Mongols MC headquarters subject to searches

Santa Ana, California, USA (June 29, 2019) BTN — A federal judge on Friday, June 28, made clear that his decision to place the Mongols motorcycle club on probation means the headquarters for the organizations mother chapter is fair game for random search by probation officers, not individual bikers themselves.

U.S. District Judge David O. Carter in May ordered the Mongols organization to pay a $500,000 fine, and to serve five years on supervised probation, after a Santa Ana jury found that the Southern California-based club itself — rather than specific members — was guilty of racketeering.

The first-of-its-kind legal battle was part of a decade-plus effort by federal law enforcement to seize control of the Mongols patches, which depict an illustration of a smiling, ponytailed, Ghengis Khan-type motorcycle rider. The Santa Ana jury agreed that the government should be able to take control of the patches and trademark, but Judge Carter overrode that portion of the verdict, ruling it would be unconstitutional.

Since Carter’s decision, law enforcement agencies from across the country have reached out to federal probation officials to ask what the terms of the Mongols organizations probation means for their efforts to police individual riders, prosecutors told the judge.

Related | Mongols Motorcycle Club wins court case
Related | Mongols MC lose federal case against patch 
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Related | Mongols MC found guilty of racketeering

Related | Feds betting Mongols MC will not survive 

Related | A Motorcycle Club can’t conspire with itself

Related | Mongols MC trademark trial wrapping up 

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Related | Feds attempt to seize Mongols MC trademarked logo

Related | Mongols MC: Feds going after clubs colors at racketeering trial

“I have no problem searching the mother chapter, that is where you found the guns,” Carter told prosecutors. “But this isn’t a wholesale warrant without probable cause to search anyone on the street.”

But before the government can search the Mongols’ headquarters, they are going to have to come back to the court and tell the judge where it actually is. Court filings have referred to a location in West Covina, but prosecutors on Friday noted that is a reference to the former home of Ruben “Doc” Cavazos, a former president of the Mongols who was kicked out of the club.

Prosecutors didn’t immediately provide the judge with a new address for the club’s current headquarters, just telling him it is not in West Covina. The Mongols was originally formed in Montebello in the 1970s.

The legal battle over the Mongols patch is almost certain to make its way before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, and likely the U.S. Supreme Court. Carter is allowing the club to pay their $500,000 fine in monthly installments, so that they can still afford to fund the expected appeals.


The case stemmed from Operation Black Rain, an undercover investigation in which law enforcement agents infiltrated the Mongols. A separate, earlier court case against specific Mongols members led to 77 people pleading guilty to racketeering-related charges.

In the most recent trial, the Mongols as an organization were found to have taken part in drug trafficking, vicious assaults and even murder. Much of the violence was tied to a long-running rivalry between the Mongols and the Hells Angels motorcycle club, and led to attacks, some fatal, in bars and restaurants in Pasadena, Hollywood, Merced, La Mirada, Wilmington and Riverside.

Attorneys representing the current leadership of the Mongols have blamed the violence on Cavazos and his crew, who they note are no longer involved in the organization.

SOURCE: The Orange County Register 

Modesto Hells Angels President Arrested

Modesto, California, USA (June 26, 2019) BTN — The president of the Modesto Hells Angels Motorcycle Club, his wife, and two others will appear in federal court on Wednesday in Fresno, where they’ll face methamphetamine trafficking charges.

Charged in a criminal complaint unsealed Tuesday were Modesto residents Randy Picchi, 61, president of the club; his wife Tina Picchi, 51; Michael Mize, 61; and Michael Pack, 32, a prospect with the club.

Randy Picchi, Tina Picci, and Mize were arrested Tuesday and placed into custody, according to a news release from the Department of Justice.

Search Warrants Executed at Seven Locations

Officers executed search warrants at seven locations Tuesday in Stanislaus County, including the Hells Angeles clubhouse in Modesto.

Court documents allege that Randy Picchi led a drug conspiracy and directed his wife to regularly deliver drugs to Mize and others in Ceres. Randy Pichi also enlisted Pack to help obtain methamphetamine on at least one occasion. Pack was stopped by law enforcement officers and was found with 499 grams of meth on him.

