South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley wants to ban the Atlantic Beach Bikefest or, as it is usually called, Black Bike Week. Black Bike Week is ostensibly a motorcycle rally but is really more of a ghetto-fabulous festival of drunken twerks. It is big, loud and scary for old white people.

So far, most press outlets have been covering the furor over Black Bike Week as a motorcycle story but this is hardly about bikes. Governor Haley is either going to back down and shut up about Black Bike Week or she is going to find herself in a shouting match about race relations in the New South.

Haley (photo above) is alarmed because this year during Black Bike Week three people were killed and seven were injured in five confirmed shootings. It became national news and Haley reacted like this:

Haley Speaks

“Eight shootings happened during this weekend. Three people died. That is not okay for South Carolina.”

“This Bikefest does not represent the people of this state. It does not represent what we are trying to do when we promote tourism and jobs.”

“There are no revenues worth the bad press that we got this past weekend. There are no revenues worth the lack of companies that will come to this area because of what happened this weekend…. There’s nothing worse that the governor wants to see than Myrtle Beach on the front page of USA Today in a negative light. In a time when we are trying to improve the tourism in South Carolina, trying to bring jobs to South Carolina, trying to show everybody why Horry County is such a great place to live, work, vacation and raise a family.”

“It is time for that Bikefest to come to an end, and that is the way I’m going to talk to the elected officials of Atlantic Beach. I think it’s time for everybody in Horry County to come together to say, ‘No More.’ We are proud of our state. We are proud of the look of our state. We are proud of the actions of our state. We are proud of the people of our state, and the state deserves to be respected and the area deserves to be respected. It’s time for this activity to stop.”

Backlash

There was an immediate backlash. The Associated Press quoted an Atlantic Beach resident named Jennequa Miller as saying, “If you’re going to stop the black bikers weekend, you should stop all biker weekends, regardless if nothing happened during that time. That’s unfair.”

Until the 1960s, Atlantic Beach was the only blacks only beach in Virginia, the Carolinas or Georgia. Visitors called it “The Black Pearl.”

Atlantic Beach Mayor Jake Evans insists that Black Bike Week will continue. “I’m not above talking to Grand Strand city leaders and coming together with them and making sure they handle the problem, which is to make sure everybody abides by the law,” he said. “But I’m not willing to sit down at the table with anyone and discuss canceling Bikefest.”

“The $60,000 or so the town makes on Bikefest fees is a big chunk of its $500,000 annual budget. A little bit of money is a lot to us,” Evans said.

If you are going to ride the freeways it does you no good to think of that thing between your thighs as a motorcycle. Whether it is a bike or not is beside the point. If you want to be an old biker someday you have to understand that you’re riding a cloak of invisibility.

Automobile drivers run over motorcycles and abruptly pull in front of them all the time. The results are often catastrophic for the biker. When there is a collision motorists always say, “I never saw the bike.” Police are inclined to believe the drivers who are rarely charged because there is some body of evidence that motorists who say that are telling the truth. In general drivers don’t see motorcycles because they don’t expect to see motorcycles.

Expose, Confront, Change

So the advent of “autonomous cars” may or may not be a good thing for motorcyclists. Not that anybody has any choice about whether there will be driverless cars on the San Diego Freeway and the New Jersey Turnpike within the next five years. To quote the immortal turn of phrase coined by California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsome, driverless cars are coming “whether you like it or not.”

It is probably only a matter of time until “Whether you like it or not” replaces E Pluribus Unum as the national motto. But there are some rational people who would like to slow down the ever accelerating transformation of the United States and the rest of the First World into a science fiction dystopia. Yesterday one of them was a guy named John M. Simpson who is the “Privacy Project Director” for a non-profit group called Consumer Watchdog –  whose official motto, by the way, is “Expose, Confront, Change.”

Simpson is alarmed by the alacrity with which the new “Google Car” is likely to appear on public roads in California. Anybody who remembers the days when auto GPS devices instructed motorists to drive over cliffs or who has seen this week’s Forbes headline, “After GM’s Apology: More Than 2 Million Dangerous Cars Still On The Road,” understands that consumer technology is not foolproof. Google, which some people still think of as merely a search engine, is itself aware of the shortcomings inherent in the global positioning infrastructure integral to its autonomous car. That’s why Google announced yesterday that it is spending a half billion dollars to buy a satellite company called Skybox Imaging.

Google Car

In case you missed it, Google announced on May 27 that it is building a fleet of 100 experimental electric-powered vehicles that have no driver controls whatsoever. You control these things with a smart phone. You use your phone to tell the autonomous vehicle where you want to go and the Google car, theoretically, takes you there instead of over a cliff into the Pacific. Also, in an ideal world, these Jetsons’ gizmos will notice when you are splitting lanes on any of El Lay’s lovely byways without going into kill mode.

Google probably doesn’t intend to start manufacturing cars. What Google wants to do is develop and sell technology that existing manufacturers like Volkswagen, Ford, Nissan, Toyota and Mercedes-Benz can use in the driverless cars they are already developing.

And what Consumer Watchdog objects to about all this is Google’s intention to start testing these things on California highways at the end of the summer, on September 16. The group wants a driver with control over things like starting, stopping and steering in these “cars” for another two years – until July 2016.

Dear DMV

Yesterday Simpson wrote Jean Shiomoto, Director of the California Department of Motor Vehicles:

“I am writing on behalf of Consumer Watchdog to express our concern that Google and others with a vested interest in developing autonomous vehicle technology, also known as ‘driverless cars,’ may push the Department of Motor Vehicles into promulgating rules regulating the public use of these vehicles on California’s highways that are inadequate to protect our safety.

“There can be no doubt that Google is pushing to deploy autonomous vehicles as fast as it can. The Department of Motor Vehicles must not succumb to the Internet giant’s pressure. One of the key safety provisions of the testing regulations is the requirement that there must be a test driver in the driver’s seat who is capable of assuming control of the car if there is a problem.
Little more than a week after the DMV adopted the testing regulations, Google announced plans for a fleet of driverless cars that have no steering wheel, brake pedal or accelerator. There would be no way for an occupant to take control in an emergency; occupants would be captives of Google’s technology, completely at the Internet giant’s mercy.

“We call on the DMV to ensure the safety of the public is put well ahead of the self-serving agendas of the manufacturers. The autonomous vehicle regulations for public use should require a full year’s results of testing under DMV regulations with at least six months to publicly scrutinize and analyze the results before a vehicle can be certified.”

If you want to know more you can read the Consumer Watchdog press release here.

Joshua Deford, a 23-year-old member of the DC Eagles Motorcycle Club, died as a result of a road rage incident in Chicago June 10. A 27-year-old woman named Chiquita Stevenson (photo above) is charged with two counts of attempted murder.

The incident began on the afternoon of June 7 when Stevenson cut into the middle of a pack 70 motorcycles near the intersection of the 294 Toll Road and Archer Avenue in Southwest Chicago. The DC Eagles were paying their respects at area cemeteries as part of a “Rest In Peace Ride.” The intersection is near Resurrection Cemetery, Bethania Cemetery and the Lithuanian National Cemetery.

Bikers Say

Police say that after almost hitting one of the motorcycles, Stevenson began throwing objects at the pack from inside her car. Police have not said whether the bikers made any defensive gestures at or took any defensive gestures toward the driver. But the confrontation escalated and Stevenson began chasing members of the pack up Archer. It is unclear whether she pursued members of the DC Eagles or friends of the club.

Deford pursued Stevenson and her would be victims. The chase reached 80 miles per hour and Deford crashed as he entered the suburb of Bedford Park.

