martin murder ended the investigation.
Here Come Da Judge
So, six days before Thanksgiving, 2009 I go to the justice casino hoping to learn something about the secrets the ATF keeps. I ride the bike. I have made the trip enough times to know the sign on the 110 Freeway that points me to the 5 Freeway is really pointing me to the 101 South. I park in the same lot I always park, stuff the jacket in a saddlebag and stuff my little four by nine reporter’s notebook in my back pocket. I am pretty sure I am dressed well enough to enter a court.
I am wearing my best flannel shirt. I have even pressed the color. I just washed the jeans last week. And I am wearing my best, drugstore cowboy boots – the deer tan leather ones with the red flames and the big skulls on the sides. Of course, after I get inside I realize everyone thinks I am a bum or maybe an escapee.
I go into the court room and wait until a bailiff comes around. He asks me what I am doing there. I tell him and he tells me to get my ass outside. “Go wait in the hall.”
There is hardly anyone around. Besides the Bailiff, the only other person waiting for the hearing to start is a blonde in a grey, silk suit who looks like the young Ellen Barkin. I don’t know who she is.
We all wait patiently. We all grow bored. The bailiff keeps trying to strike up a conversation with the blonde in the nice suit and she is polite but she is too good for bailiffs. She looks good enough to date U.S. Attorneys. She looks like she deserves a summer on the Costa del Sol. The bailiff gives up and struts off down the shiny, stone hall vowing to “find out what is going on.”
I give the blonde a go. Why not? I get as far into my game as the part where I make her laugh. Then the bailiff comes back. “The hearing is cancelled,” he tells the blonde but not me. “The judge called in sick today.”
No related posts.
November 30th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
Hi. I am a long time reader. I wanted to say that I like your blog and the layout.
Peter Quinn
November 30th, 2009 at 4:14 pm
Great writing as usual.Makes me think the OMC’s are the new “Italian Mafia” in the interesting criminal story/movie/book genre.
But you got me at psittacinematically.
November 30th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
I remember being a kid and playing connect the dots…and how distinct the picture was once the dots were connected. And the longer I stared at the page the more I realized that I did’t even really need the numbers to figure it out. It’s almost as if the image jumped right off the page at me.
This whole thing is sickining as all of their so called “investigations” are. Ruining lives to feed egos and climb the ladder. Your right Rebel I don’t think any of these guys are self reflective. How could they be and still be able to look at themselves in the mirror each morning. It requires a very special type of sociopath to be involved in these types of undercover rat operations based admittadely on outright lies,falsehoods, burns, and traps. Someone who can dissassociate themselves from their undercover personality. Dobyns is obviously one of those guys. Having to refer to himself in third person as he describes pulling himself out of the role of Bird. I am sure as shit glad I get to be me.
November 30th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
That was an impressive bit of work you have there.My only comment would be that from long,painful experience,I just ride my sled and figure I’m either invisible or a target for a cage or a badge.That’s the way it it is and is always gonna be.The ATF and the agents that infiltrate…well, I just have to smirk..that amount of effort,money and bullshit just to prove a nonexistant point…I couldn’t understand that mindset if I had a hundred years in their heads.Rationalized betrayal….maybe they should go hold hands at the border and do something useful.The people that buy their drivel are just as pathetic.
Oh well, btw, saw Ciccone,Queen and Dobyns riding into the sunset wearing their S.O.A. colors….seemd appropriate,fantasies and drama that never really existed seemed to fit with them.
December 1st, 2009 at 12:39 am
Ya bring forward a grin in my face.
December 1st, 2009 at 1:40 am
Don’t lose hope for the book deal, man. And, for the record, in my humble opinion you do a good job of offending unimportant people really well too. Do friends of this page get autographed copies at no extra charge?
December 1st, 2009 at 5:14 am
this is just a thought Rebel , if the shitbird and the fag queen were only halfassed investigators and the ATF had better investigators that could have done a better job of ruining these two clubs could it be possible they (the ATF) were hoping our two heroic zeros would get whacked during their investigations? i dont really subscribe to conspiracy theorys but that alone would have opened pandoras box..
this is a great read man im digging your perspective and if you do a book put me down for one!
December 1st, 2009 at 7:27 am
By the circular reasoning you describe, Reynolds is as guilty as sin.
I get at least one count of obstruction of justice; he interfered with a federal investigation when he declined that agent’s repeated invitations to carry out various criminal schemes and then had the further audacity to counsel an undercover ATF agent not to involve his club in criminal activities.
In addition, by not committing the crimes he was assigned to commit he was guilty of illegaly impersonating a a law abiding citizen.
Our governement must not let people try to obstruct justice and fool the courts into thinking they are not criminals by refusing to commit crimes and “suborning lawfulness”.
December 1st, 2009 at 8:16 am
Rebel,
Like always, you lay it down like no one else can. Right on Bro!
December 1st, 2009 at 1:39 pm
Square Verbose Doc,
You’ve been Enlightened! Right on Man!
December 1st, 2009 at 4:05 pm
Dear Square Verbose Doc,
We are all guilty. You are guilty. Get used to it.
your pal,
Rebel
December 1st, 2009 at 6:36 pm
Its that time of year again, right before the Holidays when Cops from all over the US have cajoled their superiors out of the funds necessary to fly to Las Vegas Riviera Hotel and Casino, Dec 8 & 9.
This stuff is big business, actually and as cited above by Rebel, these paid “experts” are basically little more than “war story tellers”.
About 1,000 or so cops (depending on Dept. budgets) pay around $200-350 a head to attend these things. Do the math.
That price does not include meals, rooms, or airfare. $250K for two days sounds pretty good to me.
Below are the “bios” of some speakers (those whose names can be publicly linked) with the tantalizing “and many more” added at the end.
I’ve heard the going rate ranges from 3K to 5K for a few hours of blow-by-blow and some elbow rubbing with obvious “celebrity” speakers like Dobyns and Queen commanding the higher rates and oh..they are expected to sign autographs.
See http://www.knowgangs.com for all your conference needs:)
Matthew David O’Deane, Ph.D.
has been a California police officer since 1992, and over half of that time he has been tasked with targeting gangs. He worked for the National City Police Department for 10 years before moving to the San Diego District Attorney’s Office, where he has served in the Gang Prosecution Unit since 2002. He earned his Ph.D. in public policy, master’s degree in public administration and bachelor’s degree in criminal justice. O’Deane has investigated hundreds of serious gang crimes, including more than 40 gang-related murders, and continues to investigate and research gangs on a daily basis. You can view his book by clicking here.
Ken Whitley
is a 30-year law enforcement veteran who retired from the southern California Garden Grove Police Department. During his career he worked a variety of assignments including narcotics, robbery homicide, SWAT and patrol. Whitley has authored several books and magazine articles on drug investigations, parolee contacts, DUI and prison gangs. He has also consulted such television shows as Law & Order and the West Wing. He actively assists various law enforcement agencies with active and cold case investigations. You can visit his website by clicking here.
Ramon “Mundo” Mendoza
was born in East Los Angeles he maintained a criminal lifestyle for 19-years. During his 17-years behind bars, he became a shot caller for the Mexican Mafia. Mendoza claimed responsibility for the execution of over twenty gang rivals with over one dozen done by his own hand. He is most well for becoming the chief witness against the EME’s titular “Godfather”, Joseph “Pegleg Joe” Morgan. Joe was convicted of First Degree Murder and would never again see the free world. Having abandon his evil ways, Ramon’s life has gone full circle. Leaving the bowels of hell, he successfully abandon his criminal lifestyle 22-years ago. Ramon would now like to break his silence. His goal is to utilize his past criminal experience to assist, inform, educate, and share intelligence with members of the law enforcement community and those involved in the endeavor to understand the criminal mind. It is his hope that his information will be used to combat the criminal activity which permeates our communities.
