About 40 Bay Area Hells Angels, led by Barger, showed up. At times disgusted with the hippies and the egghead intellectuals’ left-wing pretensions, the bikers lightened up when they were introduced to all kinds of new drugs, primarily LSD and cocaine, and realized the implications. The hippies were delighted. The bikers seemed heroic. In the reactionary world of the ’60s left, the Hells Angels filled the romantic niche of the rugged individualist soldier—much like the role of knights, cowboys and fighter pilots in other times and places.
After the party, the knights in leather armor went back to their regular way of doing things. On October 16, a throng of antiwar protestors (contemporary estimates were as high as 15,000) marched from the University of California campus at Berkeley toward the massive Oakland Army Terminal. The cops stopped them long before they reached the base and the demonstrators arranged an impromptu sitin /silent protest as they had a couple of times already that year. Local bikers went to check on the situation. Angered by the brazen display of what they perceived as anti-Americanism, the Hells Angels went in and started busting heads. The cops stepped aside and let the bikers do what many of them probably wouldn’t have minded doing themselves. One cop did what he was paid for and tried to separate a Hells Angel from a hippie he was pummeling. Other bikers descended upon him and his leg was broken with a kick from a steel-tipped boot.
The top of the hippie hierarchy panicked. Kesey, Allen Ginsberg and others begged for an emergency meeting with Barger. He responded with a threat to derail a similar, larger march planned for November 20. But after much beseeching and offering of tribute from the hippies, he eventually relented and let the “commies” plead their case. What followed was a defining moment for the Hells Angels.
On November 19, Barger called a press conference and changed history. Although he pointed out his absolute disgust for what the protestors believed in, he ultimately chickened out. The Hells Angels put business before principle: “Because our patriotic concern for what these people are doing to our great nation may provoke us to violent acts,” he said, “any physical encounter would only produce sympathy for this mob of traitors.”
The demonstration went on as planned, uninterrupted by the Hells Angels. Some bikers showed up, but they didn’t bust heads, they sold drugs. The bikers got a chance to sell drugs to the millions of anti-establishment youths who craved them. The people who told those youths what to think got lots of drugs, the glamor of the Hells Angels and a lot fewer trips to the hospital. The ’60s “revolution” was able to happen in large part because the Hells Angels didn’t interfere.
On that day, the Hells Angels transformed from a bunch of guys looking for thrills, women and good times into an organized crime syndicate.
Hells Angels chapters continued popping up all over California, especially in the Bay Area, and even beyond. Dozens of motorcycle clubs applied for membership and were refused. Donald “Skeets” Picard, the president of a club in Lowell, Massachusetts, had a novel and somewhat desperate plan. He offered to ride his whole club the 3,100 miles from suburban Boston to Oakland to prospect before the now renowned Sonny Barger. Picard’s offer was accepted and, by all accounts, the club was treated with extraordinary harshness. Picard’s gang was a whole country away and Barger and his men would have to trust the Hells Angels before they could allow them to wear the colors. After their brutal hazing and a six-month tour of California in which every Hells Angel was visited, half of the 30 prospects became members and the rest were chased off. On April 17, 1967, Lowell became the first chapter outside of the Golden State.
After that, applications came rolling in. Most were ignored, and only one club was invited to join without applying. The Aliens, under the iron-fisted rule of Sandy Alexander, were the scourge of a New York City that was peppered with all kinds of gangs and a culture of random violence. With chapters in the Bronx, Queens and Manhattan, the Aliens committed crimes on their own and performed jobs the mafia found too difficult to carry out. These were badass bikers who didn’t need the Hells Angels, and that’s probably why the Hells Angels wanted them. Unlike the dozens of wannabe clubs who begged for prospect colors, the Aliens refused to wear them and told Barger that they’d only accept Hells Angels colors after they were granted full membership. In fact, the Aliens offended the Hells Angels by wearing red and white, a color combination they violently reserved for themselves. When the Aliens showed up at a rally in Laconia, New Hampshire, in red and white, the Hells Angels threatened them with extinction. The Aliens offered to fight for the right to wear whatever colors they wanted. They clearly won Barger’s respect and, after some tense negotiations, became the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club New York City on December 5, 1969. At that moment, the Hells Angels became a nationwide organization with deep ties to the mafia.