The chase ended when Stevenson hit one of the bikers she was chasing as he tried to escape her by pulling into the driveway of the Bedford Park police station. She has not yet made a $500,000 bond. Stevenson pled guilty to misdemeanor battery in 2012 and was sentenced to 18 months of supervised release.

Stevenson Says

Chicago television station WMAQ reported that Stevenson claims to have been a victim of an unprovoked biker attack. Stevenson’s boyfriend, a man named Nicholas Williams, told the television station that members of the pack tried to break her windshield and that she only pursued one of the riders in order to get his license plate number. According to Williams she was surrounded by motorcyclists and, fearing for her own safety, called 911.

“She’s 120 pounds,” Williams told WMAQ.  “Who in their right mind would do that?” Williams did not offer an explanation of why Stevenson pursued and ran over one of the bikers in the police station parking lot.

This week the Sydney Morning Herald described Queensland’s Vicious Lawless Association Disestablishment Act as “backfiring.” The act, which denies civil liberties in the Australian state to members of 26 named motorcycle clubs was enacted last year to curb what politicians there described as “criminal networks.”

Earlier this month, Queensland Attorney-General Jarrod Bleijie (above) claimed the VLAD law was responsible for “the sharpest decline in crime reduction across the state in recorded history.” Bleijie claimed that crime is down between 20 percent and 50 percent since the laws were introduced. The journalistic consensus in Australia is that Bleijie is lying.

In an interview with ABC Radio, Queensland Police Minister Jack Dempsey attributed a 54 per cent reduction in robberies to the new laws. But in a review of publically available data the Brisbane Times found that overall crime had been reduced slightly, by about 3.5 percent, when comparing the month the new law went into effect and last month.

A police spokesman replied “Whilst a generalized figure cannot be given we provide the following regarding various crime classes for the state; robbery – down by 23 per cent, unlawful entry of dwellings – down by 22 per cent, assault – down by 5 per cent, unlawful use of motor vehicles – down by 23 per cent and offences against property – down by 14 per cent.”

Terry Goldsworthy

A Bond University criminologist named Terry Goldsworthy disagreed. He told the Times the statement was an example of how statistics “can be used to say whatever you want them to.”

“I am curious about how they draw this massive leap of faith that bikies are responsible for armed robberies, break and enters and things like that,” Goldsworthy told the Times. “My experience as a police officer for 28 years was that they really seldom committed break and enters and seldom committed armed robberies. Some of the data that we have managed to obtain from the Queensland Police themselves – on the Gold Coast over a five month period of 2012-13 – they committed about two break and enters. So to me, these crimes that they are trying to link to those bikie groups are just not substantial crimes that they commit. I don’t see any relevance in claiming that the bikie laws have decreased break and enters.”

Goldsworthy told the Morning Herald that crimes committed by bikers are “disorganized, stupid crime” comprising mostly low-level drug, assault and driving offences. “The real problem police have,” Goldsworthy said, “is that they’re not charging anyone for (being involved in) criminal enterprises within the gangs, which would indicate that bikies operate as individuals, and not as gangs with a common criminal purpose.”

The Times has taken to calling Bleijie “Boy Blunder” and the High Court of Australia will hear a challenge to the new law next September. Zeke Bentley, one of the lawyers who will argue against the anti-biker laws, recently called them “the most extraordinary and embarrassing set of laws that I’m aware of in Australia’s history.”

Each and every member of the Iron Order Motorcycle Club, a kind of anti-motorcycle club, should regularly pray a prayer of thanks that this is no longer, oh say, 1979. You know. Back in the day. Before CSI and DNA.

The club seems to delight in provoking the members of other motorcycle clubs that wear a three-piece patch. It may simply be that the club attracts men who are flamboyantly neurotic, as Richard Simmons and Perez Hilton are flamboyantly gay. It is also possible that the Iron Order is a club of agents provocateur acting on behalf of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, and that the club exists largely to create some future RICO case. Maybe these guys have just gotten a bad rep.

This page mostly ignores the Iron Order because they are not really members of the motorcycle club world and they don’t make much news. But sometimes the club does something, or appears to have done something, that The Aging Rebel can’t ignore

This week, club president Ray “Izod” Lubesky may have, in anticipation of this week’s Laconia motorcycle rally, sent Laconia, New Hampshire Police Chief Christopher Adams the following email. The email has been slightly edited to eliminate the most annoying syntax and grammatical errors.

Mommy!

Dear Chief Adams Laconia PD

I represent a law-abiding motorcycle club called the Iron Order MC. I would like to inform you that we will be attending Bike Week in your city this week. We do not support any outlaw motorcycle clubs (1%ers) or abide by their protocol which has caused many problems for our club. We just ask, as free Americans, to be able to ride and be left alone. This is why I am contacting you. I am requesting your assistance. While there, if we encounter any problems with other clubs, can you assist us when we call upon you? Just keep an eye out for the protection of our members. We do our best in security but 1%ers are lowlife, dirty scum who will do anything to harm us. We will cooperate with all law enforcement. Unlike traditional clubs, we will testify when called upon. We will stay only in populated areas where there are witnesses.

If you would like we can have our legal department contact you. The person in charge of our legal department is John Whitfield. Our local person in charge is Craig Carbal. His road name while in Laconia will be Playboy. Once again, we thank you for your cooperation in this matter.

Izod – International President of the Iron Order MC

Hoax?

The email seems to have first appeared publically on a Facebook page titled IOMC SUCKS WORLD WIDE II.

Copies of the email have been sent to this page by members of brand name motorcycle clubs who seem to take the letter seriously and are alarmed by it. That makes the email newsworthy whether Izod Lubesky wrote it or not. Some widely respected people think he did.

The Aging Rebel thinks the email is probably a hoax. But, it is a plausible hoax. This page has seen other documents verifiably written by Lubesky including a memorandum written to members in 2011 following a dustup between the Iron Order and the Bandidos in which the Iron Order President stated “We will cooperate with LE and we will prosecute. We will take all steps necessary to protect ourselves and go on down the road.”

Whoever wrote the email to Chief Adams seems to have seen that memo, too.

Harley-Davidson, the hip, happening, multicultural, multinational, outlaw dream machine manufacturer, announced a new concept motorcycle this morning. Harley calls the thing Project LiveWire, spelled just like that, in the manner of advertising agencies. The big news is that it runs on electricity not gasoline. The lesser but more telling news is that the public relations campaign for the new bike is also called Project LiveWire.

Harley has been teasing this concept bike for months. Earlier this spring, a newspaper in London ran a photo of Scarlett Johansson’s stunt-double in the next Avengers movie riding an electric Harley. The Motor Company released a video of the new bike on YouTube this week and issued an accompanying statement that read: “There are milestones that change history – those pivotal moments where the future is defined. This is one of them. Just like this country, Harley-Davidson has reinvented itself many times in our 111 years. This is the next chapter of our journey. Whether you’re a rider or not, we’re inviting you to take part in the experience, and be there for this historic ride forward.”

Say What

This morning’s press release explains, “While not for sale, Project LiveWire is specifically designed for the purpose of getting insight into rider expectations of an electric Harley-Davidson motorcycle.” Also according to the release, “In keeping with the company’s customer-led product development approach, starting next week select consumers across the country will be able to ride and provide feedback on the bike, helping to shape the future of Harley-Davidson’s first-ever electric motorcycle.”

According to an amalgam of sources, the LiveWire electric motor delivers 74 horsepower, 52 foot-pounds of torque and a top speed of 92 mph. The bike can accelerate to 60 mph from a standing start in four seconds and it will go about 130 miles between charges. It takes an hour to charge the motorcycle’s 250 pound battery. Because the battery is so heavy, the motor company has shaved down the weight of numerous other components. The wheel spokes, for example, are hollow.

