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The Hells Angels motorcycle gang is minus one California leader after a wild shootout in a Nevada casino. The Vagos motorcycle gang survived the fight with two members wounded. The violent fight caused the city's Mayor to temporarily declare a state of emergency and stop a biker festival. It wasn't long before a drive-by shooting wounded another biker in retaliation.
Friday night at John Ascuaga's Nugget Hotel and Casino in Sparks, Nevada, was the scene of the bloody altercation between the two gangs. Eyewitnesses say a Hells Angels member fired the first shot and a surveillance video clearly shows a biker shooting wildly into the casino crowd. Police have charged Hells Angel, Cesar Villagrana, with assault with a deadly weapon and possession of a stolen firearm after seeing the video.
According to one witness, the shooting started when one Hells Angel was punched in the nose. He went on to say the biker jumped up with the bloody nose and pulled a gun and fired. The scene must have been horrific and must have scared the casino's patrons into taking cover. When bikers start fight, it's time to take cover.
Jeffrey "Jethro" Pettigrew, age 51, was the member of the Hells Angels killed at the casino. He was the leader of the San Jose, California, branch of the gang. The two wounded bikers were listed as 45-year-old Leonard Ramirez and 28-year-old Diego Garcia, both members of the Vagos. It's a miracle more people weren't killed or wounded. It is a good thing these guys are not better shots.
The casino fight broke out about 11:30 Friday night and by 10:49 the next morning another biker had been shot on the streets of Sparks. The town was hosting a biker festival called "Street Vibrations" where the shooting occurred. A biker was shot in the stomach by someone riding in a black BMW. Reno Police Department Lt. Amy Newman has commented that the second shooting was "definitely" revenge. Could the Hells Angels be in a continuing war with the Vagos? Only time will tell.
POLICE hit Ballarat’s streets in force on Saturday night for a high-visibility public order operation, coinciding with a visit from the Finks Outlaw Motorcycle Club. While Victoria Police would not confirm the gathering was a prelude to any increased bikie presence in Ballarat, they said they would continue to maintain increased vigilance over any potential illegal activities. As part of the operation, a Victoria Police marked camera van was parked for extended periods in the northbound lane of Doveton Street, with a clear view down Grainery Lane. Men wearing colours and insignia representing the Finks Motorcycle Club and its supporter groups were seen coming and going from a red-brick building in Grainery Lane during the day and into the night. Several men bearing the club’s insignia also stood at the entrance to Grainery Lane for much of the night. Ballarat police divisional superintendent Andrew Allen said there was no confirmation the Finks were establishing a chapter in Ballarat. He also said it was the “first time there’s been any activity from them” in the area. “I can confirm that a number of people who we believe to be part of the Finks Outlaw Motorcycle Club were visiting a location in Ballarat on Saturday night,” he said. “We believe they’re from a Melbourne chapter.” Superintendent Allen said police were aware of the visit well in advance and involved the state’s bikie-gang taskforce to assist with the high-visibility police operation. “We received some intelligence that suggested members of the Finks might be going to visit Ballarat, so we involved Taskforce Echo,” he said. “The use of the marked police camera van was to prevent and detect offences and it has been quite successful in the past.”