Lowell Smith
is a veteran Deputy Probation Officer with the Orange County Probation Department’s Special Enforcement Unit. He is a well known expert in the field of white supremacy gangs and groups and has been supervising and conducting suppression activities of those involved in those gangs and the white supermacy movement. He has conducting over 2100 searches on individuals involved with groups such as the National Alliance, KKK, Aryan Nations, NSM, WAR, World Church of the Creator, Women for Aryan Unity, Aryan Brotherhood, Nazi Lowriders, and Public Enemy Number One. He also has experience both supervising and conducting suppression activities on individuals involved with Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs such as the Hells Angels, Mongols, Vagos, and Set Free Soldiers.
several more to come
(Re; Queen, Dobyns, Koz……….)
Not Surprised
December 1st, 2009 at 8:56 pm
I have always enjoyed reading your site even if you are a little slanted and slightly to opinionated to see the big picture. This is part of the reason I just read and rarely comment. Since you chose to feature my post from June in this blog I figured you deserved another comment from me. So here it is: “Put down the crack pipe Rebel, you dillusional punk bitch!!!”.
You not only incorrectly called me a cop but you accuse me of being that faggot munchkin bitch Ciccone. Get your facts straight bitch before you post them on your page! I’m not a cop, not a snitch and certainly not John Ciccone, never have been and never will be! You had no problems quoting me accurately and I stand by my opinions that I expressed in those posts. Those opinions are based on years and years as a patch-holder, a lifetime of experience which includes being tormented for a time by that faggot Ciccone when he was after us, a knowledge of the criminal justice system and RICO and the careful consideration of the opinions of other knowledgable individuals. It is definately not the opinion of Ciccone. In fact, if you go back and read my posts, I’m pretty sure I blasted not only him but the ATF and their Black Biscuit case.
Bottom line bitch, get your facts straight before you start calling people cops! This ain’t the first time you’ve claimed Ciccone was posting on this site and it makes me wonder how many times before you wrong? I know you’ve got a tiny little excuse for a dick but and it may help you feel a little better by calling people cops when they disagree with your opinion or are not pro-mongol but do some research before you post so you don’t trash your credibility like you just did because for a lot of us, myself included it was your pecieved credibility that made your site worth reading.
Finally, next time you feel like going for a ride maybe you’ll grow a set and come and see me and we can have this conversation face to face. Until then fuck you and your fucking mother!
T-Dogg
December 1st, 2009 at 8:59 pm
so sad i felt, the truth hurts, injustice kills, Quilty was their faults
December 1st, 2009 at 9:20 pm
Square Verbose Doc,
very well put, reminds me of when i was in the military,
the uniformed code of military justice is a bokk that is about 6 inches thick filled with rules against just about anything you can imagine and their punishments (which when judgement is passed youre mot “punished” you are “awarded” certain fines and restrictions).
But if youre creative enough to do something that they dont actually have a law against youre hit with “general article 34″ which basically covers anything they forgot to put in the book or just plain dont like and that carries more weight than any actual crime (can you say RICO?).
And regardless of what your offense is, fighting, being out of uniform,telling an officer to fuck off etc. general article 34 is always added to it just to make a point and add insult to injury.
December 1st, 2009 at 9:45 pm
i forget, about you
December 2nd, 2009 at 9:44 am
Choose to live a quite, middle-class life. Buy the right beer — don’t drink too much, go to the right church, wear the right clothes, own the right type of vehicle and America is the greatest, freest place on earth. Shake up that equation, and things go to Hell pretty quickly. Go to the wrong church, like Randy Weaver did, and you might end up with a wife and son rotting on the front lawn riddled with ATF-bullet holes. Wear the wrong clothes at the wrong time of night and you’ll have the cops searching your car. Ride a motorcycle with the wrong group of people and you can pretty much expect The Man to show up and cancel your subscription to the American Dream.
December 2nd, 2009 at 10:35 am
The Judge called in sick, huh? Would you like to take bets on what the next excuse will be?
This is all part of the fed’s plan for retaining the high conviction rate. Any defendant who doesn’t cooperate by plea bargaining gets to go to the next level of manipulation, which contains two basic rules of “play.”
1) Use his family and friends as a control mechanism – how miserable can the feds make Mr Reynold’s and his family by threatening him with retaliation by including them in the Federally Fabricated Fantasy.
2) Keep creating reasons to delay the trial – the longer he is in jail, the more it costs him and his family to pay a lawyer, go without his income, suffer the emotional & physical drain on all.
There are bonus rounds to this “game.”
If he has any kind of health condition that needs attention, or if he needs maintenance medication, whether or not he will receive that medication on time or with any regularity can be added to the mix, which in turn, lowers his resistance to their game plan.
If his family is able to visit him in jail, then new “rules” for visits will crop up so that the family sits and sits and sits and waits and waits and waits to get in to visit, then gets denied that visit without warning, of course. The feds especially love this part of the game if family is already scraping together every penny to get to the jail to visit or the distance means taking time off from work or other extenuating circumstances. They can call and check the “rules” and make appointments and go exactly by the letter of the “visitor laws” but their efforts will be in vain.
If all else fails, the feds will resort to out and out mind fuck games like bouncing him around from jail to jail, never letting him know where he is, literally keeping him in the dark 24/7 & never letting his family know where he is.
December 2nd, 2009 at 11:42 am
Wow, You are good. Reb, You need to send this to the white house……. And see what is said!!!
December 2nd, 2009 at 10:47 am
Very well researched and written…hats off to the time and energy you put into your thinking, puts most blogs to shame.
Couple observations:
I lived in South Florida in the early 80′s and witnessed the cocaine smuggling trade first hand. I was a boater and hung out with guys who brought the stuff in from the Bahamas. I didn’t participate but observed and had fun with the guys. A bit envious as they had beautiful 30 foot custom built offshore boats for practicing their trade. They also drank $100 dollar champagne from the bottle while I drank Miller Lite at the bars. These guys were very crafty and figured out ways of hiding the dope and in the event they were being chased disposing of it in the ocean. They never carried enough where this was a big deal so they did not let greed get the better of them. They also did not use or deal small amounts and rarely, if ever, talked about it. Sort of pieced it together from scraps of info here and there.
I rented a house from one of them and he lived in the back in a converted garage, low profile. Since the authorities could not catch them with anything they decided to confiscate their boats with the Marine Patrol. They took my landlords boat because he “had long hair and was on the water during normal business hours for average Americans”. I was stunned so helped him find a lawyer. I talked to several and they all said that the game was rigged, he could get the boat back but it would take about a year and cost him about 6 grand. The marine patrol put these guys boats in their yard with the hatches open and the engines exposed so after a year the boats were alternately rained on and subject to the searing Florida sun and basically ruined.
At the same time they got the IRS on their tails and eventually squeezed hard enough that one of them ratted and they all pled out to some type of deal…couple years in prison. Amazing to me that this was all accomplished with NO evidence whatsoever!
What happened was the justice system conspired against these guys and the different branches of Government all got together and figured out how to lock ‘em up based on their “judgment” that this was a bad group of characters.
