Nevada - ~JOHN L. SMITH: Hells Angels downright neighborly, except for those parties~
Just when I was prepared to hear the worst about the Hells Angels, Geri O'Connor went and spoiled everything.
"They've been really great," O'Connor said from the doorway of her home on Torrey Pines Drive, not far from the Hells Angels' Sin City Chapter clubhouse. "There hasn't been any disturbance or anything."
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She meant, of course, no disturbance before the morning of Nov. 11, when a Metro SWAT team converged on the clubhouse and five other locations to serve a search warrant.
At the clubhouse at 801 N. Torrey Pines, a window was shattered, a hole was knocked in a garage door, and officers found creative ways to dismantle the home's surveillance cameras. Neighbors were jarred awake by small explosions and the cacophony of law enforcement delivering its message to America's most infamous motorcycle club.
The cops made more noise than the bikers, it seems.
I can't tell you how disappointed that makes me.
If we're going to have two Hells Angels chapter clubhouses in Southern Nevada, the least they could do is play their part and act like a bunch of rowdy extras from "The Wild Bunch."
Sorry to disappoint you, O'Connor said.
"They've fixed up the house a lot since they moved in," she said, admitting she has never spoken to any of the home's visitors. "They keep to themselves."
Don't they have parties or anything?
Yes, she said. They have parties
"It gets a little loud," O'Connor said. "But it's nothing more than the average party."
Wait just a minute, lady.
We're not talking about the Mormon Missionary Hostel here. We're talking about a Hells Angels clubhouse. And not just any clubhouse -- the Sin City Chapter clubhouse.
The white house with blood-red trim won't win any Better Homes and Gardens competitions -- especially after its front window and garage door were covered in plywood and its pulverized front door was padlocked shut -- but it's not the worst-looking place in the neighborhood.
Undaunted, I moved on, speaking to six other neighbors -- all of whom told the same chilling story of a lack of stereotypical activity.
They weren't out playing badminton and croquet, but they also weren't firing automatic weapons and mixing Molotov cocktails.
"It's noisy when they have a party," a neighbor lady said, relaxing in a chair as she watched reporters mop up after cops had departed.
Hey, who needs DirecTV with this kind of action? I noticed she had a dresser in her front yard, which made me smile, because I keep mine in my backyard. "I am expecting, what kind of people are they? But they are no trouble. I cannot say nothing. This is America."
She's absolutely right. This is America. If law-abiding citizens want to wear their favorite skull and wings insignias and ride their Harleys, this is the place.
And law enforcement authorities can't call them an "organized crime" gang unless they can prove it.
Just when I'm ready to think the best of our friendly, neighborhood Hells Angels, they go and ruin it by getting into a gun-and-knife battle down on the Colorado River in Laughlin in 2002, spilling blood and bodies among the slots at Harrah's.
And right about the time I'm thinking this violent Hells Angels mystique is the stuff of Hollywood legend and Sonny Barger mythmaking, they go and get into a knife fight against the Mongols in December at A Special Memory Wedding Chapel.
A Special Memory, indeed.
Whether Metro makes its case is uncertain, but one thing is for sure: The days of our friendly, neighborhood Hells Angels keeping a low profile are over.
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