If you are a traditional and plain spoken Harley guy, like if you’re one of those guys who has a Harley tattoo on the inside of your forearm, you should understand that the LiveWire concept bike is not for you.

Fatten The Tails

John Olin, Chief  Financial Officer explains, “The development of Project LiveWire supports our Fatten The Tails Strategy…. The Fatten The Tails Strategy is our balanced approach to investing in products across the customer spectrum of core riders, outreach and international.”

In case you are lost already, “Fatten the Tails” has nothing to do with swingarms or rear tires or fenders. It is the insincere and sanctimonious story the Harley suits have made up about how their motorcycle company is going to outlive the guys who are stuck with Harley tattoos. “Fatten the Tails” describes a perfectly symmetrical Bell Curve with the Harley tattoo guys at its apex. They are labeled as Harley’s “core” customers. The two tails of the Bell Curve comprise the “outreach” and “international” markets. In case you are still lost, “Outreach means “young adults,” “women,” “Hispanics,” and “African-Americans.”

Really. We aren’t making that up to make Harley look stupid. The “tails” of Harley’s corporate marketing strategy refer to the theoretical tails of a Bell Curve. “Tails” does not refer to anything tangible or real. The term refers entirely to a statistical abstraction.

Hello Everybody!

What the press release and the exclusive news accounts written at Harley’s behest by legitimate motorcycle journalists neglect to say about Project LiveWire can be found in an investor relations video that is currently viewable only on Harley’s website. You can watch it by clicking here.

The video is a song and dance by John Olin, Harley’s Chief  Financial Officer and Matt Levatich, President and Chief Operating Officer. John and Matt do not appear to be the kind of men with whom most Harley tattoo guys would want to sit at a bar and talk bikes. The video begins with Olin exclaiming, “Hi everyone. Thanks for joining Matt and me today,” and goes downhill from there.

Most of what the men have to say is so blatantly contrived by cynical image makers that it is difficult to imagine trusting anything any Harley executive might ever have to say again. In fact their words and speech patterns are so generic it is impossible to tell the two apart. They come across as Hollow Men. “Leaning together,” to borrow a few words from T. S. Eliot, “heads filled with straw,” their “dried voice, when” they talk as “as quiet and meaningless as wind in dry grass or rats’ feet over broken glass.”

John/Matt Speak

“I want to reiterate that the Project LiveWire motorcycles are not in production” John/Matt says. “At this time we do not have plans or a timetable to bring this bike to market.”

“We have more to learn about customer desires in the electric motorcycle space.”

“We believe an electric motorcycle might be of greatest interest to outreach groups in the U.S. and to international customers.”

“Efforts like Project LiveWire and our Street motorcycles reflect our commitment to provide products that meet the lifestyle and riding needs of the growing generation of urban young adults.”

Public Relations Campaign

The Project LiveWire public relations minstrel show will tour 30 cities in the United States this year starting next Monday and additional cities in the U.S., Canada and Europe next year. Some visitors to this show will get to ride one of these concept bikes but John/Matt explain, “Even those who don’t yet ride can try out Project LiveWire on ‘jump start,’ a simulated riding experience.”

The part of John/Matt also known as Levatich enthuses, “Like all Harley-Davidson motorcycles, LiveWire is an expression of individuality and iconic style. It just happens to be electric. We’ve been saying Project LiveWire is more like an electric guitar, not an electric car.” So, because John/Matt has uttered the magic words “individuality” and “iconic” everybody should swallow that electric guitar analogy whole.

John/Matt also claims “the motor makes a muscular statement.” This new thing molded around a 250 pound battery will “evoke styles and feelings from many historical Harleys.” It features a clutchless, single speed transmission, a “colorful touch screen display” and doggone it, it is just “a great motorcycle for city riding” even though Harley has no plans to put it into production because John/Matt and their army of propaganda elves haven’t yet decided who might yet be convinced to really want it.

“We believe an electric motorcycle might be of greatest interest to outreach groups in the U.S. and to international customers,” the executives who are apparently part of alien intelligence, like the Borg, proclaim.

“Project LiveWire expands the boundaries of Harley-Davidson’s iconic look, sound and feel and elevates technology into art in a way that only Harley-Davidson can deliver.”

Stay tuned to see what ridiculous thing some Harley-Davidson executive might say next.

Three men who broke out of the Orsainville Detention Center in suburban Quebec City June 7 were rearrested yesterday morning in Montreal.

Serge Pomerleau, Denis Lefebvre and Yves Denis were arraigned today in Quebec City on charges of escaping from a provincial detention centre and escaping lawful custody. Reportedly, Pomerleau laughed when prosecutors asked the judge to deny bail.  Police and Candian news outlets have linked the three men to the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club.

Police have treated the men as if they were a public threat. They were transported to court in three separate motorcades and no one was admitted to the courtroom without being searched.

Before their apprehension the three men were last seen flying in the general direction of the Atlantic Ocean in a green helicopter that had landed in the detention center yard.

Simon Bédard

The men were apprehended in a Montreal condominium that police say had been rented by a man named Simon Bédard. Bédard rented the condo from a corporation called Gestions Pierre Loiselle Inc. Police have declined to say how they found the fugitives.

Bédard has been reported to be a longtime member of the Mercenaries Motorcycle Club which has maintained friendly relations with the Hells Angels over the last two decades. Bédard lost a leg when a bomb exploded under his automobile in 1995. Police blamed the bombing on a fraternal organization called the Rock Machine and claimed the incident was connected to a “war” over control of the sale of illicit drugs in Quebec Province.

Police have announced they would like to interrogate Bédard but do not know where he is.

Operation Crawfish

Denis, Lefebvre and Pomerleau were arrested at the conclusion of a police investigation called Operation Crawfish. Police claimed to have confiscated “several kilos” of cocaine, about $1 million in cash and numerous personal possessions including Pomerleau’s airplane and helicopter. Two Canadian judges were among 51 people arrested in connection to the case.

Police also allege the three men were “key players” in an extensive drug-trafficking ring in the Abitibi region of Quebec. Police accused the men of being “tied” to the Hells Angels in Canada. The exact nature of those ties has never been made public. Police say the men killed three “rival” drug dealers. They are scheduled for trial on those charges next January.

The American Civil Liberties Union issued a 98 page report this morning titled “War Comes Home: The Excessive Militarization of American Policing.”

If you belong to a motorcycle club it probably won’t tell you anything you don’t already know. Raids by heavily armed teams of donut commandos are regularly used as a form of extra-judicial punishment against bikers because bikers tend to be contemptuous of both bullies and drug laws. These raids are obviously unconstitutional because they are blatantly intended to punish people that police don’t like without even a sham trial. And the punishment they inflict – like the routine killing of family pets, the brutalization of children and the sexual degradation of women – is unquestionably cruel and unusual and unconstitutional, too.

This page has covered the practice of punishment by Swat for the last six years. If you want to read some of what has already been published here consider “Swat Murdered Russell Doza,” “Indicia Warrant From Hell,”  “Why James Hicks Died,”  or The Aging Rebel’s review of Radley Balko’s Rise Of The Warrior Cop.

So far, this repressive war by America’s police establishment on America’s citizen’s has been ignored by America’s mainstream news outlets and has avoided inclusion on the national agenda. That is a shame because routine extra-judicial punishment by militarized police might be the single most obvious thing wrong with this nation – a greater threat to the survival of the Republic than student debt, the nation’s crumbling infrastructure or even the religious war in Iraq. Maybe today’s ACLU report will earn a minute or two on tonight’s nightly news.

The ACLU Report

While preparing the report the ACLU analyzed 800 Swat raids conducted by law enforcement agencies in 20 states and on those agencies’ acquisition of military weaponry, vehicles, and equipment.