Seems to me the same thing is happening to the “Outlaw” motorcycle clubs.
I guess it’s ok for law enforcement to conspire outside the rule of law.
December 2nd, 2009 at 11:18 am
it’s funny how so many people “think” they “know” “who” the mongols are. even some mongols don’t have a clue, but get one thing straight- from day one way back when, this club has been tested – & by many – mongols have always & and will always stand their ground regardless of who or what is put in front of them. write what you want , paint your picture as you wish – be it law, the public, media, sevilians whoever – somehow , someway the black & white will find it’s way because if you don’t wear mongol black & white your opinions mean shit! 1969 – till the end! we are’nt going nowhere! ask around, or better yet come find out for yourself… come one, come all !
December 2nd, 2009 at 11:38 am
“Psittacinematically”. You ought to trademark that word.
YYZ Skinhead
December 2nd, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Dear XYZ Skinhead,
It is a little language. When it is a big story sometimes I have to make up words.
your pal,
Rebel
December 2nd, 2009 at 12:48 pm
Dear T-Dogg,
Look, Ciccone. I am pretty sure I got you cold, okay? I always know more than I say. I do not underestimate you. You should not underestimate me. Everybody deserves their respect. I am not going to argue with you about it.
Rebel
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Dear ONE WHO KNOWS,
Some observations and advice, I don’t doubt you guys will be around underground, above ground, with or without the patch. The brotherhood will live. It’s painful to see what’s happening to Reynolds, the guys heart was in the right place but he got taken down by a corrupt legal system and ego inflated undercover cops who could give a crap about right and wrong only what’s in it for themselves.
Now the advice, and please take no offense, it’s simply something to consider in understanding how to not “arm your enemy”:
1) You guys are making it really hard on yourselves by having members speak openly on shows like Gangland. I’m not talking about Ganglands dramatization, I’m talking about things said by members during interviews on those shows, on the record. Unless the producers are cutting and splitting footage and mixing up words its some pretty damning evidence of an ongoing criminal enterprise. You put a big target on you’re forehead by doing this. A couple of guys may get an ego ride out of this but the reality is they are putting the entire club at risk and for that matter club members who have done nothing wrong. There is no upside to this, so stop doing it. Put it in your charter.
2) Do some “background checking” on your prospects or at least whomever earns a patch. I had a secret clearance for defense work, the government talked to family, friends, highs school acquaintances, etc. Some pot smoking and other minor legal infractions nearly kept me out but I was open with them and it was resolved. Now I’m not suggesting you go all corporate but I’m amazed at how many of these undercover guys get in, some simple up front work could save a lot of headaches. So these guys like Kaos from Chicago, why not call a couple of there homeboys up and get some intel? You probably would smoke them out right quick.
I mean no disrespect and I could be wrong just hate to see you guys go through a lot of (arguably) preventable crap.
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:36 pm
Listen here you know nothing, no dick faggot if I’m Ciccone PROVE IT!!!!!! You claim to know more than you’ve let on, then PROVE IT!!! We both know you can’t and rather than be a man and apologize and admit you called the wrong person a faggot munckin ATF bitch, you just burry your head in the sand and say you don’t want to argue.
So Rebel you cunt, I say again…Grow a set, be a man and let’s see some evidence that I’m Ciccone!!
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:45 pm
Listen here Rebel, you know nothing, no dick faggot if I’m Ciccone PROVE IT!!!!!! You claim to know more than you’ve let on, then PROVE IT!!!
We both know you can’t and rather than be a man and apologize and admit you called the wrong person and a patch-holder, a faggot munckin ATF bitch by saying I’m Ciccone, you just burry your head in the sand and say you don’t want to argue. Let me ask you this, has Ciccone ever gotten this pissed off when you’ve called him out on one of his Internet alias’s before? Pull you head out of your ass you cum gargling bitch!!!
So Rebel you cunt, I say again…Grow a set, be a man and let’s see some evidence that I’m Ciccone!! You ain’t got shit but your head up your ass..
December 2nd, 2009 at 1:48 pm
Rebel is really Jay Dobyns and this whole site is just an intelligence gathering and monitoring activity by the ATF, don’t believe anything he says.
December 2nd, 2009 at 4:09 pm
Dear T-Dogg.
It really doesn’t matter…..once that accusation is affixed to your name,nobody will treat you as anyone but Ciccone. If you are, you are, if not,not.Please continue to visit but obviously, there’s a bit of credibility gap.Ciccone,like many LEO’s has developed a vendetta/Wyatt Earp syndrome that is irrational and certainly unethical behavior.So, if you’re this unfortunate guy, tsk..tsk….if not,might as well get used to being pissed off.BTW, it’s not up to Rebel to prove you are Ciccone, this is his house.It’s up to you to prove you’re not.
sled tramp
P.S. In case you feel like ranting and screaming against me too, that type of childish behavior is a Ciccone trait.
December 2nd, 2009 at 4:23 pm
Quick! Where’s Dobyn’s?
Saw this in the news…..http://www.kpho.com/news/21786021/detail.html
December 2nd, 2009 at 7:36 pm
T Dogg:
Rebel cannot possibly be Jay Dobyns because I am. So if I say it does that make it true? I can be whoever I want online.
But one thing about Rebel. When he IS wrong, he promptly admits it and makes a retraction. I’m not saying you are or are not John Ciccone or Adolf Hitler or Jesus Christ.
A traditional “reporter” relies on numerous sources of information. Even our courts acknowledge the impact of “sources” and many reporters have gone to jail for contempt rather than reveal them.
Rebel very definitely has the credibility factor going on and though this site isn’t The New York Times; it is a man’s “work” and he puts it out there for all to see and judge him on.
Simply put, I doubt the either this site nor Rebel personally would benefit from the intentional falsification of fact. Secondly, though this IS the internet, personal liability for something “published” by another that is patently false is libel. Saying something that is true, even if it damages the reputation of another is not libelous.
So. He has named John Ciccone and quoted John Ciccone publicly and thus has opened himself up for a law suit. I know he knows this, and I’m pretty sure he is on solid footing. I’m pretty sure he is on solid footing not because he is afraid of John Ciccone or the ATF or any bull shit lawsuit.
Rebel takes pride in his work. To my knowledge he doesn’t get paid to do this. I respect pride and I trust a man who puts his pride in your face.
That being said, I’m pretty sure I’m on solid footing when I say Fuck John Ciccone.
December 2nd, 2009 at 7:43 pm
touche sled tramp hahaha
T-Dogg sure gets pissed at being called someone or somethin he says hes not
And right on Rebel for exposing the rat hahahaha
December 2nd, 2009 at 8:00 pm
ya’s sir; what else is wrong with the portrait of invisible
December 3rd, 2009 at 1:19 am
“ONE WHO KNOWS Says:
December 2nd, 2009 at 11:18 am
it’s funny how so many people “think” they “know” “who” the mongols are. even some mongols don’t have a clue, but get one thing straight- from day one way back when, this club has been tested – & by many – mongols have always & and will always stand their ground regardless of who or what is put in front of them. write what you want , paint your picture as you wish – be it law, the public, media, sevilians whoever – somehow , someway the black & white will find it’s way because if you don’t wear mongol black & white your opinions mean shit! 1969 – till the end! we are’nt going nowhere! ask around, or better yet come find out for yourself… come one, come all !”