In addition, the court documents allege that Randy Picchi directed Tina Picchi to drive from Modesto to Redding to deliver meth to a customer. On the way, Tina Picchi was stopped by law enforcement and found with approximately 4 ounces of meth, which she had wrapped in a plastic glove and hidden in a cup of soda.

Defendants Face 10-Year Minimum Sentences

This case involved the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the IRS Criminal Investigation, the Central Valley Gang Impact Task Force, the Modesto and Turlock police departments, the Stanislaus County District Attorney’s Office, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, and the California Highway Patrol.


Assistant U.S. Attorneys Ross Pearson and Laurel Montoya are prosecuting the case.

If convicted, each defendant faces a maximum statutory penalty of life in prison, a mandatory minimum of 10 years in prison and a $10 million fine.

Hells Angels attend funeral surrounded by cops

Montreal, Canada (June 22, 2019) BTN — Hundreds of Hells Angels from across Canada showed at an Urgel Bourgie funeral home on Beaubien St. E. in Mercier—Hochelaga—Maisonneuve to mourn the loss of André (Frisé) Sauvageau. Hundreds of local and provincial police officers were also on the scene, while a helicopter flew overhead.

André (Frisé) Sauvageau defected from the Rock Machine in 2000 and remained a member of the Hells Angels in Montreal until his death last month.While he was involved in a war between the Hells Angels and Rock Machine, André (Frisé) Sauvageau received a phone call he probably hadn’t thought possible.

It was Dec. 19, 2000, and Sauvageau, a founding member of the Rock Machine, had spent the previous six years looking over his shoulder as the two groups fought over turf in Montreal. Police never identified the person on the other end of the line, but the call came from a cellphone owned by Richard (Dick) Mayrand, who was at the time one of the most powerful Hells Angels in Quebec.

During the call, Sauvageau was told that, as far as the Hells Angels were concerned, “the door (was) always open” to him. He defected to the Hells Angels soon after and remained a member of the club till his death May 26.

Under a cloudy sky Thursday morning, hundreds of Hells Angels from across Canada showed up in force at an Urgel Bourgie funeral home on Beaubien St. E. in Mercier—Hochelaga—Maisonneuve to mourn the loss of Sauvageau.

Club members arrived in groups, many of them on Harley-Davidson motorcycles, between 10:30 a.m. and noon. By the time the funeral was slated to begin, there were about 100 motorcycles in the parking lot, and an equal number of cars, pickup trucks, SUVs and minivans.

Most of those going into the funeral home were wearing leather jackets that had Hells Angels patches or names of other supporting clubs, like the Red Devils and the Reapers with names of cities and regions: Halifax, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Regina, Richelieu Outaouais, Laurentides and Lanaudière. The majority were from Montreal.

All were men and white, and most were middle-aged with long beards. About a dozen milled around at the building’s rear door, while several stood at the front door, apparently acting as security agents.

“You’re not getting in here; don’t make me have to tell you again,” one of them told a reporter.

Hundreds of Montreal Police and Sûreté du Québec police officers were also on the scene, arriving on motorcycles, vans and unmarked cars. A helicopter flew overhead. A mobile command post was set up a block away, and three officers were posted at the entrance of the parking lot, with one officer taking photographs of the licence plates of the cars that entered and another writing them down.

About 10 other agents were posted in several spots in the parking lot and around the funeral home.

The sight of so many Hells Angels paying tribute to Sauvageau would have been inconceivable during the 1990s while the Rock Machine clashed with their rivals. As a founding member of the Rock Machine, Sauvageau was a high-priority target for the Hells Angels during Quebec’s biker war, a conflict than began in 1994 and resulted in the deaths of more than 160 people before it came to an end in 2002.

On Oct. 18, 1997, Sauvageau and two other men were almost killed when someone tried to shoot them while they were standing outside a duplex on Pierre Blanchet Ave. in Rivière-des-Prairies. No one was injured in the attempted hit, but the police believed the Hells Angels were behind it because the shots were fired from a passing minivan, the type of vehicle Hells Angels were using for hits at the time.

Sauvageau was also involved in the violence of the biker war. On May 8, 1997, just months before someone tried to kill him, a powerful bomb was set off in front of a club the Hells Angels controlled on St-Laurent Blvd. No one was killed in the early-morning blast, but Peter Paradis, a Rock Machine member who became a prosecution witness during the biker war, later testified in at least two trials that he set off the bomb on orders from Sauvageau.


