Some people never have to deal with real bad motor-scooterists like we did a couple of weeks ago("Los Hermanos" stopped in my small berg) in Missoula during the "Testicle Festival"
Taxpayers footed the bill for more than 117,000$ in overtime for police and other contract security....
Fortunately, there were only a few fist fights this time....here's an older article from the Missoulian 2000.
I think it coveys the kind of atmosphere we have to deal with every time these dudes come to town!
Rules of engagement
By MICHAEL JAMISON of the Missoulian
Missoula officials prepare for the unpredictable
Missoula Police Chief Pete Lawrenson hefts several pounds of book, slaps it like a Baptist thumps the Good Book on Sunday morning, and waves it in front of his nose.
"What am I worried about?" he asks, voice rising. "I'm worried about this book
"This is the Montana Criminal Statutes," he says. "I'm worried about offenses against the public order, offenses against people, offenses against property, drugs, vehicle offenses."
He's worried, in short, about the Hells Angels, the world's most celebrated and feared motorcycle club.
Hells Angels are not known for subscribing to the tenets held dear in Lawrenson's book.
And in the heart of the Missoula summer, when the heat may already be as high as it can get, the
highwaymen from Hell will be lighting up the pipes on hundreds of stripped-down, chopped-up
custom-made Harley-Davidsons, scorching Montana's roadways for their July 27-31 bash.
"I don't have any reason to believe that they will follow the rules in this book," Lawrenson says.
What should Missoula expect when the Hells Angels come to town?
Four years ago, at a similar Hells Angels' "run" in Steamboat Springs, Colo., police threw the book at them, and the Angels used it to light a barbecue. Two years later, in 1998, when the annual run thundered into Ventura, Calif., police reinforced the book's spine with a few hundred extra officers, and all was peaceful as a spring picnic on a church lawn.
Predicting the outcome of any Hells Angels gathering is tricky business. If these bikers can, in fact, be defined, the one word that seems to fit is "unpredictable."
People in positions like Lawrenson's don't much care for unpredictability.
"We're trying to predict very unpredictable events," he says. He doesn't know what to expect that last weekend in July.
Lawrenson began talking with the Hells Angels way back in early January. He, like other police chiefs before him, was told by the Angels that the run will be strictly a social event, centered on tourism and recreation, on families and wives and kids and good ol' American fun.
Lawrenson isn't so sure.
"We have reason to believe that while they do, in fact, come in with their families, it is not entirely a family event," he says.
He says he's heard too many stories to believe in a kinder, gentler Hells Angels - too many stories of drugs and drink, of shootings and stabbings, of fist fights and bar fights and gang fights and of entire towns taken over by beer-swilling bikers with a corner on shock value.
"I really don't think shooting people is a recreational activity," Lawrenson says. "And blocking the police from a crime scene is not your usual tourist activity."
Lawrenson is referring to the 1996 gathering in Steamboat Springs, where two Angels were shot, likely by other Angels, and police were kept at bay until the evidence had been scoured clean.
"I don't think they'll roll in and terrorize the community," he says. "But I do think that, as individuals, some of the Hells Angels are criminals."
He calls them a "drug distribution network" with "no respect for law enforcement."
"I certainly don't think there's a place for that in western Montana," he says. "If they want to come and recreate, we'll welcome them with open arms."
Actually, he means with a brigade of open arms.
Lawrenson, trying to prepare for an unknown, already has begun calling in reinforcements, making arrangements with other agencies throughout Montana and elsewhere to have extra law enforcement on hand. It's a strategy that law enforcement agencies across America have found effective in quelling Hells Angels' hijinks before they start.
"You need enough cops to make a show," advises Mark Coronado, patrol officer with the Ventura Police Department. "They have to know that the cops have enough numbers; that the cops will come in and go to war with them if it comes to that."
Otherwise, he says, "They'll come in and take over a town, especially if your police aren't prepared. They'll do what they want. They'll literally do anything they want."
What they want, says George Christie, is to be left alone, like any other tourist, without harassment from police or locals. They aren't a curious spectacle, he says. They're on vacation.
Christie is president of the Ventura Hells Angels, and from his leadership perch can, in fact, see some predictability within the chaos of the Angels. He predicts the group will try to book an entire hotel, secluding themselves and reducing the possibility of conflict between themselves and other guests.
Perhaps they'll find a place out of town where they can party without disturbing or being disturbed. "The bars are going to be very popular," he says.
They might try to rent an entire bar, he says, or they might not: "Sometimes, the party's the more, the merrier."
Some Missoula business owners already are rolling out the welcome mat. Steve Garr, owner of the Top Hat, has told the Angels they're welcome in his bar.
"I made it clear to the local constabulary here that I didn't have any fears about allowing any group into my bar," he says. "I don't consider the Hells Angels gangsters or criminals, and I don't expect any trouble."
Perhaps he hasn't read Lawrenson's book.
Garr, who booked concerts in the San Francisco Bay area during the late 1960s, came to know the Angels of old quite well. He often hired them as security guards at his shows.