Canada was not immune to post-war angst. If anything, it struck worse there, particularly in Quebec. After more than 200 years of distant rule from a sometimes callous federal government and the even more intense and pervasive grip of the Roman Catholic Church, the youth of Quebec were ready to rebel. Outside a narrow strip of Montreal, in the ’50s and ’60s, Quebec was practically medieval in its ossified judgmental conservatism, and it became a breeding ground for biker gangs. By the end of the ’60s, police estimates put the number of biker gangs in the province at 350. With an eye on escaping the suffocating sameness of La Belle Province, the gangs came up with such names as the Black Spiders, Missiles, Atomes, Beatniks and the blatantly wannabe Pacific Rebels. It wasn’t just the names. The Gallic gangs honored the Hells Angels by copying their clothes, their habits and their hierarchies. Only the Marxist Citoyens de la Terre stood out as any different—and not by much. All did some minor drug trafficking, mainly to high schoolers, and all were accused of rape and other forms of violence. So excessive in their behavior were the Black Spiders, that in 1978 they were actually set upon—like a scene from Frankenstein—by more than 100 townspeople armed with axes, farm implements and torches. But most violence was biker-on-biker, biker-on-debtor or biker-on-teenage girl.
But the Quebec gangs were small-timers lacking organization. One Canadian gang, however, had a level of sophistication rivaling the Hells Angels. At the time, the economy in Southern Ontario was booming, so much so that the people living on the half-circle around the western edge of Lake Ontario were proudly calling it the Golden Horseshoe. With prosperity came a taste for vice and rebellion. At a time when the Hells Angels had just 12 chapters, Satan’s Choice had ten in Southern Ontario and another in the west end of Montreal, which was then a relatively affluent English-speaking enclave.
The club hit its peak in 1968 when the Hells Angels, always looking to expand, sent an emissary to Toronto to meet the Satan’s Choice leaders in hopes of establishing a merger between the clubs. They greeted him at the airport, listened to his sales pitch, decided against it and sent him home before he even left the terminal.
After that, things began to unravel. Police and media hit the individual chapters of Satan’s Choice hard and there were many arrests. When charismatic founder and leader Bernie “the Frog” Guindon was jailed, the organization fell apart. Chapters in Hamilton, St. Catharines, Windsor, Ottawa and Montreal defected one by one to the Outlaws, the Hells Angels’ primary rival in the U.S.
The presence of the well-financed and well-equipped Outlaws in the West End did not go unnoticed on the other side of Montreal. After years of claiming it would never happen, the largest gang in Quebec applied to the Hells Angels for membership in 1977. The Popeyes had been the hardest gang in Montreal and were often employed by the mafia to take on their most unpleasant tasks. Although overwhelmingly French-speaking and prone to unnecessary and sadistic violence, the Popeyes were welcomed as the 31st chapter of the Hells Angels, the first in Canada.
Although the Satan’s Choice-turned-Outlaws were hardly choir-boys, the newest chapter of the Hells Angels had an unparalleled reputation for savagery. The Popeyes, now known as Hell Angels Montreal, followed an ethos
established by their founder, Yves “Apache” Trudeau. Physically unimposing at just 5-feet 6-inches and 135 pounds, Trudeau compensated by striking out at those who crossed him. In September 1970, a loser named Jean-Marie Viel was unfortunate enough to steal a motorcycle that belonged to a Popeye. Trudeau tracked him down and shot him in front of the rest of the gang, setting a precedent he continued and expected the others to live up to. In July 1985, Trudeau admitted to 43 murders, making him one of the world’s most prolific killers (though, notably, nowhere near the alleged Canadian record-holder Robert Pickton of Vancouver with 64). Many believe Trudeau was responsible for even more murders, but since he appeared psycho-pathically proud of his claims and wouldn’t have suffered any more punishment for additional victims, it’s unlikely.