Weeks before the call to Saveaugeau was made in 2000, the Hells Angels had offered their rivals a brief truce and then sought to recruit members of the Rock Machine they considered worthy of becoming Hells Angels.

The truce was agreed to in 2000 because, at the time, Rock Machine members had just become probationary members of the Bandidos, another international motorcycle club. The Hells Angels in Quebec hoped to prevent the Bandidos from breaking ground in Canada and saw the truce as an opportunity to steal away as many experienced drug traffickers from the probationary Bandidos as they could.

SOURCE: Montreal Gazette 

Hells Angels Prez arrested for assault

Providence, RI, USA (June 13, 2019) BTN — The scene on a West End street Wednesday evening looked dangerous: state police SUVs blocked Messer Street in front of the Hells Angels Clubhouse around 5:30 p.m., and more were arriving.

The raid took place in a densely populated area, an odd pairing of the benignly curious and the menacingly armed. Onlookers and residents trying to get home were told to stay behind the SUVs. State police wore bulletproof vests.

A line of troopers in full protective gear, some with breathing apparatus over their faces, filed from Ford Street toward the motorcycle club’s three-story building, followed by a Humvee-type vehicle, which pulled up breach across Messer Street, facing the club. A white van stopped and troopers poured out. [emphasis added]

Related | Hells Angel MC member home raided

The Humvee, its battering ram pointed straight at the clubhouse’s red steel door, plowed ahead. The door crumpled. The crowd exclaimed “woo!”

Using a bullhorn, one officer called out for anyone inside 161 Messer St. to come out with their hands up. This was repeated four or five times before a man came out, his hands over his head. He was immediately tackled, his hands cuffed behind him, and kept on the ground.

A woman came out with her hands up. She was also handcuffed. Several dogs ran out, one with an immediate need for the curb. One of the dogs licked the face of the man on the ground. An onlooker yelled to police not to hurt the dogs.


As the man was escorted past some senior state police officers, he paused to answer a question by saying he didn’t know. The woman who had come out of the clubhouse, wearing shorts and a black-and-red jersey with a big 81, seemed relaxed as she waited with several officers on a Ford Street sidewalk. She was taken to a cruiser after nearly everyone had left.

Before police entered the clubhouse, the battering-ram truck let out an explosive noise. Then troopers and K-9s disappeared beyond the crumpled door. Occasionally a loud boom, sounding like someone had hit a 55-gallon steel drum with a sledgehammer, issued from inside, raising questions from the crowd about whether it was gunfire.

By 6 p.m., detectives were still gathering evidence inside the clubhouse, but the street had been reopened.

A news release from the state police said they arrested the president of the Rhode Island Hells Angels chapter at the clubhouse at 1:40 p.m. Wednesday. Joseph M. Lancia, 28, of 40 Fanning Lane, Greenville, was taken into custody without incident on a charge of felony assault. The news release said his arrest was part of an investigation into reports of shots fired near the West Side clubhouse.


The events that started just before 6 p.m. were members of the Intelligence Unit and the Tactical Unit securing the clubhouse and conducting a search, state police said.

Lancia was taken to state police headquarters in Scituate, where he was processed and held overnight for arraignment Thursday at District Court, Providence, the news release said.

More charges may be filed as the investigation continues, the release said. State police spokeswoman Laura Kirk said no information would be released Wednesday about anyone else, such as the man and woman who came out of the club, saying a news conference is planned for Thursday.


Kids on bicycles, youths on bright red rental Jump bikes, and one young man on a motorized bicycle were among the onlookers, but no one showed up on a Harley.

SOURCE: Providence Journal

Outlaws MC member involved in double slaying

Clarksville, TN, USA (June 11, 2019) BTN — A man wanted in the motorcycle club slaying of two men in a restaurant parking lot on Wednesday was stopped after the shooting and released, only to be named the prime suspect days later.

Michael Clarence "Hulk" Craft, 36, turned himself in on Saturday after several days of investigation by police, according to police spokesman Jim Knoll.

He was booked on two counts of homicide.