I bet you just got in the club and dont even own a bike,or a patch for that matter cause Ciccione,I mean T-doggy confiscated it.But dont get mad at me,cause like you said,my opinion doesnt mean shit.
December 3rd, 2009 at 7:17 am
Its time to relax and be good to one another. I love to read Internet tough guys words. The real though guy doesn’t talk shit, its all in actions. But, then hay, if you take the cops, ATF and Feds guns and big toys away from them they become weak and have to talk shit. I have seen the Feds and ATF look like they just saw the devil when coming in to take a Mongol down………… The Mongol Nation will live on forever No matter what, take the patch, now we’re unseen, maybe that’s what the Feds want. I don’t know. Trust me, we will, MONGOL ON……… You all be good to yourselves…………
December 3rd, 2009 at 3:22 pm
Dear 1%er Who!!!, fully agree that “the real tough guy doesn’t talk shit, its all in the actions”, so why then, are club members on television talking shit? Why are they publishing books talking shit? To my prior post this is a huge part of the problem. Maybe this was a “wrinkle in time” for the club that is now past? Let’s hope it is, because you’re absolutely right.
December 3rd, 2009 at 5:12 pm
By the way, FUCK DOC…….. And any CI Rat Motherfuckeds… I was one of the ones who was on the show. But, I never answered any of the crazy questions, that lady producer wanted me to talk about. I was the one with few words. I knew what they wanted, I was more less tricked into doing the show. I was told it was going to be something different then what it turned out to be. So, It is, what it is. I well stan up for me and my brothers. I start no shit, but, if you run up on me I’ll have something for ya!!! MFFM
December 3rd, 2009 at 4:25 pm
FIRST OF ALL THEM FAKE 1%ER TALKING ON T.V. ARE THE ONES RATTING ON THE CLUB.. THERE NO LONGER BROTHERS THEY ARE OUT BAD.. THE ONES HOLDING UP THERE HEADS UP HIGH TAKING NO DEALS ARE THE REAL DEAL.. FUCK DOC!!
December 3rd, 2009 at 5:26 pm
That episode was FANTASTIC!!
I like when the narrator said “the most dangerous motorcycle gang in the country”, Than they zoom in on Al the Suit wearing his patch over his disco shirt! AL THE SUIT? touche’ man.
December 4th, 2009 at 7:44 am
I think the Suit was a fag. The only reason that Rubes and the Suit where in place was because of Doc. The club lost there way for a bit, But, they will come back bigger and stronger, watch and see…… Taking out the trash is first…………..
December 4th, 2009 at 8:53 am
1%er Who!!!
Your post reminds me of the saying “Whatever doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”
It’s my sence that when the dust settles the FED will get the exact oposite of what they had in mind. While attempting to destroy the Club they’ve given it good reason to become stronger.
They can hurt a club by putting some members away, but they can never win. They can get more job security, look good in the press, and get a larger budget. But they will never eliminate the Club. They can’t win, and all the Club has to do to win is survive.
Stay Strong
DocB
December 4th, 2009 at 10:05 am
We discuss infils frequently on this site.Always interesting and makes for good site fodder.It has always got a snort out of me that these “Tell it as it is in the M.C. world” books -and apparently future movies-garner so much attention.Had Queen or Dobyns etc..infiltrated a group of cub scouts or Shriners for example, and found illicit drugs,gangbangs,guns et al, well hell, I’D be shocked.But an M.C. by definition lives within it’s own culural parameters and consequently,I would think that John Q. Public out there in bible belt Amerika is the only eager groupie of these agents.Certainly, there should be no surprise that life is different for bikers and given our generally piss poor reviews by the media that poisons the public mindset,that we live the way we want and we are proud of it.By the reaction by people I meet in society, I’m often under the impression I’m supposed to be ashamed of myself (or something) simply because I’m a former patch holder and current sled rider.I’m not sure where I’m going with this but hopefully you get the gist. It is what it is.The aggressive attempts at cultural genocide seems to be a mouth frothing obession by L.E. Why? Even if we did all that they say we do (And I ain’t got that much time in a life) we’d still only be a miniscule percentage of the crime in this world.Yet we get an out of porportion amount of the attention from L.E.Which amuses me since I’m legal as sin these days.
Anyone who’s ever been to a club only/special invite party ain’t going to forget it.Citizens will never know what we have between us but they apparently like to read about what they’re missing in their little safe worlds.It must really scare people out there. All I can figure.Individual or small group freedom or at least the attempt at it scares modern government, I’m just a guy that knows what I like, who I am and who through experience,I can trust and love.
I served this country as an 18b and 18f, US Army.I’m also Ranger tabbed,(not scrolled, I’m SFG),Pathfinder and a number of other fun schools. Did my duty,I never saw it as a career simply because all the idiots that seemed to flow along government thinking patterns were so incompetent or egotistical that they constantly screwed something or someone up.And there wasn’t a whole hellava lot of freedom there.
Anyways, I’m rambling but the point I STARTED to try to say was that we should really appreciate all the media coverage,the loving attention of L.E., and certainly the knowlege that our lives qualify us as movie material.And they in turn, should appreciate that we supply them with bullshit P.R., make them look good when they put us on the ground along bumper to bumper traffic,allow them to remodel our homes and humilitate our families so they have that all important “I did MY job” satisfaction,we give them free bikes and vehicles,they get our toys from the evidence room and party with them,we’re the reason they get all that falsified overtime….heck, we’re all good…No wonder they love us so….
Gee, I love painkillers…..well, gonna go for a ride and see if I can do my part to help an L.E. feel he’s keeping democracy safe.
sled tramp
December 4th, 2009 at 11:55 am
My interactions were limited to trying to run a custom bike biz. The public image and the reality are way different. I’ve been to some invite only stuff and the people are great. We had a club member (not a big club but well known in SoCal) running production and the guy had the keys to the facility and could be trusted completely. I also had minor issues with the big clubs that were worked out. My experience is completely different than what is presented on Gangland or these shows where they portray club members as violent lunatics that will kill anybody and put no value on civilian life. Most of them are very decent and loyal people. Now if you steal their bike or disrespect them you got trouble but I think the line for disrespect is pretty hard to cross. I felt more comfortable around most of these guys than a lot of guys I met in my prior corporate life in terms of looking me in the eye with a promise and then screwing me later.
The shows talk constantly about danger to civilians but how many have been killed? How about zero in 30 years of “battles” in California. The “war” is even hard to understand given the limited total number of deaths of club members over a 30 year timeline.
It would be great to support Rebel and Sled and whomever else in telling some of the real stories rather than the bullshit, problem is that type of stuff is hard to sell. Average Americans want to hear these jokers talking about the big bad psychopathic bikers that they were so “courageous” in penetrating and then by the way selling out…and it has nothing to do with the law and everything to do with books, movie rights, $$$, etc.
BTW, in the end these guys get exactly what they deserve. No loyalty results in no loyalty, so now these guys are suing the government for screwing them and the clubs hate them too. They have NOBODY! You think these guys have a real “friend” in the world? Would you trust them with any confidences based on their past behaviour? Karmas a bitch, I pity them.
December 4th, 2009 at 5:44 pm
Life is so much easier when you embrace the “We are all Guilty” and start loving Big Brother. Once you fall asleep(ala “The Body Snatcher’s”)you wake up seeing thing’s without all the baggage.
Fellows might just want to read Lewis Carroll and get a perspective on falling through the looking glass, because this is just what we are dealing with.
