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| Law officer shot Hells Angels member in Sturgis, police say |
![header=[News Category: Bad Cops] body=[Click here to view all news in this category.] delay=[0] fade=[on]](images/news_cats/bad-cops.gif) By Ryan Woodard
Journal staff Monday, August 11, 2008
A member of the Hells Angels motorcycle club was shot early Saturday morning at the Loud American Roadhouse on Main Street in Sturgis, Sturgis police said, and the Seattle Police Department said one of its officers was involved.
Police responded to the bar about 1 a.m. after reports of gunshots. They said later that two shots were fired.
Police said Saturday morning that the victim, whom they did not identify, was hospitalized and that they had detained a member of the Iron Pigs motorcycle club as the possible shooter but on Saturday afternoon said there could be numerous suspects, that no one was in custody and no arrests had been made because they were still investigating. Sturgis Police Chief Jim Bush said police detained and questioned numerous people at the scene to determine who was a suspect and who was a witness.
"We're still trying to ascertain for sure who did the shooting," Bush said Saturday evening. "We have suspects. We have a lot of information to put together."
The Iron Pigs are a motorcycle club open to law enforcement and firefighters who ride American-made V-Twin bikes, according to the club's Web site.
The person who fired the shots is a law enforcement officer, Sturgis police said in an afternoon press release, but they didn't release the names of anyone involved.
The Seattle Police Department issued a statement that one of its officers was involved in an off-duty shooting in Sturgis and that four other Seattle officers were present.
The Seattle police chief dispatched a team of investigators Saturday night to Sturgis to gather information.
"The Seattle Police Department considers this a matter of utmost seriousness," the statement said. "All five officers will be placed on administrative reassignment (relieved of duty) pending further investigation by the South Dakota authorities."
Between 400 and 500 people were in the bar at the time of the shooting, police said, and the rock band Judd Hoos was playing. Police told people to "hit the deck" after the shooting.
Daytona Beach, Fla., resident Nick McCallum was working at a T-shirt shop across the street when he heard the shots.
"It was pretty much pandemonium," he said. "The whole place just flooded out. A lot of people screaming, a bunch of craziness. I wasn't sure what it was."
Dean Kinney, an owner of the bar, said that before the shooting, he and his employees noticed a number of Hells Angels gathering in and outside of the bar and called police as a precaution, so extra officers were at the scene at the time of the shooting.
Kinney, who was outside the bar during the shooting, said he was told that a scuffle broke out before the shots were fired.
He said the police did a good job of controlling the scene quickly and said that he thought police had detained the shooter.
"What I've been told is that our security guys identified him as the shooter," Kinney said. "I'm certain he never got out of the bar."
The shooting victim was taken to a hospital and was still hospitalized as of Saturday afternoon, police said, though they would not say where.
The Sturgis Police Department is investigating the shooting, along with federal, state and county law enforcement agencies.
Chief Bush said the last shooting that occurred in Sturgis during a rally was in 1990 inside Gunner's Lounge, also involving two motorcycle clubs.
Kinney said the fight and shooting were unusual for his bar.
"In the years we have been doing this, we have almost no trouble during the rally," Kinney said. "It was surreal, that's for sure."
Bush said the incident is not related to the biker-gang shooting in Custer State Park during the 2006 Sturgis motorcycle rally.
http://www.meadecountytimes.com/articles/2008/08/11/meade_county/headlines/doc489f33440cb4e919191381.txt?show_comments=true#commentdiv
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creedladycricket on August 14 2008 15:27:37 ·
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| cops and drugs |
![header=[News Category: Bad Cops] body=[Click here to view all news in this category.] delay=[0] fade=[on]](images/news_cats/bad-cops.gif) from Drug War Chronicle, Issue #460, 11/3/06
A Virginia sheriff and most of his department goes down for reselling seized drug and guns, a Border Patrol guard gets caught turning a blind eye in exchange for sex and cash, dope is missing from the Boston Police evidence warehouse, a small town police chief pleads guilty to protecting crack dealers, and two cops are going to prison for dealing drugs.