At about 8:30 p.m. Wednesday, police found two Clarksville men with multiple gunshot wounds in the Longhorn Steakhouse parking lot, according to court records obtained by The Leaf-Chronicle.

James Ramsey, 37, died at the scene. John Allgood, 53, was taken to Tennova Healthcare, where he died from his wounds.

Related | Outlaws MC member charged with murder

Witnesses at the scene told police that the men were shot by several members of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club and that they had fled on motorcycles, the arrest warrant said.

Craft was pulled over shortly afterward about 5 miles from the scene, and he was wearing an Outlaws T-shirt turned inside-out. In his saddle bags were a folded Outlaw MC vest and a loaded 9 mm Taurus Millennium G2 pistol. The pistol was loaded with Luger rounds that matched shell casings found at the scene, the warrant said.

Craft first denied being in the area, but later said he might have driven through. He was released by police. Knoll said Monday that there was not enough evidence to hold him at the time.

Investigators later reviewed surveillance footage from the Tilted Kilt restaurant, about 100 yards from Longhorn, that showed Craft leaving Tilted Kilt about 12 minutes before the shooting, the warrant said.

During a subsequent autopsy, bullet fragments were found that were consistent with the Luger rounds in Craft's pistol, according to the warrant.

On Saturday morning, after a search in multiple locations for Craft, police secured a warrant for Craft's arrest and put out an alert to find him. Craft turned himself in Saturday night.

Mayor Joe Pitts was among many people inside the restaurant at the time. He called the incident a rival motorcycle gang shooting and said the shooter sought out his victims.

A Leaf-Chronicle review of court records shows the only violent criminal history for Craft involved a domestic assault charge in a February 2010 incident. That case was given a “nollie” dismissal.

His first court date will be June 17.

The investigation is ongoing, Knoll said, and police are following other leads in the case.

SOURCE: Leaf Chronicle

Hells Angels motorcycles stolen

Rainton, North Yorkshire, England (June 10, 2019) BTN — Police are appealing for information relating to the theft of two Harley-Davidsons which were taken from the Highfield Hotel near Rainton. The theft took place at around 5.18 am on Friday, June 7th.

The police later received a report that five males had stolen the bikes which belonged to guests who were staying at the Highfield hotel.

Oh dear, the vermin we’re out again last night....unfortunately the poor cherubs have fucked with the wrong people this...
Posted by Stuart Hack on Friday, June 7, 2019

Stuart Hack shared a post in the UK Motorcycle Theft Protest group on Facebook purporting to be from one of the group. It read:

STOLEN LAST NIGHT.

2 Harley Davidson Dynas.

1x 2000 Black HD Dyna. Scuff on headlight fairing and Hells Angels Death Head on primary cover.

1 x 2003 Anniversary model dyna. Black. Both bikes Dutch registrations. Stolen from the Highfield Hotel on the A690 near Rainton/ Houghton le Spring area.

5 men , masks and hoodies took them. All on cctv.

If these bikes are returned to Hells Angels Tyne & Wear no further action will be taken. If not and we find out who’s took them ..... fucking standby.!!

Any info PM me ASAP please.

Anyone who knows anything about this act fast as we will get to the bottom of this !

We always do.

Cheers”

Officers are asking to speak to anyone who might have information about this incident, or who might have since seen the bikes or the culprits since the theft.

Outlaws MC member charged with murder

Clarksville, TN, USA (June 9, 2019) BTN — A man known as "Hulk", identified by Clarksville Police as the person who shot and killed two people outside a Longhorn Steakhouse Wednesday night, turned himself in Saturday.

Michael Clarence Craft, 36, also known as "Hulk," turned himself into Clarksville police Saturday. He will be charged with two counts of criminal homicide once he is arrested.

Ames Ramsey, 37, and John Allgood, 53, were shot Wednesday night in the restaurant parking lot on Wilma Rudolph Boulevard. Officers were called to the area around 8:30 that night and when they arrived, officers say as many as 20 people were trying to help the victims.


Ramsey and Allgood were taken to the hospital where they later died.

SOURCE: WKRN

Former Hells Angels MC Clubhouse Sold

New York, NY (June 8, 2019) BTN — According to the public documents, 77 E. Third St., the six-story building between First Avenue and Second Avenue is sold.