December 6th, 2009 at 9:58 am
Altamont, 40 years ago today (a rifle shot from my home as a kid).Had club member Alan Passaro who was tried for the killing of Meredith Hunter (Pleaded self defence and was aquitted)been in the same circumstances today,he’d never see daylight again.No question.Even with Hunter waving that “6″ barrel on camera, he would go down.Times have changed.Everytime L.E. gets their ass kicked in court, like little children, they go get their friends and come back for revenge.And, like the bullies of the schoolyard they so resemble, they they seem to be unable to win a fight without resorting to group attacks,backstabbing,laying the blame on someone or something else to cover their own inadequate abilities.
The first HA I met as a 17 year old kid looking for a life, taught me more of life and values,honor and trust ,than anybody else I’d met in the post adolescent world.All I remember from the cop down the street is he got caught screwing his partner’s wife and his partner got caught stealing grass out of the evidence room.
Not everyone’s a good guy and these are individual cases, but it was enough to make my mind up.
Anyways, remembering Sonny and the Oakland chapter ride through 250,000 people at Altamont…..that was cool…..(I wasn’t at the concert,saw it later in the movie but it was a great moment).
December 6th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
Freedom of speech(speaking out against the rat bastard fucks in law enforcement and the courts) & freedom of expression(the choice of whether or not you want to wear a patch, a tutu or a fucking bowl on your head) are dead in this country.
I do not live in the MC scene, but am very familiar with it since several friends choose to do so, but I have always believed in my right to speak my mind; especially when an injustice is involved.
I did just that on my radio show on “True Talk” AM830 WCRN in the Boston market, singling out judges/politicians/insurance companies/banks/and oil companies; local, state wide, federal and international.
While I was pressured on a few occasions, it wasn’t until I aired a scathing commentary on the illegal actions of the State/Federal agents, federal courts-both district and appellate, in the case of David Burgess that my show was terminated.
Looks like “True Talking” about the illegal actions of some scum bag G men is totally off limits in this country. I’ll bet though, had I taken the side of these scum bag back stabbing G men: my show would still be on at “True Talk” AM830 WCRN.
Guess there’s a “True Talk” line you can’t cross when reporting on the feds.
There is no question in my mind that I was censored and removed from the air due to my bitch slapping of the feds and their scum bag, illegal actions in that particular case.
It looks as though it has boiled down to this in America:
1. If you’re a scum bag lying, slithering mother fucker, you’re acceptable.
2. If you’re a man of your word and don’t give up information, you’re the enemy.
They haven’t stopped me, only slowed me down: http://www.HermisLive.com
Great Job Rebel! Keep on keepin’ on! Not many people left with the balls to tell it like it really is.
I’m a customer for your book when it comes out, and I’ll help promote it free of charge!
Rebel: let me know if you’d like a copy of the show that got me terminated from “True Talk” AM830 WCRN-the rat bastards!
December 7th, 2009 at 9:10 am
Hermis, I caught some of your show last night. Keep on the Mass. Cops who killed that guy and look into the death of James Hicks in VA, a member of the Pagans who was shot dead in front of his wife during a “knock and announce” bullshit ATF raid..
See Rebel’s story on that. I’d like to hear that broadcast you did on Dave Burgess and I know personally several who would. Is there a way you could link it up?
December 7th, 2009 at 10:56 am
sled tramp,
I’ve seen Gimme Shelter a few times and I always wondered what the guy (Hunter) was doing with a gun at a rock concert. Sonny Barger said Hunter was tweaking, which might explain it. One thing that gets on my nerves is that the reports always mention that Hunter was black (so am I), to make the HA seem like a pack of racists. That wasn’t why he got stabbed. I did what Jagger did, I replayed the scene several times and all I can see is a nutjob with a cannon bulldozing through the crowd and shooting into a group of HA. Of course they would defend themselves, and they might not have noticed what color the shooter was at first because they were looking at the huge pistol he was packing.
The fact that the HA stabbed a speed freak who was shooting at them (again, according to Barger, “You shoot us, we stab you”) shows that they are a group who can bring a knife to a gunfight and win.
YYZ Skinhead
December 7th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
NOT SURPRISED:
Not Surprised:
I am going to attempt editing that particular show(only to take the commercials out-can’t have them in the show that I’m doing on BlogtalkRadio) and will be airing it in its entirety. I plan on doing that within the next three weeks.
I’ll post here when its going to air.
If for any reason that doesn’t work out, I’m willing to send out copies for the cost of postage.
Thanks for checking out the show.
I’ll re-read Rebel’s James Hicks story, and do some snooping around in preparation for a commentary on that as well.
http://www.HermisLive.com
December 7th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
Hermis:
Yeah. You can get away with doing Hicks because it is regional since its Dinwiddie County, VA. Hermis, I am not well versed in the intricacies of media protocol and I don’t want to use Rebel’s forum incorrectly. Let me just say I would like to hear that bit on Burgess.
December 7th, 2009 at 6:02 pm
Not Surprised:
Yeah, I hear you on the protocol thing. No disrespect intended.
I’ll just post that info over on my site in the “Upcoming Shows” section. If you Check in there from time to time you’ll see it listed.
December 7th, 2009 at 6:50 pm
There is so much bad in the best of us, and so much good in the worst of us, that it ill behooves any of us to talk about the rest of us.” — Old poem
Thought that fit this article pretty well and life in general. Might have to get that inked somewhere. I like it.
Dry pavement and a cool breeze at your back,
J
December 7th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
YYZ Skinhead:
Good observations about Altamont. Meredith Hunter and Patty Bredahoff were two Berkeley High School students who had been dating about 6 weeks.
Hunter was a member of a street gang known as “The East Bay Executors”. You are correct about Hunter’s methamphetamine use as was confirmed by the Alameda County Coroner’s report. Further in the clips of the movie leading up to the stabbing, Hunter is caught on camera just right of stage and you can see his tongue darting wildly in and out of his mouth. Rolling Stone Magazine published an article stating that this “tongue darting” was proof that Hunter was “in fear”. He was tweaking his fucking ass off.
Berkeley CA and in fact the entire East Bay area seemed to be the birthplace of everything weird and radical in that era. Dating a white, blonde haired chick in High School was no big deal in Berkeley. Maybe Hunter brought his gun because he knew he would be in unfamiliar territory. His purported best friend stated for the record that Hunter always had his gun.
Though the film “Gimme Shelter” is a documentary, it is not the “Zapruder Film” and is in fact very heavily edited. A lot of the footage is not even in time sequence. A lot more has never been viewed except by Investigators.
Bearing that in mind, there are crucial pieces of the puzzle which a casual viewing of the film will not reveal. What we DO see is Meredith Hunter in his Elf Green “Super Fly” suit, reeling and lurching. We see his female companion grabbing at his arm, pushing him back and we do NOT see her attending any alleged wounds or trying to console him. She latches onto Hunter like a spider in a bath tub drain because she knows he is about to be come lethal.
Most of what was written about Altamont in 1969 and 1970 was jaded journalism about the “death” of an era. One prominent writer of the time went so far as to suggest that Hunter was a human sacrifice to Satan as the Stones played “Sympathy For The Devil” Few articles wanted to know the truth.
