Hells Angels are moving into my area for the first time. I have a generally negative view of them, but have some friends who feel otherwise. I would love to hear your experiences related to the Angels specifically, but “1%” clubs as well.
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They are mostly racist tweaker assholes
So, I have very limited experience with 2 of them. One was Banditos. I was the bouncer at a dive bar on the weekends as a second job. This was 20 years ago. Banditos started hanging out there, and honestly they were pretty cool. They were loud, and drank a lot, but they never caused me any problems, and helped me solve a couple of problems in my time there. Some of them were local FOP which seems a little gross, but they never bothered me.
The other was black pistons I think? I don’t remember. My friends dad was in it, and she and I got to hang out at their clubhouse some. That was almost exactly like you would think it was.
I only hung out there like 2 or 3 times with her. It was a shitty looking trap house in the hood. There was Nazi memorabilia all over the place. There was a bar in the middle of the living room. Middle aged white dudes drunk and geeked on meth. Lots of guns.
One night one of the dudes showed up with a black crackhead prostitute from the neighborhood. I know she was from the neighborhood because she said she had been there a few times before, and I heard them talking about “seeing her around”. Anyway, she was running around naked half the night doing Hitler salutes with those chuckle-fucks. Drinking whiskey, and smoking, probably meth. The whole situation was incredibly off putting.
FOP? What’s that?
Fraternal order of police
Imagine the intersection of the mafia and a bunch of college football players. Its a very tribal mentality. If you’re nice and polite, treat them with the respect you would treat anyone who has the power to fuck your life up (but dont kiss their ass… imagine how nice you would be to someone from the IRS who just has “some questions” about your last return) and dont put your nose in their business, they will more likely than not be perfectly fine.
But disrespect to one is disrepect to all, as a group they ARE involved in organised crime to some degree and while some of them are regular guys, some are cold blooded violent people.
Just be warned though, if you have a job or may apply for a job that involves security clearances. Having 1%ers phone numbers on your phone or as Facebook friends can throw flags.
Thanks, that’s interesting about the security clearances. I am hoping to work in infosec, but I’m already not planning on getting any kind of clearance. For one, I’m not doing any spook work, and for two, I don’t like the idea of serious background checks.
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You should have a negative view of them. Just because they don’t personally fuck with you doesn’t mean they aren’t worth putting down.
I’ve had gang related people fuck with me. It sucks and at times made me want to kill myself and I still deal with that pretty much daily. I have PTSD. I know a lot of the people that fucked with me and now it feels like I live in the same town as my rapists* and I have to see the fucked up faces occasionally.
They are heartless and worthless.
Cops don’t care when I try to get help.
- Rapist is the best term I’ve found for them even though I wasn’t physically raped or anything. They are heartless.
They deserve to be fucked with… but don’t do it if you’re not ready for …basically war… burglary, robberies, identity theft…
“I have to see my rapists living in my city, I mean I wasn’t raped or anything but yeah. You should definitely fuck with the biker gangs tho”
Least terminally online comment
Haven’t interacted on anything more than a superficial level. 15 years ago when I was in a band and playing shows, I encountered a lot of Warlocks. 90% of the time they were awesome. That 10% of the time was coo-coo-nuts-bullshit. There were two “guards” outside of a bar I was playing a show at that looked goofy as shit to me, but I didn’t inquire and I didn’t care. They had some crazy looking dude inside at the bar and I just stayed away from all of ‘em. Never had an experience more negative than that one, but again, 90% of the time they were actually solid people to be around.
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Eh, thanks but I’m not moving just because of this. I don’t think it’s a positive development, but neither do I expect drastic changes. This has always been an area they would have been comfortable in, honestly (history of illicit economy, rural hills, etc).
In my last job we had a Hells Angels Supporter Clubhouse on our complex… well, we never had any problems with them, and our encounters mostly comprised of a “good morning” or something like that. Sometimes they held barbecues where i attended and, what can i say, just a bunch of more or less nice motorcycle riding greybeards.