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factorymech on August 14 2008 15:23:36
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| killer cop |
![header=[News Category: Bad Cops] body=[Click here to view all news in this category.] delay=[0] fade=[on]](images/news_cats/bad-cops.gif) from Drug War Chronicle, Issue #546, 8/8/08
An all-white jury found Lima, Ohio, Police Sgt. Joe Chavalia not guilty on all counts in the January shooting death of 27-year-old Tarika Wilson during a January SWAT team raid on the home of a low-level crack cocaine dealer who was her live-in boyfriend. Wilson was shot and killed as she cowered at the door of a second-floor bedroom holding her infant child, Sincere Wilson, in her arms. The child was also hit; he had a finger amputated because of his wounds.
animated GIF appearing on Lima SWAT team's web site, taken down shortly after Wilson killingIn the midst of community outrage over the killing of Wilson, whose five other children were in the bedroom behind her, Sgt. Chavalia was indicted in her death -- but only on misdemeanor charges. He faced a maximum of eight months in prison if found guilty in her killing.
During his testimony at the trial, Sergeant Chavalia said that he believed his life was in danger when he entered the home and saw a "shadowy figure" down the hallway at the same time that he heard gunshots. He then opened fire, killing Wilson. Testimony at the trial determined that the gunshots Chavalia heard were in fact fired by two other SWAT team members, who were killing a pair of pit bulls on the ground floor.
"There was absolutely, positively no doubt in my mind right then and there that whatever this was is shooting and they're trying to kill me," he told the jury.
Chavalia's attorney, Bill Kluge, waged an aggressive case, even stooping to blaming the victim for getting herself killed. Wilson had chosen to live with a drug dealer, he said, and she had failed to identify herself to the yelling intruders who broke down her door.
"Why would she put those children in that position? I don't know the answer to that," Kluge said. "Love is a strange thing."
After hearing 3 1/2 days of testimony in the case, the jury deliberated for three hours before clearing Chavalia.
"We're supposed to take this with a smile? We're supposed to believe in justice?" asked an incredulous Ivory Austin II, Wilson's half-brother, in remarks reported by the Toledo Blade.
"We've got to do better. We've given people the license to kill," Jason Upthegrove, president of the Lima chapter of the NAACP, said afterward.
The Rev. Arnold Manley, pastor of Pilgrim Rest Baptist Church, told the Blade he came to the trial to see justice prevail but that did not happen. "As a pastor, I'm hurt deeply that we can walk away from this and say justice has been done," he said. "How do I go out to tell the people on the streets, 'Let the law prevail'? How do I say that? White man justice. Black man grief."
Darla Kaye Jennings, grandmother of Sincere Wilson responded to Lima's "white man justice" by filing a federal civil rights lawsuit against Chavalia and the city of Lima the day after the verdict was announced. The lawsuit asks for compensation for Sincere's injuries as well as an end to "police abuse by requiring that high risk search warrant executions be limited to situations where they are truly needed and where the least amount of force necessary to the situation is employed."
According to the lawsuit, the shooting that led to Wilson's death and her son's injuries was "excessive, unreasonable, and completely unnecessary." The lawsuit further said that Sergeant Chavalia acted "negligently" when he used deadly force.
Another killer cop has walked. But perhaps the city of Lima will learn a hard lesson when it is forced to pay for its misdeeds.
Drug War Issues Civil Rights - SWAT/Paramilitarization - Police Raids
Consequences of Prohibition Police-Community Tensions
Politics & Advocacy State Courts
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factorymech on August 14 2008 15:22:47
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| this weeks bad cops |
![header=[News Category: Bad Cops] body=[Click here to view all news in this category.] delay=[0] fade=[on]](images/news_cats/bad-cops.gif) from Drug War Chronicle, Issue #546, 8/8/08
A Boston cop goes to prison for being muscle for drug dealers, and a Miami-area cop and two prison guards get caught up in a massive Oxycontin and health fraud scandal. Let's get to it:
In Boston, a former Boston police officer was sentenced July 29 to 11 years in federal prison for acting as an enforcer for drug dealers. Former Officer Jose Ortiz, 46, pleaded guilty in a conspiracy to extort $265,000 from a man targeted by Colombian drug dealers working in the area. In the scheme, dealers approached a man seeking people who would work in their drug sales business, then told him one of the people he recommended had ripped them off and he was responsible. In August 2006, Ortiz showed up in uniform at the man's workplace, saying he was there on behalf of the dealers, who would kill the man if he did not pay $265,000. In May 2007, the man, who had gone to the FBI with the threats, gave Ortiz $4,000 in cash and four kilos of cocaine in a Revere parking lot. The FBI then swooped down on Ortiz and arrested him.