“We found that police overwhelmingly use Swat raids not for extreme emergencies like hostage situations but to carry out such basic police work as serving warrants or searching for a small amount of drugs,” Kara Dansky, Senior Counsel with the ACLU’s Center for Justice said. The report documents multiple tragedies caused by police carrying out needless Swat raids, including a 26-year-old mother shot with her child in her arms and a 19-month-old baby critically injured when a flashbang grenade landed in his crib.

“Our police are trampling on our civil rights and turning communities…into war zones,” Dansky continued. “We all pay for it with our tax dollars. The Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, and Justice give police military weaponry and vehicles as well as grants for military equipment. The War on Drugs has failed, yet the federal government hasn’t stopped the flow of guns and money.”

The report calls for the federal government to rein in the incentives for police to militarize. The ACLU also asks that local, state and federal governments track the use of Swat and the guns, tanks, and other military equipment that end up in police hands.

“Our findings reveal not only the dangers of militarized police, but also the difficulties in determining the extent and impact of those dangers. At every level – from the police to the state governments to the federal government – there is almost no recordkeeping about Swat or the use of military weapons and vehicles by local law enforcement,” Dansky said.

In addition, the report recommends that state legislatures and municipalities develop criteria for SWAT raids that limit their deployment to the kinds of emergencies for which they were intended, such as an active shooter situation.

You can read the complete report here.

In an astounding decision published this morning, the Supreme Court of the United States placed limits on warrantless police searches of electronic data storage devices. The unanimous decision settled a case titled Riley v. California and was immediately applied to a second case titled U.S. v. Wurie.

Both cases raised the constitutional question of whether it is reasonable to search someone’s cell phone after he has been arrested. Prisoners are routinely searched after an arrest. The Supreme Court has repeatedly ruled that arresting officers may open and search any containers or bags held by a prisoner in a post arrest search. And in the past, numerous courts have ruled that cell phones and personal computers are analogous to containers.

Fourth Amendment

The Fourth Amendment states: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” What Riley and Wurie boiled down to was whether police were allowed to simply inventory and secure a prisoner’s cell phone or whether their badges entitled them to rummage through all those parts of a prisoner’s private, personal life he stored on his phone

Riley was arrested after a “routine traffic stop” in San Diego found two guns in the engine compartment of his car. After he was arrested police searched the data on his smart phone and found videos, photos and text messages that suggested he had been involved in a shooting. The data on the phone was later introduced as evidence in a criminal trial and Riley was convicted.

Wurie was arrested by Boston police on suspicion of selling drugs. Police monitored the calls on his flip phone and saw a number on his phone screen that was identified as “my house.” Following a hunch that Wurie might have more drugs at his house, police traced the home’s address, raided it and found drugs. That evidence was introduced at Wurie’s trial and he was convicted.

Liberal Obama And Conservative Roberts

The Obama Administration, which has stubbornly opposed any limits on police searches of electronic data storage devices since it came to power in 2009, argued in Wurie “Although cell phones can contain a great deal of personal information, so can many other items that officers have long had authority to search, and the search of a cell phone is no more intrusive than other actions that the police may take once a person has been lawfully arrested.” The administration’s position in Wurie mirrors its continuing argument that all information on a personal computer should be considered to be “in plain sight.”

The obvious constitutional error in the Obama legal stance is that it encourages police to examine and record anyone’s texts, emails, photos, videos, calendar entries, notes, prescriptions, bank statements, phone numbers and GPS tracking data by contriving an arrest for a “crime” like jaywalking or disorderly conduct. In today’s decision, Chief Justice John Roberts observed “a cell phone search would typically expose to the government far more than the most exhaustive search of a house.”

Robert’s answered the administration’s argument that a cell phone search is “materially indistinguishable” from a pat down with, “That is like saying a ride on horseback is materially indistinguishable from a flight to the moon.”

“Modern cell phones are not just another technological convenience,” Roberts wrote. “With all they contain and all they may reveal, they hold for many Americans ‘the privacies of life,’”

“The fact that technology now allows an individual to carry such information in his hand does not make the information any less worthy of the protection for which the Founders fought. Our answer to the question of what police must do before searching a cell phone seized incident to an arrest is accordingly simple – get a warrant.”

In January 2010 this page published an article titled “Harley Is Doomed.” If you missed it, or you are just in the mood to kiss the past’s ass, you can find that article here.

In case you just got paroled by the Taliban, the good news is that Harley is still alive. The bad news is that Harley is still doomed. What has changed in the last four and a half years is that the motor company has largely betrayed its implicit contract with its workers; it has started to chase what the zombies who run the company call the “outreach” and “international” markets; and those zombie managers have cynically mistaken the key to Harley’s success over the last 30 years for just so much hollow rhetoric.

The success is a good place to start.

The Outlaw Machine

The secret to Harley-Davidson’s survival is summarized in the title of  Brock Yates’ book Outlaw Machine: Harley-Davidson and the Search for the American Soul. Harley became an “American cultural icon” because its motorcycles were symbols of “defiance and liberation.” And the company had some help from its customers along the way.

The depression era motorcycle clubs transformed into much edgier fraternities after the Second World War. World War veterans who bought cheap, war surplus motorcycles collected themselves into clubs that emulated small combat units. The clubs were seen as gangs of highly mobile, marauding mercenaries until the mid-sixties when they began to acquire a romantic glow. Harley-Davidson has been living off that romantic glow for the last 50 years.

As hostile as clubs may be to one another, all of the motorcycle club world endorses the same world view and lives by the same set of rules. In the beginning, in the 50s, clubs insisted their members ride heavy motorcycles built by America or her allies. The first motorcycle outlaws might have flaunted their war souvenir swastikas but they refused to ride German bikes. Within a decade, club patch holders were required to ride American motorcycles with engine displacements of 1000 cubic centimeters or more. And, that meant if you were going to ride with a club you had to own a Harley.

Cultural Icon

The symbiosis between outlaw motorcycle clubs and Harley-Davidson intensified when the United States was flooded with cheap, light Japanese motorcycles and when Harley became a division of a bowling alley supplier called American Machine and Foundry. The Japanese bikes were fun and hip. The AMF Harleys were poorly made and notorious for marking their spots but Harleys were made by American workers who fed American children and the outlaws were stubbornly patriotic. Harley was the last American motorcycle and for decades it seemed worth saving if for no other reason than that.

The iconic outlaw image was further embellished in the 1960s and 70s by Hunter Thompson, by the proliferation of motorcycle clubs founded by Vietnam veterans and by dozens of biker movies culminating with Easy Rider. By the time AMF sold Harley in 1981 the outlaw biker had become a stock character.

The new Harley-Davidson commoditized that independent, fearless, dangerous, self-reliant, patriotic, anti-authoritarian outlaw image. The company started its own motorcycle club called the Harley Owners Group. Harley-Davidsons became symbols of both an earlier America and a waning style of masculinity. Prosperous professionals could redefine themselves by posing on a Harley. Poorer men could redefine themselves by putting on a Harley tee shirt.

The image of the motorcycle outlaw on his outlaw machine is more potent now than ever but it is exactly that image and that set of values that Harley wants to discard. The company seems to think that image is growing stale as the baby-boomers, who most enthusiastically embraced it 30 years ago, grow old. The outlaw image is certainly at odds with Obama era ideals about how the world should work and who Americans should be. But then how do you explain the Devils Ride or No Angel by Jay Dobyns. Apparently, the people who run Harley are the last to notice who actually watches Sons of Anarchy. The “core” customer base Harley wants to replace isn’t nearly as inclined to watch Kurt Sutter’s show as are young men and women.