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explosives have been uncovered at the home of a Comancheros bikie after police raided two properties in their hunt for a gunman. The raids come after up to five rounds were peppered bullets into a Darch house - where Comancheros bikies live - on Wednesday. Gang Crime Squad detectives today descended on a house in Tangmire Way, Balga where they allegedly discovered 1kg of powergel, an explosive commonly used in the mining industry. Senior police said intelligence suggested the powergel could have had the potential to cause significant damage or even death. ``It's approximately 1kg in weight and could cause extreme damage or loss of life if it was primed and detonated,'' Detective Superintendent Charlie Carver said. A police raid of a gym in Wellman St, Northbridge - which has become the Comacheros' headquarters - allegedly unearthed steroids, including four viles of testosterone and 17 viles of growth hormones. Related Coverage Darch: Bikie war: House, car sprayed with bullets Explosives seized in Bikie raid Bikie war: House, car sprayed with bullets Perth Now, 1 day ago Man faces drug charges after bikie raid Perth Now, 18 Aug 2011 Bikies 'accessing secret police files' Perth Now, 18 Jul 2011 Hells Angel arrested in steroid raids Perth Now, 14 Jul 2011 Bikie 'threatened to shoot victim' Adelaide Now, 8 Jul 2011 No one was at the clubhouse at the time of the raid and police inquiries are continuing into the steroid seizure. Det-Supt Carver said today's action was a direct response to this week's shooting in Darch, but stressed police did not believe the Comancheros were involved in cross-club rivalry. On Wednesday, up to five shots were fired into a house and car in Matlock Heights, Darch, around midnight - fuelling bikie hostilities. The front door and a front window of the house were damaged in a hail of bullets, along with a white car parked in the driveway. Two men and a woman, who police say have links to the Comancheros, were inside the house at the time but were not injured. ``We know that bikies by nature are fighting for drugs, supremacy, territory and monies,'' Det-Supt Carver said. ``They are a fledgling club and they are trying to establish themselves and obviously that causes conflict.'' A 27-year-old Balga man, a Comancheros nominee, has been charged with possessing explosives. No one has been charged over the Darch shooting. The Comancheros, a notorious gang in New South Wales, have been attempting to gain a foothold in WA for 18 months. The gang is renowned for violence, including the brawl at Sydney airport last year which left a Hells Angels associate dead, and the infamous Milperra massacre in 1984 in which seven people were killed. But Det-Supt Carver said police were winning the war on bikies in WA, saying there were nine gangs in WA in 2007 and now there were just six. He said police had all but decimated the Rock Machine and had temporarily dismantled the Finks with five members jailed over the Kwinana Motoplex brawl in October. Comancheros from Sydney and Melbourne have moved to WA to help recruit locals to the gang, he said. In February, police uncovered more than 50 sticks of powergel and detonators during a raid of the Rock Machine's Myaree headquarters.
TRADITIONALLY most police don't like working on bikies and for good reason. The gang leaders are usually cunning, ruthless and a little whiffy in the armpit department. The Special Operations Group, on the other hand, always enjoy a good bikie raid as it gives them a chance to use their extremely impressive armoury of boys' toys. Bikies love to fortify their clubhouses with large gates, reinforced doors and state-of-art electronic security. Police have even seen some of them wearing infra-red night goggles while patrolling their compounds. Advertisement: Story continues below Bikies usually need such security to protect themselves from other gangs, but this creates problems when police wish to make unannounced visits. Enter the SOG (both figuratively and literally) with the answer. Once it was as easy as attaching a heavy chain to the gates and gunning the four-wheel-drive. Then they needed an industrial-strength bobcat. Now they think laterally to gain access. Such as when one gang barricaded the doors, the boys-in-black used a small amount of plastic explosives to blow a big new entrance in the side brick wall. And they didn't even charge for the ad-hoc renovation. Once an outlaw motorcycle gang leader spotted a former SOG member in a rare off-duty moment at an inner-suburban pub. The bikie suggested the policeman was not so tough now that he worked in the divisions and no longer had access to his black bag of tricks. He then suggested they continue discussions outside. The result was the bikie woke to find his jacket displaying the club colours had been replaced by a plain hospital gown. And the next man he saw wearing a mask was not a gang brother with a knife coming to his rescue but an orthopaedic surgeon with a hacksaw planning to reset several shattered bones. So what's the big deal with bikies? (And before every ''bad dude'' with a pair of leather pants and a 100cc step-through scooter splutters on his multi-grain cereal, we are talking about outlaw motorcycle gangs.) In Victoria, there are only 700 or so patched members in 24 gangs split into 56 chapters. On pure numbers they would lose a war with Rotary - particularly if the Rotarians were armed with that blue cheese they serve at monthly meetings. The Hells Angels was the first of the major groups to gain a foothold in Australia when a small chapter with 11 members was formed in Melbourne in the early 1970s. By 1977, according to a secret police report, they ''came under attention of the police for possession of amphetamine''. Soon foundation member Peter John Hill travelled to California, where he visited a prison to see a senior