Outlaws: Inside the Violent World of Biker Gangs

by Thompson, Tony

  Campbell tried to force his president to attend a church meeting to answer the charges against him but instead, in early 1982, Jock split the Comanchero into two separate chapters, one based in the western suburbs of Sydney and led by Jock himself, the other in the city-centre, led by an increasingly disillusioned Snoddy.

  A couple of years earlier, Snoddy and another Comanchero had travelled to America to buy Harley Davidson parts. While there they had met and partied with members of the Bandidos who by then had established chapters in more than a dozen states. For Snoddy it was a revelation: here was a club that didn’t bother with drills or parades, they were into bikes, partying and making money through crime. They were, thought Snoddy, everything the Comancheros were not, but everything he wanted them to be.

  Three months after the split, Snoddy and several other Comancheros resigned from the club, burning their colours in a ceremonial bonfire. The defectors included Caesar Campbell and his five brothers – Bull, Chop, Wack, Shadow and Snake-Eyes – a veritable biker clan in their own right. Having obtained permission direct from president Ronnie Hodge, Snoddy then proceeded to set up the first Australian chapter of the Bandidos.

  For Jock, this alliance with a foreign club was the ultimate act of betrayal by the man he saw as his ‘adopted son’. He branded the lot of them traitors and deserters, and would only refer to them as ‘Bandaids’. As the weeks went by, the rivalry between the two groups became increasingly intense and spawned a number of clashes, including roadside beatings, bar brawls and several exchanges of gunfire. Both sides tried to negotiate peace but after one particularly heated telephone call, Jock declared all-out war on the newcomers.

  At a July 1984 meeting at the Bandidos clubhouse, a furious Snoddy made it clear the dispute would not end without blood being spilled. ‘Something has got to be done about Jock and the Comancheros and anybody in the Club who has got any guts and wants to get rid of the problem, not just by bashing them, meet me in the bar after the meeting. We want to get rid of Jock permanently.’

  Rules of conflict were quickly drawn up, including a prohibition of members being ‘hit’ at their homes or places of work. Any other location was considered fair game.

  Both clubhouses were turned into fortresses with windows boarded up, gun parapets erected and barbed wire stretched across all the entrances.

  The Bandidos also called in backup. Ronnie Hodge and three other club members made their way to the Australian Embassy in Los Angeles to obtain visas to travel to Sydney. Their applications were refused.

  On the morning of Father’s Day, 2nd September 1984, the Bandidos threw down the gauntlet by turning up at the home of a Comanchero member (a breach of the rules of conflict) and letting him know that they would be attending the British Motorcycle Club swap meet that afternoon. A family event attended by dozens of bikers and patch clubs from across the country, the meet would take place at the Viking Tavern, a popular watering hole in the western Sydney suburb of Milperra.

  The news got back to Jock who immediately began to organise an attack, arranging to get to the site long before the Bandidos arrived and setting out his forces in a ‘Bull’s Horns’ formation similar to that used by the Zulus against British forces, a conflict he had studied in depth as part of his obsession with all things military. Each Comanchero team was issued with a walkie-talkie so they could coordinate their movements.

  The original plan was for Jock to lull the Bandidos into a false sense of security by letting them think he was at the meet alone. Once they approached him, the rest of the Comancheros would launch an attack from their strategic positions. The only glitch in the plan was that, when the Bandidos failed to show up, their rivals relaxed and began drinking, discarding their walkie-talkies at the bar.

  The Bandidos – including Snoddy and five of the six Campbell brothers – seemed to arrive out of nowhere. For a few moments there was an awkward standoff between the two gangs as they lined up on either side of the crowded car park. Both sides were equipped with shotguns and rifles as well as baseball bats, knives, chains and iron bars (although the Bandidos – having scouted the area earlier and seen no sign of the Comancheros – had left much of their arsenal in the van).