The Demographics

The smart money is betting against Harley. A report released this week by an investment company called RBC Capital Markets adds some details about why Harley is doomed.

The people running the motor company think the outlaw appeal of their machines is limited to baby boomers. In other words they think mostly old white guys watch Sons of Anarchy. And, those old white guys aren’t getting any younger. In 1990 only ten percent of Harley’s customers were 50 or older. Today 38 percent of the company’s customers are at least 50. Twenty percent of them will be dead by 2030. Fifty-nine percent of Harleys customers are over 40 which is double the percentage in 1990.

Only 11 percent of Harley’s customers are in their early 30s. In 1990 a quarter of the people who bought Harleys were under 25 and 41 percent of Harley’s customers were under 30. Now about 19 percent are under 30. In 1990 most young men who wanted to do so could get blue collar jobs. Now not so much.

Hey Everybody, Let’s Commute

Anybody who has seen Harley’s ads for its new 500 cc and 750 cc “Street” bikes knows who the company wants for customers. The models who pose on those motorcycles are predominantly Asian, Black and female. They are anti-outlaws. They don’t have helmet hair. And they do not tour Monument Valley. They do not get their kicks on Route 66. They park downtown. They don’t have adventures. They commute. People who identify with those models are the people Harley wants to attract with its new electric motorcycle, grandly called “Project LiveWire.” The Street bikes are not outlaw machines. The LiveWire is not an outlaw machine.

What Harley is signaling with its new products and its new advertising is that the motor company now believes it will go broke if it continues to try to sell an independent, fearless, dangerous, self-reliant, patriotic, anti-authoritarian outlaw image. Maybe the company’s marketing geniuses are right. But there is a problem with abandoning what has worked up until now.

If Harley-Davidson doesn’t make uniquely American outlaw machines then what does it make? Does it just make motorcycles like Honda. Do you now “meet the nicest people on a Harley?” The motor company seems to be particularly keen on making commuter motorcycles. In order to do that successfully Harley will have to compete with other motorcycle manufacturers on price. The 2014 Street 500 has a suggested retail price of $6,800. Is that cheap enough?

One problem for Harley is that there are fewer Generation X Americans than boomers so the company’s potential market is shrinking. Another, bigger problem is that Americans are facing a declining standard of living. Harley is part of that problem because it has lowered its workers salaries and it has cut jobs. In the last seven years most American manufacturers have done the same thing.

Worst of all, the young, urban hipsters Harley is courting face declining job prospects and when they enter the job market many of them are already burdened by huge student loans. The University of Phoenix already owns the money the next generation might have used to buy a motorcycle.

So who cares if their commuter motorcycle is made by Harley? What makes Harley different from every other soulless multi-national? What is it exactly that Harley is selling now? And how is Harley’s next generation of customers going to pay for Harley’s next generation of machines? Harley doesn’t seem to know. And that’s why Harley is still doomed.

An Iron Order Motorcycle Club prospect shot and killed a Black Pistons patch holder in the parking lot of a Jacksonville Beach, Florida restaurant named Nippers Beach Grille at about 8:15 last night. The murder appears to be the latest incident in an escalating conflict contrived by the Iron Order between that club and multiple one percenter clubs motorcycle clubs in the Southeast.

According to witnesses, the Iron Order prospect was involved in a fight with Black Piston Zachariah J. Tipton. After Tipton bloodied the prospect’s nose, the bloodied man pulled a gun and shot Tipton four times in the face. According to Jacksonville Beach Police Chief Patrick Dooley, the inciting altercation involved “five or six men.” Tipton was pronounced dead at the scene.

Bike Night

A witness named David Johnson who was interviewed on camera by television station WJXT said, “It is a bit surreal, because I did actually see the guy die. I saw his face. I saw him turning purple. I saw him convulsing. I saw the gun shot wound and the blood coming out. It was not expected, especially for this area.”

“There wasn’t a lot of yelling or fighting or screaming or chaos. Everyone was calm. The guy who shot the individual there was in an altercation because his nose was bloody but he surrendered peacefully and when someone asked who shot the guy he said ‘I did’ and didn’t try to run away or anything.”

Police took the prospect into custody at the scene but have not announced his name or if charges will be brought against him or if he has been released from custody. Police have said that there may be as many as 30 witnesses to the murder.

The shooting occurred midway through Nippers’ “Bike Night.” Nippers co-sponsors the Thursday night event with Adamec Harley-Davidson. The event promises half-priced wings and two dollar Budweisers. The restaurant markets itself as “family friendly.” It is owned by Kenny Gilbert who was a contestant on the Bravo reality show Top Chef.

The Iron Order

The Iron Order describes itself as a “law abiding motorcycle club.” Numerous members of the club are sworn peace officers and reliable sources have said that at least some Iron Order patch holders are ATF agents. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives has been in the forefront of the ongoing federal war on motorcycle clubs.

Club president Ray “Izod” Lubesky has frequently urged his club’s members to cooperate with police.

Following a confrontation between members of the Iron Order and the Bandidos Motorcycle Club in 2011 Lubesky told his club, “We will cooperate with LE and we will prosecute. We will take all steps necessary to protect ourselves and go on down the road.”

In 2012, Iron Order members from four states gathered to buzz by the American Outlaws Association clubhouse in Statesville, North Carolina. During that incident, the Iron Order pack was shadowed and protected by unmarked police cars from at least four police departments.

Earlier this month, a letter, attributed to Lubesky, asked Laconia, New Hampshire Police Chief Christopher Adams to “assist us when we call upon you” “if we encounter any problems with other clubs” during the annual Laconia Motorcycle Week event. That letter continued, “Just keep an eye out for the protection of our members. We do our best in security but 1%ers are lowlife, dirty scum who will do anything to harm us. We will cooperate with all law enforcement. Unlike traditional clubs, we will testify when called upon. We will stay only in populated areas where there are witnesses.”

Details of the murder of Black Pistons patch holder Zachariah “Nas T” Tipton Thursday night in a parking lot outside a Jacksonville Beach, Florida restaurant named Nippers Beach Grille continue to emerge.

Tipton, above, was shot four times in the face by an Iron Order motorcycle club prospect. The prospect’s name is being withheld by police. The prospect is a former police officer who was initially held by police in protective custody. The Aging Rebel has not been able to determine if the anonymous prospect remained in protective custody Saturday morning. The shooter has told police he acted in self defense. Informed sources speaking on condition of anonymity have said they do not expect the shooter to be charged.

Jacksonville Beach police have camouflaged the investigation in a fog of details. Police have publically implied that the shooting was motiveless and that investigators continue to interview “230 witnesses.”

What Happened

The Aging Rebel has concluded that Tipton’s death was a murder. The shooting followed an altercation between two members of the Iron Order including the anonymous shooter and probably six opponents including Tipton. About 8:10 p.m. Thursday Tipton and his companions disagreed with the Iron Order members about whether it was appropriate for the Iron Order members to display their Iron Order insignia at the Nippers’ “Bike Night” co-sponsored with Adamec Harley-Davidson. The eight men all voluntarily left the bar and adjourned to the parking lot to engage in mutual combat. No one compelled the Iron Order members to leave the bar. After Tipton bloodied the ex-police officer’s nose the bloodied man pulled a gun and shot Tipton four times in the face.

Nippers bartender Lucas Duran, who is an Air Force Reserve medic, immediately administered first aid but was unable to save Tipton’s life.  Duran told the Florida Times-Union “He had a faint pulse when we got there so we kept doing CPR and he started to get some color back but with that much trauma to the head – the bullet he took was to the right side of his head – the ability to survive that is pretty slim.”

Nippers owner Rudy Theale told the Times-Union “the incident started and ended outside and neither the victim nor the gunman were paying patrons that night.”