"I can't imagine guys coming for vacation causing any trouble," he says.
But even Christie acknowledges that trouble is something that often finds the Hells Angels, whether they want it or not.
"I won't kid or patronize anyone in Missoula," Christie says. "We are a group of individuals that draw people to us. And when you have that kind of magnetism, you draw people with positive attitudes and people with negative attitudes, and we're ready to deal with whichever faction we encounter."
He says he hopes not to encounter the negative attitude. He hopes instead to relax, to see Angels he hasn't seen all year. He hopes to talk Angel talk and to explore the downtown and eat at good restaurants and ride with his head bared to the Big Sky.
A thousand miles from Montana, sitting in the Ventura clubhouse, safe behind jail-like security designed to keep people out rather than in, Christie asks a handful of Angels what they want to do in Missoula. A mountain of a man, well-spoken, his gold earring catching a slip of afternoon light, quickly turns the conversation to his favorite diversion.
"What's the trout fishing like up there?" he asks. He's fluent in the fishing lingo - leads and poly-booties and woolly buggers - and wants to know if Norman Maclean's Big Blackfoot runs near town.
What can Missoulians expect?
"I think they're going to find that the people they meet are intelligent and articulate and not much
different from themselves," Christie says. "I think the town is going to have a lot of fun."
He promises a show - if nothing else, a "parade of custom motorcycles and colorful individuals."
But Christie also knows the Hells Angels well enough to know that, with just a bit of provocation, there could, rather easily, be another show. And so, he says he hopes "that the Missoula police force has enough manpower and firepower to handle anything that comes along, because that's their job."
He worries that, too often, small-town police chiefs hand control of Hells Angels gatherings to the ever-present federal agents, who, he says, are as inevitable as faded tattoos at any Angel get-together.
"I would hope that the police chief in Missoula would be courageous enough to run his town as he sees fit," Christie says.
And Lawrenson, book still near at hand, says Christie needs not worry on that point.
He will pull in extra law enforcement from around the region, he says - "how far and wide, we don't know" - but he will remain in command, sharing the lead role with Missoula County Sheriff Doug Chase.
The two already have been meeting with city and county officials, briefing them on preparations for the day the Harleys roar into town. In early April, Lawrenson met with the mayor, sheriff, county commissioners and assorted staffers, telling them, as best he could, what to expect.
He told them about the Angels' suspected drug trafficking activities, about his estimate that 75 percent to 80 percent of Hells Angels are convicted felons, that many have experience with firearms and explosives and that many, if not most, of the bikers will be armed.
The weapon of choice, Lawrenson says, is the ball-peen hammer, a handy item Christie says is standard tool-kit fare when riding a temperamental and finely tuned Harley cross country.
Lawrenson, reflecting on Christie's explanation, notes that his department has three Harley-Davidsons, and not one officer has found it necessary to carry a ball-peen hammer.
"So, George, I don't quite get it," he says.
What he does get is that, even if the Hells Angels don't start any trouble, trouble might find them
anyway, and the Angels will be more than capable of finishing it.
"There's a certain mystique about the Hells Angels," says Missoula County Sheriff Doug Chase. "And there's going to be people who will want to go down, to meet with the Hells Angels, to mingle, to look at the bikes. That concerns us."
Ventura's Coronado agrees.
"Everyone with a bike will come to rub elbows with the Hells Angels," he says. "Hollywood will come to watch. Young girls will come to party."
Kris Haldane, a Ventura restaurant owner who knows Christie and the Angels well, also knows all about those young girls.
"You will see some awesome bikes," she says, "some incredible, beautiful bikes."
But, she has a warning: "Worry about your daughters. Be aware - 16-, 17-, 18-year-old girls like the bad boys, and these boys are as bad as it gets. Nobody knows how to party like the Hells Angels."
Chase is less worried about the town's daughters than he is about "those people who don't understand the chemistry and the volatility and get themselves into a situation way, way beyond anything they're ready for."
"The majority of people in this town don't understand how quickly things can turn around and go bad," he says.
Lawrenson does, and so he's preparing.
"For us not to be prepared would not be acceptable," Lawrenson says.
Chase is quick to jump in.
"That does not mean that we have to create a war zone, though," he says. "We're not gearing up for Armageddon. We're just preparing.
"We don't want to prepare for a battle if it can be precluded by good communication," Chase adds. "It's a matter of respect from both sides. I have to respect them, and I hope they respect me. That doesn't
mean I have to like them. That doesn't mean I have to welcome them to my community."
But that's not to say they won't be welcomed at all.
"We don't want any trouble," Lawrenson says. "And I don't believe the Hells Angels are coming here to take over the town and wreak havoc. As long as they come and obey the laws and recreate and have a nice vacation, then I say, 'Welcome one and all.' Missoula is known for its interesting diversity.
"But I wonder," he adds. "And I wonder because with the Hells Angels, their reputation precedes them."
So,please don't cry about your little inconvenience with some rude cycle enthusiasts. It is pathetic.