  Neutral bikers, many of who had attended the event with their families and minutes earlier had been enjoying a jovial, carnival atmosphere, could scarcely believe their eyes at the sight of the weaponry being brandished. But Jock was ready. He raised a machete with the words ‘Bandaid hair parter’ crudely painted on it above his head and waved it in a small circle, the signal his club had been waiting for. ‘Kill ’em all!’ he screamed, and the slaughter began. Two sets of bikers who only a few months earlier had all belonged to the same club and considered one another brothers went after each other’s blood.

  Jock had issued strict orders to his men about who to target first and Snoddy and the members of the Campbell clan were top of the hit list. In the midst of the car park Geoff ‘Snake Eyes’ Campbell suddenly found himself staring down the barrel of a shotgun. He had just got off his bike and was armed only with a chain that served as a belt in his jeans and a 4-inch folding knife. He raised his clenched fists: ‘Fight with these?’ The Comanchero shook his head then pulled the trigger. The blast hit Campbell straight in the gut, shredding his flesh. For a brief moment he felt nothing and stood stationary, wondering whether to make a dash for the gun, and then the pain hit and dropped him to the ground, blood pouring from his wound.

  A second Comanchero, one who had been a close friend of the Campbell brothers, appeared and loomed over Snake-Eyes, a shotgun pointed inches from his face.

  ‘Do it then,’ gasped Snake-Eyes.

  The Comanchero winked and moved the gun away. ‘Not today Snake,’ he said. ‘Not today.’

  Caesar Campbell saw his brother fall and ran to his aid. He managed only a few steps before he was hit with two shotgun blasts in the back and a third that tore through his shoulder. He span round and collapsed on his back where he received a fourth shot to the chest.

  Mario ‘Chop’ Ciantar who had been adopted into the Campbell family at the age of twelve pulled out his .357 revolver and began firing wildly as he ran towards his fallen brothers. At least one of his bullets found a Comanchero target, striking the man dead, but another flew wide and crashed into the face of fourteen-year-old innocent bystander Leanne Walters, killing her instantly.

  Chop never made it. As he ducked past the crowds of screaming women and children, desperate to get out of the line of fire, he was struck by a hail of bullets and hit the ground hard. Elsewhere in the car park, the youngest brother, John ‘Wack’ Campbell was shot the instant he climbed onto a bike belonging to Philip ‘Bull’ Campbell. The blast catapulted him into the back of a nearby car and left his right arm literally hanging by a fleshy thread.

  By now the Bandidos had regrouped and were starting to fight back, forcing the Comanchero to retreat to the back of the bar. The individual Bandidos had also been assigned specific targets with others appointed ‘rovers’ to back up anyone who was in danger of being overwhelmed. Three more Comancheros were killed in quick succession. One, Ivan ‘Sparrow’ Romcek was hit at such close range that wadding from the spent shotgun cartridge was embedded in his neck. Another, Tony ‘Dog’ McCoy was hit in the face and chest and died before he even hit the ground.

  Refusing to seek cover so that he could observe and direct the battle, the Comanchero Supreme Commander Jock was shot in the chest and in the left side of his head, the latter bullet shattering his teeth and penetrating his brain.

  Friends carried Snake-Eyes to safety, but as soon as they put him down he found himself staring at the agonised face of Gregory ‘Shadow’ Campbell who had been blasted through the throat moments earlier, after challenging another shotgun-wielding Comanchero to put down his gun and ‘fight like a man’ with his fists. ‘I can’t breathe,’ gasped Shadow, and Snake-Eyes knew there and then that his brother was going to die. As he looked on helplessly, Shadow drowned in his
own blood.

  Over 200 police officers were called to the scene and one, Detective Superintendent John Garvey almost got caught up in the tail end of the violence when he came face to face with Comanchero Ray ‘Sunshine’ Kucler who, despite having suffered a major head wound, pointed his loaded shotgun directly at him. It took several minutes of tense, careful negotiation and reassurances that the police only wanted to disarm the bikers, so that the paramedics could enter and care for the injured, before Kucler agreed to put his weapon down. By then, six bikers were dead and twenty-eight were seriously injured. Incredibly, despite the mayhem, the bar had continued to trade throughout.