Iron Order members routinely cooperate with police and are encouraged to do so by club leaders. Black Pistons members do not usually cooperate with police. Consequently, most officials statements about Tipton’s murder are likely to reflect the Iron Order’s version of events.

Aftermath

Yesterday afternoon Jacksonville Beach police spokesman Sergeant Thomas Crumley issued the following vague statement about the case: “At this time, there are a number of people alleged to be involved or have some involvement in this investigation…. Due to the large scope of this investigation, the determination of appropriate or possible charges has not been reached at this time.”

Tipton, who was 40, left behind a wife and three children. Nippers will sponsor a fundraiser today, Saturday June 28, to assist Tipron’s survivors pay his funeral expenses.

There have been no charges filed in the murder last Thursday night of Black Piston Zachariah “Nas T” Tipton outside Nippers Beach Grille in Jacksonville Beach, Florida.

Tipton was shot in the face and head four times during an altercation between three Black Pistons and two members of the Iron Order Motorcycle Club. The Iron Order identifies itself as “a law abiding motorcycle club.” Tipton is the only one of the five men involved in the altercation who has been officially identified.

The Black Pistons Motorcycle Club is closely identified with and supports the American Outlaws Association. Relations between the Iron Order and the Outlaws have been strained since at least 2009.

Police don’t want to talk about this case. Sergeant Tom Crumley, the public affairs officer for the Jacksonville Beach, Florida Police Department politely declined to comment about the case this afternoon. Attempts to talk to other federal and independent investigators who might have knowledge of the case have also been unsuccessful.

The Murder

The Aging Rebel has been told by multiple sources that the two Iron Order members, a patched member and a prospect, anticipated the arrival of the Black Pistons at the Nippers Bike Night event and were prepared for a conflict. According to the sources, the Iron Order members were in Nippers for an hour before the Black Pistons arrived and inquired about the Black Pistons estimated time of arrival.

Nippers owner Rudy Theale told the Florida Times-Union “the incident started and ended outside and neither the victim or the gunman were paying patrons that night.” The Aging Rebel believes Theale misspoke when he made that statement. It is unclear whether the Black Pistons had time to buy a drink before they became embroiled in a disagreement with the Iron Order members.

The disagreement was over the display of Iron Order insignia in Jacksonville. Both the Iron Order and the Outlaws wear insignia that is black and white. Generally, in the motorcycle club world, new clubs solicit the advice of established clubs about the display of insignia. For example, if members of the Iron Order committed a crime in Jacksonville, civilians and police officers might mistake the Iron Order insignia for A.O.A. insignia and erroneously assume the crime had been committed by Outlaws.

One of the two Iron Order members involved in the fight took responsibility for shooting Tipton. According to an eyewitness, when police asked who shot Tipton the Iron Order prospect answered “I did.” Tipton was shot three times in the face and once in the temple. Multiple, independent sources have identified the Iron Order prospect as a former Jacksonville area police officer. Multiple sources have also alleged that the actual shooter was the other Iron Order member involved in the altercation.

The same sources have speculated that the prospect assumed responsibility for the shooting because his status as a former police officer would lead investigators accept his ”confession” at face value. Although Crumley declined to confirm it, The Aging Rebel believes the unnamed prospect was released from custody over the weekend. Crumley denied that there was “any suspect” and declined to say whether the confessed shooter’s hands had been tested for gunpowder residue. Crumley previously stated that the investigation of Tipton’s death involved interviewing 230 potential witnesses.

As usually happens following shootings, police are not releasing the make or caliber of the pistol used to kill Tipton.

Iron Order

The Iron Order states it “was started by a few hardcore bikers in a garage on July 4, 2004.” The Iron Order was originally a motorcycle club for members of law enforcement and the club still has numerous members who are local, state and federal police officers.

The Iron Order incorporated in Kentucky on September 25, 2008 as “Iron Order MC Hopnmad, LLC.” The registered agent for the limited liability corporation is John C. Whitfield and the official address for the corporation is 29 E. Center Street Madisonville, KY 42431 which is also the address of a law firm named Whitfield Bryson & Mason LLP. Whitfield was out of his office and unavailable for comment today.

The LLC categorizes itself as a civic organization with annual revenues of about $110,000.

Sixty-six years ago, on July 6 1948, the Los Angeles Times editorialized: “Just a year ago, the town of Hollister was taken apart by 4000 roistering motorcyclists who drove their vehicles into bars and restaurants, hurled bottles out of windows and into streets, fought, rioted and destroyed, until they were dispersed with the threat of teargas.” Sounds like fun, doesn’t it?

Actually, it probably wasn’t that good. Actually the Times depended on an account written by a towering figure of American journalism named C. I. Dourghty Jr. Dourghty wasn’t actually there when any of this took place but there are strong indications that he did interview some people who were.

Dourghty called the weekend an “outburst of terrorism” and he reported “wrecking of bars, bottle barrages into the streets from upper story windows and roofs and high speed racing of motorcycles though the streets.” He also said peace was restored only after 40 California Highway Patrolmen, armed with the threat, but not the actual deployment, of teargas, “herded the cyclists into a block on San Benito street, between Fifth and Sixth Streets, parked a dance band on a truck and ordered the musicians to play.” Isn’t that a wonderful story? Wouldn’t this be a better world if hardworking reporters with deadlines to meet could just make up stuff like that and get down the street to the nearest reporters’ bar?

Biker Menace

The Times believed Dourghty. The world believed Dourghty.

“Even in a country where almost anything is rather more than likely to happen,” one of Norman Chandler’s fine editorialists sagely observed, “the motorcycle raid is a startling development. It gives Californians in peacetime the hair raising experience of guerilla warfare. Police have a strange, new problem, dealing with mobile, mounted hoodlums, thousands strong. It is not the fault of the police that they can’t cope with the problem.”

It’s like the voice over narration of an episode of Gangland isn’t it? All it needs is some stock footage and an interview with Steve Cook.

And so was born the biker menace and the war on outlaw bikers. And, of course “It is not the fault of the police that they can’t cope with the problem.” Steve couldn’t have put it better himself. The police need more overtime, much more overtime, and better body armor and machine guns and tanks! Or the bikers will drive their vehicles into your bars!

Meanwhile In Sundance

Like that time that Hamster rode into the Dime Horseshoe on Third Street in Sundance and put his front wheel against the bar and did a burnout right there. Inside. Ruined the bar floor. Took days to air out that stink. The Hamsters paid for the damage. No arrests were effected.

But that momentous event in biker history is still commemorated annually during Sturgis week with the Sundance Burnouts: Which basically is like money falling from the clouds for the enterprising residents of Sundance, Wyoming.

Much as the enterprising residents of Hollister have learned to make money fall from the sky during that town’s annual commemoration of the Hollister riot. Of course, the biker menace is still very real, even more real than pixie dust and unicorns. So public safety concerns must be addressed lest all the good burghers of Hollister find themselves in another, thrilling, guerilla war.

Safety And Water

The annual Hollister celebration was actually cancelled for a few years because the police just didn’t feel the public would be safe unless the merchants who make the most money from this historic event paid an army of sworn peace officers $120,000 a day to save Hollister once again. One hundred twenty large per day and not a penny less.

“Cutting back on law enforcement costs,” City Manager Clint Quilter proclaimed, “could potentially result in police officers being manned around the downtown perimeter until the event’s completion when they would deal with the aftermath.” In other words, if the merchants didn’t pay up the police would retreat to a safe location and leave the townsfolk on their own to explain to the biker horde why a plastic bottle of warm tap water cost six dollars.

“For six dollars Mongo want cold Perrier!”