In Miami, a Hialeah police officer and two Miami-Dade corrections officers were arrested Wednesday along with 59 other people in an illegal Oxycontin and healthcare fraud ring. Fifty-two of the 62 people arrested were Miami-Dade employees, including 17 bus drivers, 10 bus attendants, five school security guards, and six garbage men. Hialeah Police Officer Danette Dell and jail guards Lori Lucky and Reginald Fletcher are among those facing grand theft and other charges in the scam, in which government employees used their health benefits to buy Oxycontin, then resell the pills on the black market.
from the site:
http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/546/police_drug_corruption
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factorymech on August 14 2008 15:22:21
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| Hells Angels Stabbed in Bar Brawl with Christian Biker Group |
![header=[News Category: 1%er News] body=[Click here to view all news in this category.] delay=[0] fade=[on]](images/news_cats/1percent-news.gif) Hells Angels Stabbed in Bar Brawl with Christian Biker Group
Jesus-Loving Men's Motorcycle Club Bikers, Hells Angels Arrested in SWAT Raid
Aug. 7, 2008
SHARE ANAHEIM, Calif. (AP) -- Six members of a Christian motorcycle club and three Hells Angels were arrested Wednesday by SWAT officers investigating a bar brawl that left three people wounded.
Two Hells Angels bikers and six members of a Christian biker group have been arrested after a bar brawl. The Christian bikers - of the Set Free Soldiers men's motorcycling club - are being held under suspicion of conspiring to commit murder.
More than 150 police officers served search warrants and arrested suspects in Anaheim and Costa Mesa.
The members of the Set Free Soldiers group were arrested for investigation of conspiring to commit murder, Newport Beach police spokesman Sgt. Evan Sailor said.
The three Hells Angels were taken into custody for investigation of assault and drug possession.
The raids came after a fight at a Newport Beach bar last week between members of the Hells Angels and the Set Free Soldiers, described on its Web site as a Jesus-loving men's motorcycle club.
Two Hells Angels members were stabbed and a member of the Set Free Soldiers was hit on the head with a pool ball, Sailor said.
The names of those arrested were not immediately released.
Police helicopters woke one resident who said members of the Set Free Soldiers had long caused trouble on her street.
"The neighborhood has been trying to get them out of here for years," Sharon Murphy, 50, told the Orange County Register.
Rock Aguilar, who said his father started the Free Soldiers group, told KCAL9 the accusations are false but would not comment further.
Original Article: http://abcnews.go.com/TheLaw/story?id=5531818&page=1 |
Smoky on August 08 2008 16:58:06
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| Tattoos taboo? Workers debate whether to cover up body art |
![header=[News Category: Biker News] body=[Click here to view all news in this category.] delay=[0] fade=[on]](images/news_cats/biker-news.gif)
Tattoos taboo? Workers debate whether to cover up body art
Posted by Melissa Burden | The Flint Journal July 13, 2008 00:47AM
Thomas Simonetti | The Flint JournalDefense attorney Jeff Clothier of Grand Blanc Township has three tattoos -- a permanent record of things significant in his life (the names of his wife and daughters, the University of Michigan block M and the scales of justice). Tattoos may be more mainstream, but Clothier still opts to make sure they are covered at work and even on the golf course to keep them hidden... |
duster on July 16 2008 08:26:55
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| Langley expects Hells Angels to be 'law-abiding' during bash |
![header=[News Category: 1%er News] body=[Click here to view all news in this category.] delay=[0] fade=[on]](images/news_cats/1percent-news.gif)
Langley expects Hells Angels to be 'law-abiding' during bash
RCMP to beef up ranks for bikers' party July 25-26
Stuart Hunter,
Hundreds of Hells Angels are poised to descend on suburban Langley to celebrate the motorcycle club's 25th anniversary.
