One of the local power clubs threw a big fundraiser party last Sunday. There were hundreds of bikers there from at least 25 different clubs \u2014 some of them Christian clubs, and everything went very, very smoothly. The party was held at a VFW post in a relatively remote and unpopulated suburb, in an area that sees a lot of motorcycle traffic owing to its proximity to some great canyon riding. The VFW has a large parking lot that held at least 300 bikes, and the overflow parked along the highway shoulder outside the gate. There was a live band on stage, the food was catered by a local Mexican restaurant, and everyone had a good time. Having been there personally and seen it all happen, I can tell you that the entire event was peaceful, was a success, and went off with zero problems. The closest it ever came to being disruptive to the community is when a hangaround out front stopped traffic on the 2-lane road from time to time to allow groups of motorcycles to pull out safely.<\/p>\n
But that\u2019s the story from the inside. Outside, the cops were running wild. There are three main roads leading to the VFW and the police had what amounts to roadblocks set up on each one where they were harassing bikers going to and from the party. I heard stories of groups of 10 and 20 bikers at a time \u2014 charters from the hosting power club riding together as a pack \u2014 being pulled over at gunpoint, only to ultimately be issued bullshit helmet and exhaust tickets. Two guys from my own club got pulled over and hassled for at least half an hour before one of them was given a ticket for his \u201cmodified\u201d aftermarket exhaust. They were going to write the other guy up for the same thing before he got it through the cop\u2019s thick skull that a stock exhaust system is just that: stock, aka \u201cunmodified.\u201d<\/p>\n
And then today I stumbled across a story in the local rag about what a dangerous, disruptive event this party was and how the cops had to scramble to deal with it. The lead from the story started with this and then went steadily downhill: \u201cSeveral dozen deputies were called in to address a growing concern in the community regarding suspected outlaw motorcycle gangs congregating at local establishments.\u201d<\/p>\n
Oh no! \u201cSuspected\u201d motorcycle \u201cgangs\u201d were \u201ccongregating\u201d! Lock up your women and children! What bullshit.<\/p>\n
The story went on to talk about how disruptive the party was, how the cops were spread so thin that they had to call in reinforcements from other departments, and basically painted the party as the third coming of Attila the Hun and his barbarian horde. It was so slanted that it might as well have been written by the local cop shop\u2019s desk sergeant.<\/p>\n
The cops have a vested interested in harassing bikers and drumming up bullshit charges \u2014 it\u2019s all about the money. If they play the Gang card, then that opens the floodgates to a bunch of extra money that protects them from layoffs, lets them get more overtime, buy new toys, and even hire more cops. They have a strong incentive to build mountains out of molehills, and the local cops have said that they\u2019re going after bikers specifically to keep the money flowing. So they roll on a well-organized, peaceful party like this one, act like it\u2019s World War III, and then sit back and count the money rolling in. And reporters like this one, who don\u2019t do their homework and let the cops spoon feed them the story without questioning it, don\u2019t help at all.<\/p>\n
One last thing to think about on this topic\u2026 The next time you hear about a big police raid on a biker club (note: club<\/em>, not \u201cgang\u201d), pay attention to how many arrests they claim to have made and what charges were filed \u2014 and then go check it out again six months down the road. You\u2019ll be amazed at how many of those charges have been dropped. And then another year or so down the road, after the cases have gone to trial (if they even go that far), check out how many convictions there were. You\u2019ll be amazed at what a colossal waste of resources it\u2019s been.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" One of the local power clubs threw a big fundraiser party last Sunday. There were hundreds of bikers there from at least 25 different clubs \u2014 some of them Christian clubs, and everything went very, very smoothly. The party was held at a VFW post in a relatively remote and unpopulated suburb, in an area […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-neutral"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deadpan.net\/ridereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deadpan.net\/ridereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deadpan.net\/ridereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deadpan.net\/ridereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deadpan.net\/ridereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=756"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.deadpan.net\/ridereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":757,"href":"https:\/\/www.deadpan.net\/ridereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/756\/revisions\/757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.deadpan.net\/ridereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deadpan.net\/ridereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.deadpan.net\/ridereport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}