After the Popeyes became Hells Angels, they attracted lots of new recruits. With their eye on dominating the Montreal drug market, the Hells Angels knew they needed soldiers, and young men volunteered in droves. But there was a definite rift between the original Popeyes, who were massively and unpredictably violent in their nihilistic efforts to find a good time, and the new Hells Angels, who were pragmatically concerned with making money by selling drugs and getting respect on the streets and in bars when they wore their colors. The new guys resorted to violence as a last resort; the original Popeyes considered it a reward, a perk of membership. But the Hells Angels would not tolerate infighting. Emissaries were sent from the Hells Angels East Coast headquarters in Manhattan to evaluate the situation. The solution was simple. On August 14, 1979, the Montreal chapter of the Hells Angels was split in two. One group, consisting mainly of former Popeyes and those who thought like them, established the Montreal North Chapter in the working-class suburb of Laval on an island just north of the city. The Montreal South Chapter, in Sorel on the south shore of the St. Lawrence, was made up mainly of newcomers and others who didn’t adhere to the former Popeyes’ code of brutality.
Tensions that had been simmering between the Satan’s Choice and Popeyes boiled over after they became the Outlaws and the Hells Angels. The Laval chapter took a special interest in their oldest rivals. From 1977 until 1982, the Montreal Hells Angels, particularly the Laval chapter, waged a low-intensity war against the Outlaws. It wasn’t just over bragging rights. The bikers in Montreal were the primary distribution source for drugs, especially cocaine, for both the Italian and Irish mafias. Unlike their militaristic and fiercely xenophobic neighbors south of the border, the Montreal Hells Angels had no problem with imported drugs. Besides, crystal meth wasn’t really a Quebecker’s drug. Most people in Quebec who did drugs smoked hashish—poor man’s marijuana—while the hip Montrealers who considered themselves a cut above had a huge appetite for coke. But nobody in Montreal liked cocaine better than the Laval chapter of Hells Angels, especially Trudeau. The market was so competitive and the stakes so high that the streets of Montreal became a very dangerous place to be a biker. Trudeau himself claimed to have murdered at least 17 of the opposition as they faded out of the scene and eventually became extinct.
It was at this time that the boys from Laval experimented with explosives. The results were disappointing—two would-be bombers blew themselves up in an effort to explode a subway station in a protest over prison conditions and Robert “Ti-Maigre” Richard lost an arm when trying to assemble a similar device—but the concept remained a favorite with Quebec Hells Angels.
Though effective in dismantling the Outlaws, the Laval chapter was an embarrassment to the modern Hells Angels. Not only did they usually snort more cocaine than they sold, leading to all kinds of wild debts, they tended to assault people for no particular reason. If their violence could be tolerated, their stupidity couldn’t. In 1982, Denis “Le Curé” Kennedy, who was almost as notorious a killer and cocaine user as Trudeau, fell into debt with the wrong person. Frank “Dunie” Ryan was the head of the notorious West End Gang, a remnant of the old Irish mafia, which still controlled much of the drug trade in Montreal.
In an effort to wipe out his debt and get back at his tormentor in one act, Kennedy planned to kidnap one of Ryan’s children—either three-year-old Troy or seven-year-old Tricia—and use the ransom to settle his account. Proud of his supremely stupid plan, Kennedy bragged about it to his brothers in Laval. Before long, Ryan found out and decided to deal with the deadbeat. Rather than act on his own, Ryan went to Laval. His was a familiar and welcome face. As one of the richest gangsters in town, he’d often hired club members to act as muscle for debt collection. They respected him, feared him and didn’t want to piss him off. He told them what happened. A vote was held and Kennedy, along with co-conspirators Charles Hachez and Robert “Steve” Grenier, a 23-year-old prospect, were given dishonorable discharges by a unanimous show of hands.
Within days, Kennedy, Hachez, Grenier and Hachez’s girlfriend, the 25-year-old Marjolaine Poirer, were shot and sent to the bottom of the St. Lawrence in sleeping bags weighed down with concrete blocks.