The party hosted by the Angels' White Rock chapter is scheduled for the weekend of July 25-26.
It will celebrate the 25th anniversary of the Vancouver, Nanaimo and White Rock chapters.
The RCMP sent out a media advisory yesterday -- two weeks before the big bash -- warning that... |
THUMPERRRR on July 11 2008 15:38:45
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| Motorcycle events go full throttle |
![header=[News Category: Biker News] body=[Click here to view all news in this category.] delay=[0] fade=[on]](images/news_cats/biker-news.gif)
Motorcycle events go full throttle
By JOSE SAN MATEO
The Salinas Californian
Motorcycle fans have plenty to look forward to over the next 10 days, from a huge bike rally in Hollister to the races at Mazda Raceway Laguna Seca.
Getting under way today is the three-day, annual Hollister Motorcycle Rally, which last year attracted more than 130,000 motorcycle enthusiasts.
There'll be three stages for concerts and a host of parts available from vendors such as Harley Davidson and Metrics. Riders can even have... |
THUMPERRRR on July 11 2008 15:37:43
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| Security Increased for North Valley Biker Rally |
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Security Increased for North Valley Biker Rally
By Sara Sandrik
Merced County, CA (KFSN) -- Merced County Sheriff's deputies, Los Banos police, and Highway Patrol officers will be enforcing a zero tolerance policy at the biker rally that starts tomorrow in Los Banos. They say recent clashes between two motorcycle gangs have given them a reason to be concerned.
Cell phone video captured the chaos at Los Banos Park when a fight broke out between two rival biker gangs last month. Shots were fired and one person... |
THUMPERRRR on July 11 2008 07:13:58
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| Harley works to hold its place in American culture |
![header=[News Category: Biker News] body=[Click here to view all news in this category.] delay=[0] fade=[on]](images/news_cats/biker-news.gif)
Harley works to hold its place in American culture
By RICK BARRETT
For thousands of Harley-Davidson enthusiasts, the museum that opens Saturday at 6th and Canal streets is a testament to the company’s past at a time when Harley needs its strongest magic to create bikes that define American culture.
The 105-year-old company's success story has been etched with motorcycles and riders symbolizing a restless, rebel spirit.
One of the museum's exhibits has items from the Boozefighters Motorcycle Club, immortalized by the movie... |
THUMPERRRR on July 11 2008 07:13:13
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| The American Biker - a long, twisted road |
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The American Biker - a long, twisted road
Jul 10, 2008
By Curtis Cartier
If the "American Biker" was born in 1947 in downtown Hollister, this 61-year-old chrome-chewing, rubber-burning, hell-raising wild child could start collecting social security money soon.
But as any real biker will tell you - he'd probably spend it all on his motorcycle anyway.
And this weekend, when thousands of choppers and hogs descend upon the town for the Hollister Motorcycle Rally, bikers young and old will undoubtedly take a look back at... |
THUMPERRRR on July 11 2008 07:12:28
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| Family, veterans give honor |
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Family, veterans give honor to Hardin grad who died in air crash
By LORNA THACKERAY
Of The Gazette Staff
Lt. Donald F. Wolfe came home Thursday, 41 years after his airplane crashed into a mountain in enemy territory a few miles from Da Nang, Vietnam.
At the end of his long journey to Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument, Barbara Colter, a daughter born a week after his death, waited. She and her three children - Ryan, 11; Kate, 9, and Wade, 7, all of Forest Grove, Ore. - traveled the final 13 miles with him... |
THUMPERRRR on July 11 2008 07:11:25
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| Tip-offs lead police to bikie gang drug lairs |
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Tip-offs lead police to bikie gang drug lairs
Sarah Vogler
11Jul08
POLICE seized more than $100,000 worth of cannabis, steroids and amphetamines in a series of bikie-related raids yesterday.