As first reported here in February, there was a Memorandum of Contract (the form preceding a contract of sale) dated this past Dec. 21 between Church of the Angels, Inc. (aka — The Church of Angels) and 77 East 3rd LLC.

Related | Hells Angels ride off from their clubhouse
Related | Hells Angels might sell their 3rd Street clubhouse

The document was signed by Bartley J. Dowling, president of the NYC Hells Angels chapter, and the purchaser, Nathan Blatter of Whitestone Realty Group.

According to the Post in late March, the units in the building were expected to hit the market as rentals. To date, there aren't any permits on file with the Department of Buildings for any renovations at the address.

The Hells Angels had a presence in 77 E. Third St. since 1969. They eventually bought the building, which included their clubhouse and member residences (Realtor.com lists 14 units), from Birdie Ruderman in the Bronx for a reported $1,900.

In 1983, chapter president Sandy Alexander took over ownership of the building. The deed from that time states that Alexander, his wife Collette and their family could live on the premises rent free. In addition, in the event that the building was sold, she would stand to receive half of the proceeds.

This agreement was later the basis for a legal tussle in 2013 between the clubhouse and Alexander's family. (Sandy Alexander, who spent six years in prison for selling cocaine, died in 2007.) That deed was eventually reversed in April 2018, per public documents.

No word on where the Angels may have moved. A member named Tony said in March that: "We're being harassed by the yuppies down here who are sitting on our bikes and pissing on the sidewalk. We want to go somewhere we can live comfortably."

The last of the members moved out of No. 77 at the end of March.

Dutch Bans No Surrender MC

Utrecht, Netherlands (June 7, 2019) BTN — On Friday the court in Assen banned No Surrender MC in the Netherlands, ruling that the motorcycle club poses a danger to public order. No Surrender is the fourth motorcycle club to be banned in the Netherlands, after the Hells Angels MC, Satudarah MC and the Bandidos MC.

Related | Dutch Bans Hells Angels MC

"A large number of members of No Surrender are or have been structurally involved in numerous serious crimes", the court said in its verdict, NOS reports. The ruling also mentions intimidation, public violence, extortion, unauthorized possession of weapons, drug trafficking, and arms trafficking.

The judge considered it proven that the club management has an "important steering role in committing and facilitating criminal offenses". The ban applies to all No Surrender chapters and brotherhoods, because they are not independent due to the strongly hierarchical structure of the motorcycle club.

No Surrender has allegedly been  linked to various crimes in the Netherlands, including death threats made against the mayor of Haarlem. The club's founder Klaas Otto was sentenced to six years in prison last year for extortion, assaulting and threatening two car dealers, and laundering 1.3 million euros.


The Hells Angels Motorcycle Club was banned last week. The Public Prosecutor argued that there is a culture of violence within the club that endangers society and the rule of law. The court agreed. Satudarah MC was banned last year. The court ruled that Satudarah was guilty of activities that violate public order "in a way that disrupts or may disrupt society".

The Bandidos MC was banned in 2017, with the judge ruling that the club poses a risk to public order.

SOURCE: Nl Times

Self proclaimed MC experts warn public

Toronto, ON, Canada (June 6, 2019) BTN — As the weather turns warmer, a new joint effort by police across Canada is focusing on educating people about the risk motorcycle clubs pose to communities.

The RCMP, in a joint effort with the Canadian Integrated Response to Organized Crime, is co-ordinating a social media effort with the hope of raising the public's awareness of the dangers motorcycle clubs pose.

"In the Bombard investigation, we had murder, drug trafficking, there's other types of violence," said Supt. Deanna Hill, the federal criminal operations officer for RCMP N.L.

Supt. Deanna Hill, left, and Glenda Power are part of a Canada-wide campaign to educate the public about motorcycle clubs. (Paula Gale/CBC)

Hill said it's taken her years of working exclusively on motorcycle clubs units to learn how to identify a member easily, but the general public may not know how to read the signs.

That's the point of their campaign, she said.

"The Hells Angels continually adapt. They adapt their strategies, they adapt how they infiltrate communities, and it's all about making money through crime," she told CBC's St. John's Morning Show.

"For us to be effective we need to continually adapt as police agencies both in our technologies and our strategies, and this particular effort, we hope, will set the tone and raise awareness for the public, just the level of intimidation and violence."