Crisis hit Montreal’s underworld again on November 13, 1984 when Ryan was assassinated by an ambitious member of the West End Gang. When the murderer, Robert Lelièvre, foolishly took pride in the hit, Ryan’s No. 2 man, Allan “The Weasel” Ross, recruited Trudeau to take him out. Ross knew Trudeau could handle the job, having seen what he was capable of in the past, and offered him $500,000—$200,000 in cash and the rest in forgiven debts owed by various members of the Laval Chapter.
Since Lelièvre was holed up in an apartment with guards armed with submachine guns and a police station across the street, an assault was out of the question. Ross knew that Lelièvre and Paul April, one of the guards and an old friend and crime partner of Trudeau’s, were both sports fans and Trudeau told him he noticed that the apartment did not have a TV. Ross then couriered a $25,000 advance, a TV, a VCR and 35 pounds of C4 plastic explosive smuggled out of a Canadian Armed Forces base by a Hells Angels-friendly soldier to Trudeau. Pretending to bring a gift to his old pal, Trudeau brought the TV and VCR (now jam-packed with explosives and a timer) to the apartment. For a little extra dose of realism, he included a copy of Hells Angels Forever, a documentary starring Sonny Barger and written by Sandy Alexander. “I told him I wanted him to have it to see how the Hells Angels operate,” Trudeau said. “To see what they’re all about.”
Sunday, November 25, 1984 was a great day for a Montreal sports fan to stay inside. Not only was it unseasonably cold, but the new-look Canadiens were in Boston to take on the hated Bruins and the NFL season was heating up as teams jockeyed for playoff positions. It was a hard time for a betting man to be without a TV. At 3:30 p.m., Trudeau and veteran West End Gang hit man Michael Blass parked illegally in front of 1645 boulevard Maisonneuve Ouest, a 22-story luxury high-rise just a short walk from the southeast edge of Parc Mont-Royal. Trudeau didn’t get out of the car. Instead, Blass carried the package up to number 917. He exchanged pleasantries with Lelièvre, April and two other thugs, Louis Charles and Gilles Paquette. They thanked him for the TV, but made it clear they had other things on their minds and weren’t interested in socializing. April, in particular, seemed nervous and couldn’t stop moving.
Blass said he understood and offered to set up the equipment. Desperate for a little normalcy, the gangsters thanked him and told him to go ahead. Blass unpacked it all and, with meticulous gentleness, assembled the equipment. His last task was to set the five-minute timer on the back of the VCR. He then feigned disappointment when the TV wouldn’t turn on and mumbled something about getting a repairman. Lelièvre vetoed the idea. Charles half-jokingly suggested Blass take the TV back with him. Blass interrupted him and said he had a friendly repairman who knew how to keep his mouth shut. Lelièvre relented. Blass left. As soon as the door shut behind him, he ran for the stairs. Taking them two steps at a time, he tore through the lobby and into Trudeau’s car. They laid rubber and were a block away before Blass’s car door closed.
The blast could be heard throughout the city. At 4:10 p.m., Lelièvre’s apartment (a
nd everything in it) was obliterated. The walls of eight other units in the building crumpled. The elevators were destroyed. Windows all around the neighborhood shattered. “April found out exactly how the Hells Angels work,” said Trudeau.
His job done, Trudeau went back to Ross and asked for his money. Ross said he couldn’t pay him any more than the $25,000 he’d already advanced him and that Trudeau could get the rest by collecting debts owed to Ryan by members of the Sorel Chapter and the 13th Tribe, a gang slated to become the Hells Angels Halifax Chapter on December 5.
First he went to Sorel. They told him to fuck off. Why pay a fellow Hells Angel a debt they owed a dead man? Realizing there wasn’t much he could do, he went to Halifax. Desperate to be Hells Angels, the members of the 13th Tribe struggled to comply. They gave him $46,000. A few weeks later, Grub MacDonald, by then president of Hells Angels Halifax Chapter, brought another $52,000 to Sorel. It was for Trudeau, but he didn’t want to visit Laval. The boys at Sorel took the money—and it eventually made its way to Trudeau—but they mocked MacDonald for his fealty and he returned to Nova Scotia wildly embittered.
Jerry Langton Three-Book Bundle Page 32