Welcome To Panopticonia

Fortunately this year, thanks to the many wonders and miracles of the modern Panopticon police state, the historic reenactment of the rape of Hollister will be more profitable and safer than ever. Just last week the City of Hollister installed 36 brand new surveillance cameras.

“We can’t have an officer standing on every corner,” a police captain named Carlos Reynoso told KSBW Action News 8, “but if we have these cameras up they’re an independent witness as to what happened and it’s a tool we can use in the future to solve crimes or find out what really happened in certain situations.”

Action News 8 reports, “Most of the cameras are located in the downtown area which hosts the annual Fourth of July biker rally. This year’s rally is expected to draw more than 100,000 people during the three-day weekend. The rally and the large presence of biker gangs was the reason the cameras were approved, despite some concerns that they’re an invasion of privacy.”

The cameras cost Hollister $318,000 so the price of water may be going up this year.

Wouldn’t it be great if C. I. Dourghty Jr. emerged from a cave somewhere and got a job at Action News 8?

The rally starts this Friday. Bring extra cash because it can get hot in Hollister in July and you might get thirsty. And if you find yourself in a public place be sure to look as harmless as possible. The cameras will be constantly monitored during the rally. So try to remember to smile constantly.

Happy, happy, happy! Harmless, harmless, harmless!

There are a couple of storms brewing in Florida. One is called Arthur and it threatens to rain out Independence Day for most of the East Coast. The other is the unholy alliance between an ersatz motorcycle club called the Iron Order and civilian and military police in northern Florida.

The Iron Order storm began last Thursday night when an unnamed Iron Order prospect killed a  Black Piston patch holder named Zachariah “Nas T” Tipton outside Nippers Beach Grille in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. Jacksonville Beach police have been lying about what happened ever since. Police in Northern Florida have “investigated” the shooting by meeting with Iron Order club officers who are current or former police officers. The Jacksonville press has mostly magnified the police lies.

For example, Jacksonville television station WJXT, which has reported on Tipton’s murder almost daily, has yet to tell its viewers that the murder resulted from a dispute between a traditional motorcycle club and a de facto cop club over which club can claim preeminence in Jacksonville. It is likely that the WJXT television journalists are completely ignorant of the phenomenon of outlaw motorcycle clubs run by policemen so they are blind to what that implies. The Iron Order, founded by a former federal policeman, includes not just policemen in its ranks but federal policemen whose day job is to entrap and overcharge members of motorcycle clubs. The Iron Order has gone out of its way to provoke confrontations with other motorcycle clubs nationwide for the last five years. The Iron Order currently looks like the tip of the spear in a dirty war between crooked cops and righteous outlaws.

According to multiple informed sources, the shooter in last week’s homicide was a former cop. It is reasonable at this point to at least wonder out loud if some federal bureaucrat just green lighted motorcycle outlaws.

Tha Newz

Yesterday WJXT asked “Was Nippers shooting justifiable force” and speculated that the “State Attorney’s Office” might yet be “determining whether to file charges.”

The television station quoted a local attorney named Gene Nichols who provided a plausible sound bite. “If the State Attorney’s Office believes the shooter acted in justifiable form, he won’t be taken into custody,” Nichols said. “If he wasn’t arrested that night, then they’re probably not going to be arrested until a warrant is issued by a judge.”

WJXT repeated an amazing police lie that the details of the homicide can’t be known with certainty until local cops complete “interviewing more than 200 witnesses.”

“What they don’t want to do is have different entities interviewing other witnesses,” Nichols said. “We saw this in the (George) Zimmerman case where four or five come in, and after time there are changes in the stories.”

The local attorney told the television station “it could be weeks or even months until prosecutors make a decision.”

The Facts

The exact number of combatants remains unclear. The night of the murder police said the shooting followed a fight involving either five or six men. Informed sources have told The Aging Rebel that the fight was between three Black Pistons and two members of the Iron Order. Sources have also said the Iron Order members were in Nippers for an hour before the Black Pistons arrived and that they had anticipated the Black Pistons arrival.

The fight was an episode in an ongoing dispute between the Jacksonville chapters of the Black Pistons and the Iron Order over whether the Iron Order could simply appropriate the Black Pistons – and American Outlaws Association – distinctive colors without so much as a “please.” In the motorcycle club world, men fight and die for their colors and symbols. The Iron Order knows that and has gone out of its way to intentionally insult both the A.O.A. and the Mongols Motorcycle Club. So the “five or six men” fought last Thursday night in the parking lot outside Nippers.

Tipton bloodied the shooter’s nose. The shooter retaliated by pulling a pistol and firing four shots. At least two of the shots struck Tipton in the face. Tipton was also shot, execution style, in the temple. A bartender at Nippers who is also a combat medic tried to save his life but the head shot was too grievous to survive and Tipton was pronounced dead at the scene. His funeral is today.

Police Talk

While WJXT and the Florida Times-Union had all but given up trying to explain Tipton’s mysterious and apparently motiveless murder, Northern Florida police were busy speculating about a possible biker war. A law enforcement safety bulletin was circulating among police departments in the state last Friday. It began:

“A ‘kill on sight’ order was issued by Outlaws/Black Pistons for members of IOMC. Be aware as MC traffic may increase due to upcoming funeral. The Iron Order M/C officers I met with wanted to get the message out that they ARE NOT a 1% motorcycle club, nor do they aspire to become one or to be known as one. Normally, at least in my experience and interaction with the club, they are LEO friendly and most wear a Maltese Cross as an indicator they are armed. Of the club officers I met with this evening, all are former LEOs with the exception of one – and he is an Active Duty First Sergeant affiliated with Security Forces. So. the information I received today came from a VERY RELIABLE source.

“So far, what they have on the shooting in Jacksonville is as follows: Sometime on the evening of 6/26/2014, two IOMC prospects were accosted by numerous members of the Black Pistons M/C at a gathering in Jacksonville. A member of the Black Pistons was shot and killed. The IOMC shooter has been released without being charged, as the shooting has been ruled ‘self defense’.”

The bulletin continued: “In order to reduce the probability for problems, the local chapters of IOMC will not be wearing any colors or identifiers for a while. The date of the funeral for the Black Piston who was killed is unknown, but assumedly it will be early next week. A large contingent of Black Pistons/Outlaws (estimated to be 200+) were seen traveling from Savannah southbound towards Northeast Florida this afternoon (6/27/2014).

“Your safety is paramount and I want you to be armed with this information so that you can conduct yourself accordingly and respond appropriately should there be any issues…. This is a volatile situation and if you happen to respond to a call involving these groups, understand this could ‘GO SOUTH’ in a hurry, so be prepared, and ideally, don’t go alone.”

Black Piston Zachariah J. Tipton was buried today. He leaves behind a wife and three children. Anyone who would like to contribute to a memorial fund to defer funeral and other expenses for his survivors can donate any amount to account number 7504785420 at Vystar Credit Union in Jacksonville, Florida.

IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.–Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.

He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.

He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.

He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

*****

The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:
Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

In two conversations recorded earlier this year, Mike “Cgar” Crouse of Fayetteville, North Carolina, the International Sergeant at Arms of the Iron Order Motorcycle Club, made multiple statements indicating that Iron order members were encouraged to provoke confrontations with members of other motorcycle clubs because in Crouse’s words, such confrontations were a “free ticket” to “destroy.”

The Iron Order is alone among all three piece patch motorcycle clubs in encouraging its members to gain a strategic advantage in disputes with other clubs by tattling to police. In multiple instances, Iron Order President Ray “Izod” Lubesky has told his club’s members in writing, “We will cooperate with LE (law enforcement) and we will prosecute.”

There is a massive amount of evidence that indicates that the Iron Order feels free to provoke fights and even use deadly force against other motorcycle clubs with the foreknowledge that the Iron Order’s victims will not cooperate with police.