While there isn't a Hells Angels chapter in Newfoundland and Labrador, Hill said there is a support club called the Vikings Motorcycle Club as well as the Bauchus Motorcycle Club and the Outlaws.

The RCMP effort to raise awareness about motorcycle clubs warns people not to be fooled by charity work. (RCMP)

The campaign is also a way for police to counter public relations strategies launched by these kinds of clubs, who get involved in charities and donations.

"The motivation is to put out there that they are harmless, and they are simply not harmless. They commit crime that impacts our community," Hill said. "They're engaged in money laundering, they're engaged in every kind of effort that will result in a profit, and in order to get that profit they'll engaged in violence and intimidation. So it impacts innocent people. It impacts all of us on a broad scale, although you might not see it on a daily basis."

They want you to report interaction with motorcycle club members 

Hill acknowledges the average person might not be able to tell a bike gang member from a regular motorcycle owner.

"There are a lot of absolutely harmless riding clubs, motorcycle clubs out there, that are just the general public doing absolutely nothing wrong," she said. "Generally a three-piece patch with a 1% diamond on there, on any of their paraphernalia, is indicative of some kind of outlaw motorcycle gang."

Glenda Power, RCMP N.L.'s director of strategic communications, said the campaign is not about trying to make people afraid.

"We're not trying to scare the public here. We're trying to inform," Power said. "Often, gang violence is directed at other gangs, not against public citizens — although we have seen that recently here in this province. But you need to be informed to make good choices."

Power said anyone who thinks they may have had an interaction with a motorcycle club member, but isn't sure, should contact police. "Our advice for the public is, call your local police if you feel you might be dealing with someone who's part of an outlaw motorcycle gang. Report that interaction," she said.

"But if you are aware that someone is in an outlaw gang, we certainly recommend that you do not engage."

SOURCE: CBC

Mongols MC member testifies in own defense

Los Angeles, California, USA (June 6, 2019) BTN — A man charged with killing a Pomona SWAT officer testified Wednesday that he fired a “warning shot” because he feared members of a motorcycle club to which he belonged were trying to break into his family’s home in San Gabriel and he did not know that police were at the front door.

Testifying in his own defense, David Martinez said, “I would never fire at police or law enforcement ever. I have family that’s (in) law enforcement.”

The 41-year-old termite inspector — who is charged with the killing of Pomona police Officer Shaun Diamond — told the downtown Los Angeles jury that he reached for a shotgun by his bed because he heard loud banging sounds and thought someone was trying to break into the house he shared with his parents, common-law wife, two young children and his adult sister, who has Down syndrome, during the early morning hours of Oct. 28, 2014.

The defendant said he fired after seeing what he perceived to be the barrel of a gun pointed toward his father.

“I fired a warning shot … what I perceived to be a warning shot,” he said, telling jurors that he didn’t see anyone on the front porch.

Diamond was helping to open a metal screen over the front door of the home as part of a multi-agency operation serving a warrant targeting the Mongols motorcycle club when an interior door was opened and a single shotgun blast rang out, striking him in the neck. The 45-year-old officer — who had 16 years of law enforcement experience with the Los Angeles, Montebello and Pomona police departments — died the next day.

Martinez said he did not see anyone outside the home who appeared to be injured after firing the gunshot — although his father had been injured in the gunfire — and that he did not learn until later that an officer had been struck. He said it’s hard for him to accept that he may have shot his own father and thought then that his dad had been wounded by police.

Police never identified themselves 

When defense attorney Brady Sullivan asked if he heard anyone identify themselves before he fired the shot, Martinez said, “I never heard anybody identify themselves as police.” He said he was startled to hear screaming and that he turned around, dropped the shotgun, laid down and said he was sorry.

“I kept saying I was sorry. I didn’t know it was the police,” Martinez said. “I thought it was the Mongols.”

The defendant said he had reached for the shotgun by his bed after hearing “a lot of banging,” and headed from the bedroom to the living room, where his parents had been sleeping.

He testified that he unsuccessfully tried to urge his father to wait to open the wooden front door because he wanted to answer the door himself.

“I remember telling my dad twice, `Wait, wait,’ but I don’t think he heard me,” Martinez said. “He was opening the door … I aimed the shotgun towards the door because I thought someone was trying to break in.”