I’ve always wondered, in the colder regions of the world in winter, what do motorcycle gangs do?
I guess the answer is sell drugs and punch people?
Wear an extra layer?
You must not have experienced a Chicago/New York winter before
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The big clubs are all an organized crime syndicate. How bad the situation will be mostly depend on your exact location. Especially with the Hell’s Angels the involvement in organized crime depends a lot on the exact charter. Some just do illegal gambling, some light narcotics and gun trades while others are also involved in human trafficking and forced prostitution.
In most of the western world organized crime usually stays away from regular citizens. That’s why many people here say if you don’t approach them they will leave you be. But crime always affects regular people. And there is basically nothing you can do. It’s just up to luck whether you specifically get affected or not.
When the Hell’s Angels started to move into Europe most politicians just ignored it. But a war between locals clubs, the Hell’s Angles and then the Banditos (who also moved into Europe) broke out almost immediately. Some people even got killed. But politicians only stepped in when a civilian got killed or severely injured because some gang member shot a rocket into a rivaling gang’s bar. Then shit moved back into the shadows.
Given the area, I’m pretty sure they are aiming to take over the meth trade/transportation here.
Well the I think it is fair to expect some violence… wether innocents get hurt is up to pure luck.
Hell’s Angels lived next door to me 25 years ago. Always doing meth and taking about weird stuff.
Grown men riding their bicycles and going to their clubhouses. Bunch or losers as far as I’m concerned
What’s wrong with people enjoying their hobbies?
Maybe the part with the drug trafficking, racketeering and gang violence inside their hobby club?
The clubs you’re referring to call themselves “1%ers” because 99% of motorcycle riders don’t do that kind of stuff. There are plenty of clubs that will kick you out if you break the law (speeding, wheelies, etc) when you’re riding with them.
Like on television?
… and in real life. You don’t have to read many court papers before coming across biker gangs.
Model train collectors don’t typically engage in murder and human trafficking
Motorcycles don’t traffick people, people do. Most people who ride motorcycles together love their hobby. Some folks even use it as a gateway to help others:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/06/nyregion/staten-island-bikers-child-abuse-nonprofit.html
And some of those people who ride bicycles form criminal gangs literally called “Motorcycle Club” to traffick women and drugs and your PR link doesn’t change that
Well then you could also make a point that insert group like say memers have some people who do insert bad thing let’s go with using pepe the frog as a symbol for fascism and because of that memers are bad.
My point is the bad people aren’t the bikers it’s the human traffickers. The same way in my analogy the bad people aren’t the memers they r the fascists.
99 percent of people that ride motorcycles that I have ever met are inconsiderate assholes. The crime is an easy point to bring up against them, but if you’ve ever had a neighbor that rode a motorcycle you don’t need a whole lot of motivation to dislike them. I had a neighbor once with a loud ass bike. Everyone that lived around him complained about it (amongst loads of other bullshit) and he would always say something along the lines of "loud pipes save lives.” I’ll preface this next part by saying I don’t wish ill on anybody, and I don’t take joy in the death of anyone. But fast forward a few months and the dumb sonovabitch rear ends a pickup while going 110 in a 35. Hate that he died but the neighborhood was so much better without him and his biker buddies around after that.
I ain’t saying there aren’t bikers that are decent people, but I can count the ones I’ve personally met on one hand.
My neighbour does ride a bike they just rnt an asshole. I mean all the bikers I’ve met have been great people, but I don’t say bikers can’t be bad. I just say the group itself isn’t necessarily bad and therefore we shouldn’t judge bikers for being bikers, only assholes for being assholes and to continue the memer analogy. All of the dedicated memers I’ve met have been terrible people I mean racist, ableist, sexist they’ve basically been everyist. I’m being entirely honest here, not exaggerating for the purposes of analogy. I don’t judge dedicated memers for being a memer. I judge them for being racist n all.
The biker gangs in my area are typically just a few steps down from the KKK. They won’t outright do anything awful, but they are generally not nice folk.
