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Wednesday, July 17, 2024

Pagan's MC Lawsuit Against Drunk Cops Goes to Trial

Pittsburgh, PA, USA (July 17, 2024) - A bar fight in Pittsburgh between undercover cops and members of the Pagan's Motorcycle Club in 2018 will finally be reviewed in court now that a civil suit brought by the Pagan's MC has been approved by a federal judge. The Pagan's MC are accusing the cops of excessive force, false imprisonment, and malicious prosecution after a confrontation in a bar suddenly degenerated into violence caused by cops who had been drinking for hours.
 


The city of Pittsburgh wanted the lawsuit completely shut down, and argued for its dismissal. However, surveillance footage that captured the fight convinced a federal judge that the Pagan's MC had a valid point. In a video, a member of the Pagan's MC, Frank Deluca, can be seen arguing with one of the cops. Words are exchanged, there is no audio and Deluca pushes the undercover cop. The other three cops leap into the fray, and hold Deluca against the bar while another man repeatedly beats him and punches him in the face.

Deluca was punched 26 times in the two minute fight and suffered facial and cranial trauma as well as a dislocated elbow. He was then arrested. A month after the fight, the Allegheny District Attorney's Office announced it was dropping its charges against the Pagan's, citing new evidence, the bar's surveillance footage. According to the court documents, earlier in the evening four undercover Pittsburgh cops — Detectives David Honick, Brian Burgunder, David Lincoln and Brian Martin — were drinking at Kopy's Bar on the city's South Side while conducting surveillance on a suspected drug dealer.

RELATED | Bar Owner Sues City And Cops


After the target of their investigation left, the cops began pounding drinks; one officer had 15 doubles of liquor, and the other three had 20, 15, and nine drinks, respectively, according to the lawsuit. “When they determined that the subject was not going to return to the bar because he had left, the officers should have just gotten up and left. They didn’t,” Beth Pittinger of the Pittsburgh Citizens Police Review Board said. “They were preparing to leave, but the members of the Pagan's Motorcycle Club walked in, so they decided to stay.”



According to the lawsuit, the cops and the bikers were initially getting along well, and one of the cops even bought shots for two of the bikers. At some point during the evening, the cops began to suspect that their cover had been blown, which allegedly put them all on edge. According to Pittinger, it is unclear why the cops came to that belief. “There was an assumption made that one of the patrons had or I don't even know if this is accurate, it's still a bit elusive to me that a patron had disclosed to the Pagan's MC that the four detectives were actually police officers,” she said.

According to both the testimony of those involved in the brawl and a criminal complaint filed after the fight, Martins revealed that he and his other companions were police. A report from the Pittsburgh Citizens Police Review Board released in 2021 theorized that Martin may have been trying to deescalate a conflict between the bikers and the police by telling the men they were actually law enforcement. Dietz said that city's lack of guidelines regarding undercover police alcohol consumption will be a major issue at the trial. No start date has been set.

Monday, July 15, 2024

Outlaws MC leave for a funeral

Accompanying note with photograph: "A group of Outlaws leave their campsite at Woodville, Fla., early Wednesday afternoon, and begin their journey at Bristol, Fla., where funeral services for slain member Leonard Henderson, 29, better known as "Terry the Terrible," will be held Wednesday at 4:00PM."



Leonard "Terry the Terrible" Henderson was murdered with several others on July 4, 1979 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Cops issue hundreds of tickets at HAMC event

Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada (July 15, 2024) - The Lethbridge Police Service issued 194 tickets and made a dozen arrests in response to a couple of events that brought an influx of people and vehicles into Lethbridge over the weekend.
 


One of those was a gathering of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club and many of their supporters, who were in town to celebrate the opening of a new Lethbridge clubhouse. The other was the annual Street Machine Weekend, a celebration of cars and car culture.

RELATED | Local police warns public of Hells Angels MC arrival

Police monitoring of the Street Machine event resulted in 10 arrests, and a another two people were arrested at the Hells Angels gathering. Police issued 154 tickets, mostly for stunting and equipment violations, at the Street Machine event, while 40 tickets, most for careless driving, speeding and failing to stop at stop signs or red lights, were written in relation to the Hells Angels MC gathering.



Five impaired drivers were removed from the road and two roadside sanctions were given to drivers with a blood-alcohol level above .05 at the Street Machine event. Fifty Hells Angels MC members or their associates were removed from licensed establishments under the Alberta Gaming, Liquor and Cannabis Act.

Sunday, July 14, 2024

Outlaws MC welcomed in Vermont city for gathering

Rutland, Vermont, USA (July 14, 2024) - Rutland, a small city in Vermont with less than 20,000 people is preparing for a visit from the Outlaws Motorcycle Club. City officials say the Outlaws MC is holding its national meet at the Vermont state fair grounds starting Thursday.
 


While the local news is pushing that the Outlaws MC is on multiple Federal watchlists with ties to organized crime, Rutland’s mayor doesn’t believe any issues will come up during the group’s time in the Marble City, he says it’s better to be prepared.



“Any motorcycle club coming to Rutland to celebrate, to do something at the fair grounds, I think that’s awesome,” Rutland mayor Mike Doenges said. “I think its great that people want to participate. You look at things like Daytona Bike Week or Laconia and those are great economic drivers for those communities."

"Those communities are prepared for those things though, this is the first time we’ve had something like this in Rutland of this size.” Mayor Doenges says the city is looking at additional law enforcement staffing from July 18th to the 20th.