Acting Detective Inspector Marc Hogan said police arrested six people on more than 30 drug-related charges.
He said those charged were believed to be either members or associates of the the Black Uhlans and Gypsy Jokers motorcycle clubs.
More arrests are expected and Det-Insp Hogan said the raids were just the beginning.
"Police... |
THUMPERRRR on July 10 2008 13:51:48
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| Hells Angels to hold anniversary bash |
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Uniformed police will be a visible presence at Langley gathering
Kelly Sinoski
Vancouver Sun
Thursday, July 10, 2008
When the Hells Angels holds its 25th anniversary bash this month, uniformed officers of the Metro Vancouver police are planning to join the party.
Officers from the RCMP and municipal police forces will attend the two-day event, set for July 25-26 at Hells Angels' clubhouse in Langley.
"We're going to make a special effort to participate as heavily as we can in that," Vancouver Police Insp. Dean Robinson said... |
THUMPERRRR on July 10 2008 10:22:02
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| Motorcycle museum all revved up for visitors |
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BY SUSAN CARPENTER
One step closer. That was the guiding principle in developing the new Harley-Davidson Museum, opening this week.
''If you're a hard-core enthusiast, you ought to get more enthusiastic,'' curatorial director Jim Fricke said. ``If you're convinced that motorcycles are evil, hopefully you leave hating them a little less.''
Regardless of their feelings about motorcycles generally or Harley-Davidson in particular, visitors probably will be impressed, if only by the stunning steel-girder architecture rising from a former... |
THUMPERRRR on July 10 2008 10:20:53
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| Finnish court jails 12 Cannonball members |
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The Forssa-Loimaa district court on Wednesday handed unconditional prison sentences to 12 members of Cannonball, a motorcycle club in southern Finland, for robbery and aggravated extortion along with a range of lesser offences.
The court gave suspended sentences to five Cannonball members and ordered about 30,000 euros in compensation payments.
Seppo Juha Henriksson, one of the leading figures of Cannonball, was sent away for six years, the longest sentence among all those convicted.
The court found the... |
THUMPERRRR on July 10 2008 10:19:30
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| Organizer fuming over surveillance at annual bike run |
![header=[News Category: 1%er News] body=[Click here to view all news in this category.] delay=[0] fade=[on]](images/news_cats/1percent-news.gif) Organizer fuming over surveillance at annual bike run
By: Tina Ford, Contributing Writter
Description: Chief defends action as necesary precaution
Police surveillance of the recent Veterans Mountain Run has left the event organizer fuming, but both sides agreed last week to try to talk out their differences.
The fifth annual charity event drew about 750 motorcycle riders and 2,000 participants to Tehachapi to raise money for veterans.
On the second day of the event, uniformed officers from area law enforcement agencies appeared across the street from the VFW Post 5946 on Tehachapi Blvd., some taking pictures.
Event organizer Orion Sanders said there was no cause for law enforcement to show up.
“There were no incidents,” he said. “There were no fights, drugs, guns or knives. There was no illegal activity. The guys were hanging out and having a good time. They are regular people, for God's sake.”
Tehachapi Police Chief Jeff Kermode defended the show of badges as a necessary preventive measure against potential motorcycle gang violence. Both men planned to meet to discuss their concerns.
Sanders said the contingent of photo-shooting law enforcement ruined a peaceful event and sent most of the partiers home early.
Both Kermode and Sanders confirmed that members of the Mongols and members of the Vagos clubs came to the event and participated in the charity motorcycle run, which has never had a gang presence. Kermode said 30 Mongols and 10 Vagos were in attendance; Sanders gave the numbers as “less than 20” Mongols and seven Vagos, and “I know them all.”
Kermode said the gang prevention officers numbered “20 to 24.”
Sanders said that all the participants came with respect to share a common cause.
“They were here to support veterans,” said Sanders, who is president of event sponsor Funds for Freedom, Inc., a non-profit that makes money for veterans and children and has been the prime mover behind a veterans' memorial walkway at the Bakersfield VA National Cemetery.
The police department reported no arrests or violence | | |
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