Reliable sources- (notably the actor Peter Coyote who was a member of “The Diggers”, a local political action and street theater group in the Haight Ashbury district) as well as Sam Cutler’s account (Cutler was the road manager for the Stones and was on stage almost all day)- have subsequently revealed that for reasons known only to himself, Meredith Hunter, 6′ 3″ of ‘leaping gnome” decided he was getting on the stage. In his autobiography “You Can’t Always get What You Want” published in 2007, Sam Cutler reveals that he too was armed with a loaded handgun.
Three times he was prevented and most likely, this “prevention” multiplied exponentially in its severity. None of this is shown in the film, however and David Mayles who was one of the producers stated that “Hunter seemed to be taunting the Hells Angels”. Not a smart thing to do.
Allan Passaro was a 28 year old prospect from San Jose who had been on “stage duty” all day. When Hunter and his girlfriend come to view in the film, Passaro is about 28 feet away. Legally, Passaro was just another citizen of California that day, and legally, he was in possession of a sheath knife with a 5 inch fixed blade.
Meredith Hunter on the other hand, was guilty of at least three felonies: illegal possession of a firearm, being under the influence of a controlled substance, and brandishing a firearm.
L:awful use of civilian deadly force is predicted on several factors; chief of which is lawful possession of whatever instrument of that force is applied. The “self defense” laws of almost all 50 states indicate that deadly force can be used even if it is on behalf of a third party.
In short, any of the 300,000 persons in attendance could have acted with deadly force legally against Meredith Hunter, but Allan Passaro did.
The fact that he was a Hells Angel prospect and Meredith Hunter was a black male with a Caucasian female companion has nothing to do with it. If Passaro had been a Police Officer, he would have been awarded a
medal. Passaro was in a position of view to see Hunter draw his wepaon, level it. Various reports indicate he fired at least one round. The camera man said he “very definitely saw a flash” but stopped short of calling it a muzzle flash. Passaro drew the only weapon he had and without thought to his personal safety, charged a crazed gunman in the dark armed only with a hunting knife. In a classic street move, he grabs Hunter’s gun hand and simultaneously plunges the knife into Hunter’s neck. hunter, Passaro, and Bredahoff all go down at the same time. Patty used all her physical force to attempt to stop Meredith Hunter.
What else is rarely mentioned is that over 1,500 field interviews were conducted in the initial investigation. Not one person has supplied any credible evidence that there were racial epitaphs or harassment extant prior to the stabbing. Patty Bredahoff testified at trial that she did not know Hunter had a weapon until she saw him pull it. She denied personal use of illegal drugs but admitted she knew Hunter was tweaking. She claimed to have no idea why Hunter became so enraged, but privately, acco8unts quote her as saying it may have been because she was “ooohing and ahhhing over how sexy Mick Jagger was and may have offended Hunter’s pride.
A jury of twelve found Allan Passaro not guilty of a fucking thing.
In 2005, after years of persistent rumors about multiple participants in the knifing of Hunter, the Alameda County Sheriff’s office reviewed the files in a “cold case” scenario. Their findings were conclusive: one knife and one knife only inflicting the fatal wounds.
Dick Carter, the notorious publicity hound owner of Altamont Speedway summed it up this way:
“There was no killing at Altamont. There was however a suicide.”
December 7th, 2009 at 10:31 pm
don’t you see it? little miss “usa” has been the culprit, all tidy and bleached, i learned as a child, just don’t trust, fuck my tires, my shoes get worn out too
December 8th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Not Surprised,
Props for all the background info on Altamont. When I first heard of it I thought it was a racist murder by the big bad racist HA, which was what the media wanted people to think. After I saw an interview with Barger (who is emphatically NOT racist, and is one of the kindest people I’ve met) in which he described Hunter as “cranked to the gills”, I watched the scene many times and all I could see was attempted murder by a tweaker and self-defense by somebody who happened to be in the tweaker’s line of fire. I hadn’t even noticed that Passaro was a prospect and not a full-patch HA.
One interview I heard said that Hunter was trying to kill Mick Jagger. If his girl was drooling over Jagger that only would have made Hunter lose completely what was left of his “mind”. The media not only tagged the horeshit “racist” spin onto the act of self-defense, they usually got the song wrong as well–it was “Under My Thumb”, not “Sympathy for the Devil”. That sounded better to the media because of the latter song’s title. I’ve seen lots of those articles that claim it was a Satanic human sacrifice. I wish I could ask the writers what they would do if a meth fiend appeared out of nowhere in a crowd, shooting a monstrous gun at them.
YYZ Skinhead
December 8th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
YYZ
They are still doing it. Detroit free Press put an article out last month calling it racist.
December 8th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
The stage height was ridiculously low for a gig with 300,000 in attendance.I can’t believe how long that tripper grinding his teeth was on the stage,before being gently escorted off.And who was the Frisco Angel involvedin the dialogue with Paul Kantner,”You’re what’s happenin’”?
December 8th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
bob:
Oakland, the stage was the same height and they pulled kids off all night long. Must have been some new configuration…
I am not 100% sure but I think that was “Frisco Pete”; I’m confident someone will correct me if I am wrong. I believe when he started to talk and suddenly realized he was talking to 300,000 people, it kind of gave a moment of lucidity. But the thing is that Marty Balin DID get his ass clocked.
Marty was the one with the white cowboy hat on. Maybe he had “John Wayne Syndrome” because you can see him throw his tambourine with all his might, just before he dropped offstage to “confront” a Hells Angel. We don’t get to see Marty getting clocked; we only hear about it.
The thing is that here the Angels were literally busting their asses to protect these prima donna musicians, and the very people they were protecting were dissing them.
The guy who allegedly knocked Balin out was a guy named “Animal”. When asked later why he did it he said:
“He spoke disrespectful to a Hells Angel”.
That’ll do it just about every time:)
December 8th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
YYZ
That “Satanic Sacrifice” myth was still persistent in 1971 when Don Maclean wrote “American Pie”.
Oh, and there we were all in one place
A generation lost in space
With no time left to start again
So come on Jack be nimble, Jack be quick
Jack Flash sat on a candlestick
‘Cause fire is the devil’s only friend
And as I watched him on the stage
My hands were clenched in fists of rage
No angel born in hell
Could break that Satan’s spell
And as the flames climbed high into the night
To light the sacrificial rite
I saw Satan laughing with delight
The day the music died
“Jack Flash sat on a candlestick” was an allusion the “Jumpin Jack Flash”
No angel born in hell obviously refers to the Hells Angels
The rest is pretty easy to figure out. Maclean was not at the concert though.
December 8th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Yeah, Frisco Pete (P of Frisco) was the guy with the mike I believe,Sweet William (guy with glasses, to Pete’s right) was the one that more or less saved the situation from escalating.
December 8th, 2009 at 7:42 pm
how clever media portrays a lifestyle that refuses to take no for an answer, that life exist beyond a culture bent on cunsumption, oops wrong topic
December 9th, 2009 at 12:25 pm
Hermis I’d love a copy of what you said about Dave Burgess’s case and would be more than happy to send you postage costs for UK. I’m outraged but not surprised that telling the truth got you closed down….that’ll do it every time…….the truth is definitely not an option as far as the pigs are concerned!
Respect to you and of course my pal Rebel!
Izzy Wildheart
http://www.bighousecrew.net
December 9th, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Izzy, thank you for your words. I sent a message to you over on your site.
My respect to you as well Izzy, and to Rebel.
I read with great interest the postings on the community Rebel has created here.
Hermis
December 10th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Hermis….where did you send it…I have no messages from you anywhere!!
LOL……please post again if you can……izzywildheartbhc@live.com works!
