Well, welcome for most honest law-abiding citizens I should say.
I listened this morning to Vancouver Chapter member Rick Ciarnello flapping his gums on CKNW on the Peter Warren show. For the most part he got a shellacking from callers only to have the blustery biker call them “stupid” for calling it as they saw it.
The day after the search warrants were executed we were treated to the vision of long-time East End member John Peter Bryce wailing and whining about the fact the police hit the clubhouse hard, using big tools to open the metal reinforced doors. Bryce whined that there were people there who would have opened the door if asked.
Well, whatever. The Hells Angels use hang-arounds, puppet gangs and prospects to provide security for the clubhouses. The chances of a wannabe allowing voluntary entry to a police officer knocking on the door asking “by your leave”, into a clubhouse are somewhere between slim and bugger all.
But we’ll allow Bryce his make-believe world. But I suppose he has to play “let’s pretend”, after all, one of the individuals caught in the latest police dragnet was his own son. It would seem the apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree.
But at the end of the day, Bryce’s bleatings are just that. The Hells Angels, as an entity, may not be a criminal organization as a whole. In fact, the outlaw motorcycle gang operates in a cellular structure with individual members running their own “business” and using their gang status as their ultimate weapon of intimidation to ensure their “business” is successful.
But much of that may be little more than semantics. The police in BC have served notice in this investigation that the bikers do not have immunity from the law. They also said in their actions, that they will not be intimidated. That was their message to John Peter Bryce and his brother members when they smashed their way into their fortified clubhouse.
Leo Knight
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