Charles Edward Anderson Jr. is accused of assaulting a former rival club member earlier this month at a motorcycle garage, El Paso police said.
The Mongols Motorcycle Club are a recent arrival in El Paso and one of the world's largest "1 percenter" clubs, which law enforcement considers an outlaw biker gang. Anderson, 46, was arrested on a charge of engaging in organized criminal activity-assault causing bodily injury.
Anderson allegedly assaulted David Griego , 48, on April 5 at the Busted Knuckle Motorcycle Garage on Hondo Pass Drive, police said in a news release.
The garage is owned by Anderson, according to county business records.
Anderson was arrested at 4:45 a.m. Monday when a multi-agency law enforcement team raided his home in the 8300 block of Mount Latona Drive, police said.
The arrest and search warrants were served by a team including the police SWAT team and Gang Unit, Texas Department of Public Safety, FBI Safe Streets Gang Task Force and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
A jail log shows that Anderson was later released from jail on Monday on a $25,000 bond.
The Mongols are a recent arrival in El Paso and one of three major motorcycle clubs in the city, a police gang [sic] investigator testified earlier this year in the trial of a member of the Kinfolk MC convicted of killing the El Paso Bandidos chapter president.
Kinfolk member Javier "Jake" Gonzalez was sentenced to 56 years in prison in the murder of Juan "Compa" Martinez Jr. and wounding three other bikers in a bar shooting.
The Bandidos have been in El Paso for more than 50 years and the Kinfolk began in 2016.
Anderson is scheduled to go on trial in June on aggravated assault charges in that case. Social media posts show at least one other then-member of the Heathen Horde now displays Mongols membership.
The Mongols began 50 years ago with 15 members in the East Los Angeles before expanding to other parts of Southern California. The Mongols display the diamond-shaped "1 %" patch used by what law enforcement term outlaw motorcycle gangs.
The term "1 percenter" originated after the 1947 biker riot in Hollister, California, when the American Motorcyclist Association declared that 99 percent of motorcyclists were good, law-abiding citizens, implying that one percent were outlaws.
The Mongols now have chapters across the U.S. and a dozen countries. The Mongols website lists 11 chapters in Texas, though El Paso is not one of the cities on the list.
SOURCE: KTSM