Sorry Rebel for the intrusion!
L&R
Izzy
December 10th, 2009 at 11:11 am
Hey Hermis! Just checked our site and no message.!
izzywildheartbhc@live.com definitely works!
Sorry Rebel for the intrusion, but would really love to know what Hermis had to say about Dave Burgess being someone who is fighting in his corner, and if possible get it out some other way!
There’s always more than one way to get the truth out or did I mean skin a rat!? LOL
Respect to you Hermis and to you Rebel
There is no Justice….just us
Izzy Wildheart
http://www.bighousecrew.net
December 10th, 2009 at 11:34 am
I’m still waiting to find out if I hit the jackpot at the Justice Casino. Hey, Rebel, how long do you think it’ll take for me to collect my “winnings”? LMFAO, nah, but really, good job on this one Rebel, it hits the nail on the head so to speak.
December 10th, 2009 at 12:26 pm
Izzy, I just re-sent a copy of my original email from two separate email addresses. I’ll get this done bro.
Rebel, thanks for allowing this.
My respect to you & Izzy.
December 11th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
DEAR REBEL,ME AND MY BROTHER’S HAVE BEEN READING THE STORIE’S ON YOUR BLOG ON OUR FIGHT AGAINST TYRANNY.I MEAN ISN’T REALLY WHAT THIS IS ALL ABOUT?TAKE AWAY OUR FIRST AMMENDMENT RIGHT’S!CONTROL THE BIG BAD WOLVE’S OUT THERE THE ONE’S THAT MAKE US PISS OUR POLYSTER PANT’S!WE ARE WINNING THE FIGHT.WE’RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE.WE DEFINITLEY ARE GROWING BECAUSE OF THIS.SO RESPECTFULLY WE ALL WILL SAY CHEER’S TOO YOU FOR UNDERSTANDING THAT EFFECTS SMALL PERCENTAGE OF THE CLUB.ALOT OF US ARE VETERAN’S,HUSBAND’S,FATHER’S AND YES SOME EVEN WORK FOR THE GOVERMENT!(NO JOKE’S)FIRST AND FOREMOST WE ARE BROTHER’S!BROTHER’S WHO LOVE TOO RIDE,DRINK BEER AND OF COURSE CHASE WOMEN.AGAIN BROTHERHOOD IS SOMETHING THAT THESE SMALL DICK’S WHO WERE THE JOCK’S ON STEROID’S IN HIGH SCHOOL,CAN NEVER UNDERSTAND.I WON’T EVEN TRY TO EXPLAIN IT.WE MAY HAVE DISAGREEMENT’S WITH OTHER’S AND MAY EVEN GET INTO A FIGHT OR TOO,BUT WE ARE ABOUT HONOR AND RESPECT!WHAT REALLY PISSING ME OFF THOUGH IS THE REFERENCE TO SOMEONE’S CHILD.I NOT SURPRISED THOUGH.THERE’S JUST NO REASON TOO SAY SUCH TRASH.HE’S DEFINITLY FRUSTRATED AND RUNNINING OUT OF TIME.THE ONLY THING WE’RE RUNNING OUT OF IS BEER!CHEER’S BRO’S!MFFM.
December 12th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Dear Proud 1%,
Yeah these guys are all pieces of work. Thanks for your kind words.
your pal,
Rebel
December 12th, 2009 at 12:03 pm
Proud 1%,
Fight the good fight.I appreciate your comment.
FTF-WFO
sled tramp
December 17th, 2009 at 10:36 am
We all know the truth… Its about what the ATF, little shit wants. We are good people and Brother’s and they know it. When they found out that we’re not doing what they wanted us to be doing, they made shit up….. This is BS…… LONG LIVE THE “MONGOLS MC”
December 17th, 2009 at 9:16 pm
Nice work.
“It’s not what lies in front of you, nor what lies behind you- it’s what lies right to your face”
I want copies of your books you mentioned- Sixty Strip Clubs in Fifteen Cities in Five Days; Topher and His Dad Run From The Police; Sex in South Jersey With the Pagans; Big Hugs and Well Constructed Pipe Bombs: Rebel’s Fully Illustrated Step by Step Guide to Beating Your Competition; The Magic of Putting Everything in the Name of Your Motorcycle Club; Gun Shows and Border Crossings: A Miscellany of Little Known Ways to Earn Tax Free Cash; Let’s Make Meth; and Rebel’s Secret Garden in a National Forest.
Keep writing and informing Rebel.
December 22nd, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Has anyone else ended up buying a stack of books since they started reading Rebel’s site? I get them used on Amazon, so the haters won’t get the royalties. Ciccone is all over all of them.
YYZ Skinhead
December 22nd, 2009 at 7:13 pm
Dear YYZ Skinhead
Yep, I’ve bought some too. I started with the list he recommended to SVD when he started posting. One’s a Big assed fuckin history book.
I buy em on Amazon too. Check out Rebel’s book reviews at the top of the page also.
Rebel: Thanks again man
Doc
December 22nd, 2009 at 7:52 pm
You know, it’s when I got “assigned” that reading list that I knew I had stumbled into someplace special.
December 22nd, 2009 at 9:00 pm
Dear SVD
Yeah, It’s unique.
yours from another thread
Quote:
Coming from the “civilian” world, I think sometimes that I’m prone to speak out of turn here. At the same time, I somehow think it’s better to get into the mix, make some mistakes, and take my lumps than to make myself mute.
Taking lunps, that’s how the rest of us got here. It’s a good mix… and you’re a part of it
Respect
Doc
December 23rd, 2009 at 7:41 am
Thanks DocB.
Besides the intellectual content, the other thing that makes this site stand out is all the kindness that abounds.
Happy Holidays!
Square Verbose Doc
December 23rd, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Good idea:”The Aging Rebel Book Club”.We doan pay no stinkin’ full retail.I’m looking for “The Sign Of The Fool” by John S. Simon.Trouble is ,only one edition,way too much at used -bookstores that actually have it.
December 27th, 2009 at 8:26 pm
You’re all a bunch of pack-running crime gang supporting faggots.
December 28th, 2009 at 10:26 am
Dear No Gangs,
Is that you Ciccone?
Rebel
December 28th, 2009 at 10:44 am
There sure is a similarity about the style though, ain’t there? Who else would be trolling a site like this at Christmas? Ya can’t keep a dead horse beater down, I guess.
December 28th, 2009 at 11:00 am
Damon,
He’s that elf that put all the bikers on the naughty list.You know, the really short one that kept tripping over his big shoes.
sled tramp
December 28th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
sled tramp
To be honest, after all that festive pillaging, looting and pack raping last week, I barely had the energy left to unwrap any presents anyway.
Damon
December 28th, 2009 at 12:35 pm
Damon,
Yeah, it’s getting harder to stand in those long lines holding my oxygen bottle and cane….And the pillaging,MAN, don’t even go there.I have to have the young’ns help carry off my screaming damsels these days.Ah….age…..My wife says my silver hair makes me look distinguished.