Honor Code

Most motorcycle clubs subscribe to a code of honor that includes precepts similar to the following.

“If you ever get arrested never make a statement of any kind. Don’t make the stupid mistake of trying to talk your way out of jail. All you’ll end up doing is telling on yourself or implicating Brothers or someone else. Always say you have nothing to say and you want to speak to an attorney.”

“If subpoenaed or questioned as a possible witness, never say anything adverse that would cause anyone to go to jail, even if it’s not a Brother.”

“If a local Law Enforcement Task Force wants to talk to you for any reason always take at least one other Brother with you. If you are wanted or questioned for possible criminal charges, take your lawyer and don’t tell them shit.”

“Remember, if you can save a member from doing a large amount of time by doing a small amount of time, then do it without hesitation. You may need someone to do it for you someday.”

“Never press charges on anyone. If you get in a street fight and a citizen calls the man, and you happen to be the victim you do not press charges. Never testify in court or a parole hearing as an adverse witness. You may testify as a friendly witness only.”

Iron Order Code

In a conversation about four months ago, the Iron Order International Sergeant at Arms said: “I know our club has the advantage. One percenters won’t call the cops. So what the fuck, destroy any fucker that confronts you. It’s a free ticket….”

The motorcycle club honor code is based on the premise that clubs will “handle their own business” when two clubs have a dispute. One nationally known member of a brand name motorcycle club has described biker justice as “swift and primal.” The American Outlaws Association has a proverb that describes biker justice as inevitable – “God Forgives Outlaws Don’t.”

The Iron Order has decided as a club that the threat of extra-judicial justice is hollow. In a conversation about three months ago Crouse bragged, “These people and clubs talk shit on the internet but they are like crickets. As soon as we come around they shut the fuck up.”

The Tipton Murder

The Iron Order has blatantly adopted a strategy of claiming territory and dominating clubs that “handle their own business.”

That is what happened in the June 26 murder of Black Pistons Motorcycle Club member Zachariah Tipton outside Nippers Beach Grille in Jacksonville Beach, Florida. An unnamed former police officer who was an Iron Order prospect and an unnamed accomplice awaited the arrival of Tipton and either two or three other members of the Black Pistons in order to intentionally provoke a dispute about the Iron Order’s insignia.

When the argument became a fist fight, one of the two Iron Order members drew a pistol and fired four shots. At least two of the shots struck Tipton in the face and another shot struck Tipton in the temple. Tipton was pronounced dead at the scene. His companions refused to cooperate with police. The police accepted the Iron order members’ account without question and the Iron Order members were immediately released.

Jacksonville Beach police have stonewalled the press about the shooting ever since and the Iron Order appears to have gotten away with murder

There was a shooting in Hollister yesterday morning between members of two motorcycle clubs. Members of both clubs have been reluctant to share details about the shooting so, unfortunately, most information about the incident has been released by police.

Most readers of this site understand that multiple police departments including the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives regularly read both articles and comments posted to The Aging Rebel. Television station KION has reported that one of the two clubs involved in the shooting was the Boozefighters Motorcycle Club.

Police Account

According to Hollister police, “two rival motorcycle clubs had a physical altercation” at the Hollister Rally site in downtown Hollister on Saturday night.  “One member of the involved clubs was arrested for a concealed weapons violation (possession of dirk or dagger). Both clubs left the event area shortly after this incident.”

Sunday morning at approximately 11 o’clock, as one of the clubs was gassing up, the “same two clubs crossed paths at the Chevron Station” “at 631 San Felipe Road” “and violence erupted. It appears that multiple people in both clubs were involved in an initial physical altercation which then resulted in shots being fired by one or more people involved in this altercation.”

The police release states “All four victims received medical attention by Hollister Fire Department” and a private ambulance service named American Medical Response.

The police release continues, “Three of these victims were flown for medical attention to bay area hospitals. No information is available on the medical condition of these victims. It should be noted; a fourth victim refused medical attention at the crime scene. This investigation is in its preliminary stages. Investigative leads are being followed up at this time. However initially; it appears there are multiple suspects.”

Hollister Police Chief David Westrick is quoted in the press release as saying, “Grown men shooting at each other over colors is in no way honorable or respectful to our community’s hospitality. Like I’ve said in the past, if you want to fight over colors, fight for our Nation’s red, white and blue.”

Three of the wounded were transported to “a Bay Area hospital.”

The Aging Rebel has no connection to the aedvertisement in the KTVU video below.

Police in Hollister, California announced yesterday that the shooting Sunday morning at a Chevron on San Felipe Road resulted from a confrontation between the Boozefighters Motorcycle Club and the Wino’s Crew Motorcycle Club.

Three unidentified Boozefighters were shot and evacuated to a Bay Area hospital. A fourth Boozefighter, identified by police as Michael Richard Kich, 42, of Reno, Nevada was arrested on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and posted bail.

Hollister Police Chief David Westrick said, “The initial investigation and witness statements revealed the confrontation was with a rival motorcycle club, Wino’s Crew. Several of those involved, witnesses, and victims, are not cooperating with police in this investigation. The cause of this incident is still under investigation. However, the Wino’s Crew website hints at a feud since 1996 between the Boozefighters and the Wino’s Crew.”

The Wino’s Crew MC took down its website after Westrick made his statement.

Two Clubs

The continuing disagreement between the Boozefighters and Wino’s Crew is roughly analogous to the continuing disagreement between the Warlocks Motorcycle Club that wears a harpy patch and is based in Philadelphia and the Chester, Pennsylvania chapter of the Harpy Warlocks.

Both the Boozefighters and Wino’s Crew state that they were founded by William “Wino Willie” Forkner who died in June 1997. The Boozefighters state that they were founded in 1946 and Wino’s Crew states that it was founded in 1946 “under a different name.” Both clubs claim to have been founded at the All American Bar in Los Angeles.

Wino’s Crew asserts “We are a brotherhood formed around the traditions and memory of Wino Willie Forkner, founder of the Boozefighters MC. We are not a part of the BFMC nor are we a farm club. We were organized to defend Wino Willie, ‘JD’ John and the rest of the original Boozefighters from being dumped on by the new breed of Boozefighters in Texas.”

The events that led to a schism in the Boozefighters began in 1993 when Forkner stepped down as President and two younger members assumed control of the club. The new leaders incorporated and designed and trademarked the Boozefighters’ current logo.

After Forkner stepped aside the Boozefighters began to expand and contemplated a merger with another motorcycle club in the Southeast – which would have made the Boozefighters a prominent national club. A nasty, public fight between a faction of the club loyal to Wino Willie and the new breed of Boozefighters ensued. Depending on to whom you talk, Forkner may or may not have tried to disassociate himself from the Boozefighters. Forkner did openly complain about the changing of the guard in an article in Thunder Press in 1996.

Flashpoint

The result of all these club politics in the last four years of Forkner’s life was that the Boozefighters became a larger and more prominent club than it had once been and a new club, Wino’s Crew, formed to preserve, protect and defend the grudge. Wino’s Crew now has chapters in Texas, California, Norway and England.

Hollister police have stated the Sunday morning shooting was the fruit of a confrontation between the two clubs outside Johnny’s Bar & Grill in Hollister on Saturday night. Police responded to that incident and arrested Wino’s Crew patch holder Kelly Eugene Rivas of Grass Valley, California for carrying a concealed knife. Police have said that fight was recorded by the newly installed video surveillance apparatus in downtown Hollister.

This story was modified on July 8, 2014. The original version of this story stated the Wino’s Crew MC has a chapter in Germany. That was corrected to state the club has chapters in England and Norway.