Angel who told him how to make speed. For three years, police say, the Melbourne chapter became the biggest amphetamine producers in Australia. From that point, a litany of key bikies have been identified as connected to organised crime and linked to murders, witness intimidation, blackmail, drug manufacture, industrial standover work and firearms trafficking. Then something strange happened. Police, for whatever reason, stopped monitoring the gangs. In recent years bikies have had a disproportionate influence in the underworld and have been able to flout the law with apparent immunity. On club runs they appear to have little regard for road rules and, more disturbingly, the police have done stuff-all to stop them. When your corespondent attended a major bikie funeral a few years back, there was not a policeman to be seen. When the service ended, 400 bikies roared off in procession, with few wearing helmets, giving the impression they were untouchable (and unwashable). Bikie crimes are rarely reported because either the victims are (a) rival gang members who won't talk to police, or (b) members of the public too frightened to make statements. So, without a dedicated outlaw motorcycle gang squad, no one really knew what they were doing. It was an old police trick. If you don't look you don't find the problem, and if you don't find the problem you don't have to respond with expensive investigations. That was until six months ago, when the Echo bikie taskforce was formed. Now the landscape has changed markedly. Police now openly admit that bikies are a potential menace that require active and aggressive investigation. Detective Superintendent Doug Fryer points out that this does not mean harassment, nor does it mean police think most members of bikie groups are up to their hairy armpits in organised crime. (Actually that's not quite right. Many bikies have gone all metrosexual and wax up, so these days they have designer stubble to match their designer drugs.) ''They need to know they will be treated the same as any other group and they must comply with the law,'' Fryer says. Recently the Black Uhlans gang told police they would not be wearing helmets during a major ride following a Geelong funeral. Police gently but firmly pointed out this would be a breach of the traffic code. To back the point, 200 police were assigned for the ride. The bikies wore helmets. ''We now have the numbers to make sure laws will be enforced,'' Fryer says. And these are not empty words. Echo has conducted 50 raids and seized stun guns, rifles, handguns, ballistic vests, stolen bikes, drugs and counter-surveillance gear. And the SOG was able to blast through a triple brick side wall at one club house, which they enjoyed immensely. According to the Echo Taskforce chief, Acting Inspector Chris Murray, the first step is to react quickly to crime ''spot fires'' while developing an intelligence base to target those involved in organised crime. ''We need to actively monitor what is going on so we can investigate serious crime and defuse potential gang wars when there is a build-up in inter-gang rivalry,'' he says. It also, he says, requires a change of attitude within policing to stress that bikies should be treated like anyone else. ''This is not us versus them. So far our approach has been accepted without animosity.'' Not that Echo and the Hells Angels are likely to have a friendly game of croquet any time soon. ''If any of our members are intimidated or threatened there will be consequences,'' he says, adding quickly, ''Within the law.'' This is a welcome change. Not so long ago a detective who worked on a bikies investigation learned a gang member drove his Harley-Davidson to visit the detective's neighbour at his semi-rural property. He asked for the policeman by his first name, to be told he lived next door. No threat was left but the message was clear: ''We know where you live.'' The new approach is already filtering from Echo to rank-and-file police. Just a few weeks ago a group of Comancheros decided they could ride up an emergency lane without consequences. They were pulled over - by a lone uniformed policeman, who was soon backed by Echo investigators. ''We are training all our members, from recruits up, so they can have confidence in dealing with members of outlaw motorcycle gangs because we are here to support them,'' Fryer says. Asset forfeiture laws will also be used. Unemployed bikies with flash cars and investment properties will soon be asked some stern questions. And if illicit funds have been used to build gang clubhouses, they may be seized. The traditional defence of bikies is to launch a PR campaign to suggest they are rough diamonds who have been badly misjudged. While it is true some bikies collect soft toys for sick kids and are kind to small animals, that hardly outweighs removing a rival's big toe with bolt cutters. After all, Judy Moran could make a mean macaroni cheese but that won't get you to heaven if you kill your brother-in-law. According to Assistant Commissioner Graham Ashton, ''Charity bike runs for example are used to create the impression in the community that they are misunderstood motorbike enthusiasts. At the rate Taskforce Echo is currently seizing guns and drugs from these gangs, they are anything but.'' The bikie groups want to present a united front to fight proposed anti-gang laws they claim are biased against them. International corporations know it is vitally important to pick the right ''face'' to promote your image. Nespresso Coffee has George Clooney; Louis Vuitton, Sean Connery; and TAG Heuer, Brad Pitt. The bikies are about to settle on a fellow called Mick MacPherson as their likely spokesman. This is certainly an interesting choice since he has been described as a Finks enforcer who has been questioned over a cocaine importation and, just recently, had the misfortune to be shot in the guts.