Under cross-examination by Deputy District Attorney Michael Blake, the defendant said, “I took aim and I pulled the trigger.”

“You shot to kill that day?” the prosecutor asked.

“I shot to protect my family,” Martinez responded.

“You shot to kill the target that day?” the prosecutor said.

“There was no target, sir,” the defendant said, maintaining that he was trying to defend his family when he fired the shot, and never saw any police officers until they were coming into the house after the shot was fired.

Martinez said he had pondered dropping out of the Mongols after having a change of heart about his involvement in the motorcycle club, but had heard stories about other members who tried to quit and was concerned for the safety of himself and his family.

He said he grew more concerned about his safety following two freeway shootings that targeted Mongols members, and “got a sense of not feeling safe in my home.” A night earlier, he had argued with a fellow Mongols member, he said.

In his opening statement last month, Blake told jurors that Martinez was warned loudly and repeatedly that police were at the door before the shot rang out.

“(Their) uniforms are covered with patches and insignia that identify them as police,” and “they made announcements repeatedly” calling out “Pomona Police Department … open the door,” the prosecutor said.

“Throughout this awful incident … the Pomona SWAT team remained calm and professional,” still proceeding to search the house and detain family members, he said. “They did not return fire. They did not shoot up the house … they did not use force on a single person.”

The prosecutor contended that Martinez’s claim that he thought that Mongols were at his door was “false,” telling the jury that those comments were “calculated.”

Defense attorney Brady Sullivan referred to the events surrounding the shooting as a “perfect storm,” telling the jury, “Sometimes in life, a series of unexpected, unanticipated events combine, they come together and result in a tragedy.”

“When David Martinez came out of his bedroom and heard unknown people breaking into his house … he acted to defend his family,” the public defender said. “He had no idea it was the police and, in fact, expected that it was going to be his rivals.”

Martinez made a “regrettable decision to join the Mongols,” Sullivan said, calling his client a motorcycle enthusiast who “liked the brotherhood.”

“He was afraid to quit (because) the scary truth is that you don’t just walk away from the Mongols,” the defense attorney said. “They come and take your vest, they come and take your motorcycle and they exact a little physical punishment.”

Martinez could face life in prison without the possibility of parole if convicted as charged. Prosecutors opted earlier not to seek the death penalty against him.

SOURCE: My News LA

Over 30 arrested at Hells Angles MC event

Surrey, South East England (June 1, 2019) BTN — More than 30 people have been arrested as thousands of Hells Angels take part in a three-day event to mark the club’s 50th anniversary in the UK. Surrey and Sussex police said 34 people had been detained on suspicion of drugs offences and possession of offensive weapons in connection to the Hells Angels Euro Run.

The event, which included a private celebration at a hotel in east Surrey, commemorates the anniversary of the first branch of the California-based motorcycle club being set up in the UK. It will culminate in a mass “ride out” from Pease Pottage, near Crawley, to Brighton on Saturday, with more than 3,000 bikers expected to take part.

Earlier this week, officers were granted powers to stop and search people within a designated area across Surrey and Sussex in an attempt to tackle antisocial behaviour.

Related | Police on alert as Hells Angels come to town

Twelve people – five Germans, three Hungarians, one Swiss, one French, one Czech and one Greek man – have been charged. Seven appeared in court on Friday and were given suspended prison sentences, while the remaining five were due to appear in court on Saturday.

Three others remained in custody and the rest were either cautioned or released without charge.

The assistant chief constable of Surrey police, Nev Kemp, who is leading policing operations across both counties this week, said: “We have been very clear with those attending the Hells Angels event, many from overseas, that we will not tolerate criminal and antisocial behaviour.

“Our activity over the last few days has been about keeping people safe, which is why I put the section 60 order [for stop and search powers] in place.

“The fact that we have had seven people go through the courts and be sentenced so far, as well as the numerous arrests, has justified our actions and use of section 60 this week.

“This weekend, especially Saturday, sees one of the busiest for both forces in the last 12 months and we continue to work hard to keep our residents and those visiting safe.

“Officers will be out in high numbers so expect to see us on patrol responding and responding quickly to any incidents.”

SOURCE: The Sun