  The deaths continued even after the shooting stopped. In prison, racked with guilt and feeling personally responsible for the deaths of the two Campbell brothers, Snoddy recorded his feelings, frustrations and depressions in a series of diary entries. ‘My mind is starting to crack,’ he wrote. ‘I just don’t understand what is happening to us. I don’t know how much longer I can hang on to my sanity. I wish we could get bail soon. It is sending me round the twist.’

  On Saturday 28th April 1985 at six am, Snoddy was found hanging from the shower rail in cell 3233, Wing 3 of Parklea Prison. After his body had been taken down, the other Bandido inmates were allowed to gather round his body and pay their last respects to their deceased president.

  Bull, who had spent almost an hour lying on the pavement hugging the body of his dying brother Shadow at the shootout, also died before the court case began – a result, his family insist, of injuries he received on the day.

  Thirty-nine bikers were subsequently put on trial. Not one of the accused from either side was willing to testify. Jock – who survived his wounds much to the utter amazement of his medical team – was singled out by the judge as being primarily responsible for the violence, and sentenced to life imprisonment. Seven other Comancheros also received life sentences. Sixteen of the new Bandidos received fourteen years for manslaughter. The trial itself was the largest, longest and most expensive in Australian legal history.

  The shootout, which ultimately came to be known as the Milperra Massacre, put an end to the undisputed reign of the Comancheros and to their dominance in the Sydney drug trade, and accelerated the rise of the Bandidos in Australia, not to mention further enhancing the club’s reputation for violence elsewhere in the world. The incident also acted as a wake-up call in Australia and beyond about just how ruthless and deadly the supposedly loveable rogues in the biker gangs could be.

  During the course of their Australia trip, Boone also visited the chapter in Tasmania where they partied with many of the Outlaws they had met in Daytona. They also hung out with Sid Collins, president and founder of the Melbourne Outlaws and famous as the man who was shot in the stomach by a 9mm pistol wielded by legendary underworld toe-cutter and hitman-turned-author Mark ‘Chopper’ Read. (Chopper’s lawyer suggested the biker had framed her client because the real gunman was a fellow motorcycle gang member, but this didn’t wash in court.)

  The trip was a huge success, but the Brits still struggled to come to terms with the differences between the MC scene in Australia and the rest of the world. Chief among these difficulties was the fact that down under, bikers are known as ‘bikies’. Although the name carries the exact same connotations and strikes fear in the hearts of civilians everywhere, no matter how many times the Midland boys heard or said it, it just sounded … well … incredibly lame.

  Then there was the problem of the new world order. While the three big international gangs, the Hell’s Angels, the Bandidos and the Outlaws, all had a presence on the continent, none of them had anything like the level of gravitas they enjoyed elsewhere. Because of this, working out exactly who was friend and who was foe involved a steep learning curve. Clubs like the Rebels, the Finks, the Gypsy Jokers, the Coffin Cheaters and the Comanchero were unknown outside Australia, but virtually all of them had a larger and more powerful presence throughout the country than the Outlaws and other international gangs did.

  Still, despite their lower position in the pecking order, spirits were sky high among the Australian Outlaws. It may have been relatively small, but firm power bases in Europe and America gave the club a significant boost. In fact, soon after receiving their charter, the Outlaws were one of the major MCs invited to attend a meeting in Sydney where a plan was established to reduce the number of motorcycle gangs operating in Australia.

  The best way forward, it was decided, would be for the larger clubs to take over the smaller ones, with or without their agreement. By the year 2000, there would be a maximum of six gangs left on the continent – the Hell’s Angels, the Outlaws, the Bandidos, the Rebels, the Black Uhlans and the Nomads. The thinking behind the consolidation was to limit and control the amount of competition for the shrinking dollar in the illicit trading arena such as the drugs market, and to strengthen the financial position of the remaining players. The plan was dubbed the ‘Australia 2000 Pact’.