Uh…..no. I’m just Gandolf fuckin’ old.
sled tramp
January 2nd, 2010 at 5:57 pm
http://www.knoxnews.com/news/2010/jan/01/010110webgang/
Holding a UC tied up and stealing his vest. Well, GEE, maybe it doesn’t pay to be a UC huh?
sled tramp
January 2nd, 2010 at 7:46 pm
Hey Sled
Sherrif Jimmy “JJ” Jones is a gold plated fool. He’s the kind of Guy Rebel would absolutely shred to death in oue of his pieces except he’s just not important enough. He had deputy dawg under cover for about a year or so before he got busted. He said on the news that the AOA is the worst most desperate cut throad band on the planet and are guilty of every crime known to man. Too bad deputy dawg couldn’t come up with evidence to support that. The Outlaws in question allegedly held this uc
at gunpoint while they took back their cut. I mean like WTF they owned it, and he conned them out of it, they just took it back.
They waited till New Years Eve to raid the club house and busted some fairly desperate old fuckers about our age for smoking pot at a new years eve party. Some of them weren’t even wearing their dentures, Pick me up off the floor, I can’t stand it. They didn’t find any illegal guns, explosives, meth, or kidnapped and raped 16 year old girls or any evidence of any other crimes. Fuck me runnin
This whole thing is a laughable enless you’re one of the Outlaws busted over it. No disrespect meant to any Outlaw and thanks for not killing any one. Snitches ARE a dying breed
Doc
January 3rd, 2010 at 8:53 pm
DocB:
Do you see how LEO can twist things around to their advantage? When they want to confiscate a patch, the club owns it. When they want to prosecute a club for taking it back, the wearer owns it.
Also, after the “crime of the century” ie: the Lindbergh case, kidnapping laws were revamped. If you tell someone they cannot leave a location or you move to hinder their leaving: felony kidnapping. Watch this charge be dropped like a hot potato.
Threatening an officer -only- applies if the guy who was confronted admitted it, produced verifiable ID and gave a verbal warning, or in other ways asserted his lawful authority.
I agree that after 14 months, if this is all they could come up with, its pretty damn thin. But there again, you take an affiant in front of a Judge, they can draw up any kind of warrant. Apparently, this is exactly what happened: the UC was confronted, his cut confiscated. Then and ONLY then did LEO decide any crimes were committed during the 14 months.
Piss poor Police work and sounds like the club was on to this guy for awhile, but giving every benefit of the doubt, waited on concrete evidence.
I note the Sheriff used the words “our agent”. I don’t know if he was a paid UC or LEO.
3 million dollars bond…………
A few joints, maybe a few Oxycontins, a gun or two- hardly justifies “dozens of officers”.
I hope readers of this site look at the patterns employed by LEO against 1% clubs.
Not to mention the grand standing “press conference” inside the clubhouse.
I’m telling you, the media loves this sort of thing and truly, it is considered “career making” for LEO. It doesn’t matter that we know it is all bull shit.
On the other hand, it is becoming easier for LEO to get these kinds of warrants and justify a large scale “flash bang” dynamic entry.
January 4th, 2010 at 5:55 pm
Not Suprised;
The thing about guns that pisses me off is that they show a huge table of confiscated guns on the news, but we never really know weather they are legal or not. Nobody ever comes out a few months later and says for instance “Of the fourty hand guns and twelve rifles confiscated only two came back as illegal, the rest were owned legaly by men with legaly obtained concealed carry permint”.
I have personal first hand experience with the above scenario, and it takes an act of congress to get your legaly owned shit back.
The press reports and pictures of the guns helps perpetuate the myth that we’re all gun dealing murderers.
These guys will probably beat most of the crap thrown at them, but the public will never know about the bull shit part of it caus ther’s never a press confrence about all the allegations that were completly unfounded.
Regards
Doc
January 14th, 2010 at 10:45 am
Hello there – just a little note to say kudos for this article. Very well-written.
February 28th, 2010 at 11:01 am
CI#4 NAME= SEAN COOPER HEIGHT ABOUT=5’10 WEIGHT= 230 LBS
MALE WHITE AGE= ABOUT 32YRS OLD
April 25th, 2010 at 12:17 am
Just bookmarked your site, thanks for sharing!
April 30th, 2010 at 12:21 pm
Ummm, have you idiots noticed that you’re a bunch of 40 and 50 year old LOSERS in a biker gang?? Are you fucking kidding me? Get a fucking life you decrepit old bastards. And you fucking pussies aren’t shit unless you got a bunch of guns or bunch of your friends with you, you coward fucks. The ATF will and always will whoop all your old fuck asses.
May 1st, 2010 at 10:42 am
Dear R,
Don’t tell me. Tell these guys. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUa30uCyU9I
Rebel
May 1st, 2010 at 12:16 pm
“R” The old farts are back!!!!!!!!!!! Come out of your hole and party and bring your ATF cock sucking lips and enjoy some real bother hood. something you ATF cunts will never know & remember MFFM.
Supporter.
Respect, Steve
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kyp5h5xYJC0&feature=related
May 1st, 2010 at 1:12 pm
LONG MAY THE MONGOL BROTHERHOOD BE IN THE WIND TOGETHER.
FTF
May 3rd, 2010 at 6:34 am
Rebel,
Is that your idea of intimidating? Seriously? A bunch of old, fat, out of shape motherfuckers? What exactly are you gonna do? As I said before, you’re real tough when you roll 50 deep with a bunch of guns. That’s the eptiome of being a fucking coward.
May 3rd, 2010 at 7:18 am
R,
Hi there,
How’s business on your side? Listen, while you and your friends in L.E. are sitting around thinking up cute prods at us awful motorcycle enthusiasts, I want to send out a big ol’ cosmic hug to you.Ya feel me? THERE ya go…..
Now you have a cookie on me and my pals (you’ve earned it)and then go out there and gosh darn it, make the world a safer place for decent Americans.
sled tramp
May 3rd, 2010 at 8:28 am
Dear R:
“As I said before, you’re real tough when you roll 50 deep with a bunch of guns. That’s the epitome of being a fucking coward.”
So, when ICE, ATF, DEA, local heat, the dog catcher, off duty postal workers, and the ladies auxilliary roll 200 deep with flash bangs, automatic weapons, armored vehicles ,helicopters, body armor against a guy and his family at 4:00 AM, break the door in and kill the dog, that is what you call the epitome of bravery?
I don’t know who you “R” nor do I care, but listen:
Your spelling is accurate and your punctuation is correct. So you at least got that going for ya.
And please, don’t flatter yourself by thinking Rebel’s invitation was “intimidating.” What so obviously escapes you is that the litmus test in the real world is: say it to their face.
Do you even have a face? If it were possible to reach through this screen, I twist your nose like a grade schooler and listen to you squeal like that dude on Deliverance….
May 3rd, 2010 at 9:22 am
R – The “epitome” of cowardly is coming on a site and disrespecting everyone on it from the safety of your keyboard. You know, I know and everyone in the free world knows that if you ran into any of these people on this website face to face; you would piss down your leg. You couldn’t dial 911 fast enough. Oh, and this is coming from a young, in-shape motherfucker.
Rebel – Just wanted to say that I enjoy reading the articles and comments. You have a really cool site. Appreciate all the hard work.
May 3rd, 2010 at 9:58 am
Ditto squared on what Not Surprised said.
Don’t talk about motorcycle people covering their friend’s backs.
At least it’s not done under the color of law. You break the fucking law to enforce the law.
Now that’s a mother fucking coward if there ever was one!
May 3rd, 2010 at 11:17 am
Dear Bones,
Thank you very much for your kind words.
your pal,
Rebel
June 1st, 2010 at 3:34 pm
“R”, you are another internet sissy sitting at a keyboard mouthing off from the safety of your bedroom in your momma’s basement. Now that is weak and disgusting.