  This biker blueprint for carving up territory amongst the strongest clubs to maximise income was later confirmed in a confidential assessment prepared by the New Zealand police on the activities of the Bandidos and the Highway 61 club and an agreement between Australian motorcycle gangs. ‘This [move] began in America where most motorcycle initiatives appear to begin, and through the reaches of the empire of the strong gangs, such as the Hell’s Angels and Outlaws, spread to Europe through their associated chapters and affiliated groups, and then to other countries of the world,’ the report said. ‘Where minor gang entities exist, they were either to be chartered (taken over) or absorbed by takeover, or eliminated completely, often through extreme violence, [including] homicide through shootings and bombings.’

  Although they were not allowed to attend church meetings or take an active part in club business, the Midland Outlaws were trusted enough to be privy to much of the illicit activity that was going on. It was crystal clear that the manufacture and supply of amphetamines and cannabis were major money earners for the gang, and that illegal weapons were widely available.

  In Melbourne they learned that the gang had a contact at VicRoads, the state government agency in charge of vehicle registration and related matters, who could provide them with fake driving licences. For a cost of $2,000 a time, the senior employee would produce photocard licences that contained their photographs combined with fake name and address details.

  The gang would use these licences to avoid traffic fines and obtain fraudulent mortgages. They carried them whenever they were engaged in illegal activity. During drunken nights at the clubhouse, the Australians regaled their visitors with tales of shootouts, bombing raids and violent takeovers of smaller gangs, all linked to competition for territory which in turn related to opportunities for profit. The great strength of the club to date was that few of their activities had ever attracted much publicity so they were able to operate without too much harassment from the police.

  The final stop of the Midland Outlaws tour involved a visit to the newly established chapter in the Queensland town of Mackay, some 500 miles up the coast from Brisbane. Although a relatively small community with a population of just 75,000, the town had significant strategic importance when it came to controlling the Queensland drug trade. Here the visitors learned of simmering tensions with a long-established local gang, Odin’s Warriors, though other than a few stand-offs and hand gestures, nothing much took place.

  The Midland Outlaws left Australia with an open invitation to return whenever they wanted and firm promises from members of all the chapters they had met there that they would be returning the favour and coming to the UK in the near future. It wasn’t until the end of August (long after the Brits had returned home) that those tensions that had been simmering away in Mackay finally boiled over into an event which came close to replicating the horror of the Milperra Massacre all those years earlier.

  It started on a Friday night when twenty Outlaws attacked five Warriors with baseball bats at a Mackay nightcl
ub. In a planned revenge attack, a procession of Warriors on motorcycles converged on the Outlaws clubhouse at three pm the following Sunday. However, the Outlaws had been tipped off and were waiting in ambush, armed with an arsenal that included pump-action shotguns and semi-automatic rifles.

  At one stage during the standoff the two sides called a truce to allow an ambulance convoy to collected wounded men lying on the road. Later, pizzas were delivered separately to police and bikie gangs. The battle raged on for more than three hours. As darkness fell, many of the Outlaws fled into surrounding mangroves. Police, reinforced by contingents from Brisbane and Cairns, took the whole of the following day to round them all up.

  Two men shot in the head underwent emergency operations on the Sunday night. One would lose the sight in one of his eyes. Another three men were hospitalised with lesser injuries. In all, fifty-three bikers – including two Bandidos who were visiting the Outlaws at the time – appeared in court on charges connected to the shootout. All refused to cooperate or make any kind of statement, making it impossible for police to proceed with anything other than the most rudimentary charges of affray.

  Although police seized dozens of weapons, none of them contained any fingerprints and while more than one hundred spent shells and cartridges were recovered, none of them matched any of the seized weapons. When the case finally came to court, no one was found guilty.

  PART FOUR

  BROTHERS IN ARMS

  19

  PATCH OVER

  The war in Scandinavia was finally over and both the Bulldog Bash and Kent Custom Shows had been huge successes, bringing in more revenue than ever, but as the summer of 1997 turned to autumn, Britain’s Hell’s Angels were far from happy.