The clubhouse was being attacked by a rival club. That does happen. My truck was blown up, so unfortunately that's, it does go on.
And I don't know that it's ever going to end. My name's Pat Matter. I was involved in outlaw motorcycle clubs for 31 years.
I was the president and founder of the Minneapolis chapter of Hells Angels. Today we'll be looking at biker gangs movies and TV to judge how real they are. You wouldn't find the Minneapolis chapter involved with the chase scene where they're rolling down the freeway.
The riding the motorcycle on a chase is pretty dangerous anyway, and if you're trying to carry a gun, shoot at people, you'd most generally want to be in a car to do that. But it has happened in the club. Not my chapter.
On this show were actual members of the Hells Angels. So it gets scenes from or scripted from the real Hells Angels. The motorcycle Jax is riding on is Harley Davidson Dyna Glide, which was preferably the ride of the Hells Angels.
As far as riding goes, the riding formation is the president, I rode the left lane all the time, and generally who I wanted riding beside me. But typically if we went in order, it'd be the vice president, and then on back, you know, with the secretary and sergeant of arms bringing up the rear behind all membership. Of course, that's kind of out the window when you're in a motorcycle chase.
So I don't think formation's a big deal there. SG 551s, AKs. As far as gun running, the Minneapolis chapter wasn't involved with that.
It draws too much heat. I tried to remain undercover or as low-profile as I could. But there was instances during a time when some of the Hells Angels were busted for gun running.
And that was in South Carolina. There was one incident because I was out of the club when that happened. $500K should cover half plus your transport payment.
They're wearing black leather vests, which happened to be made by Hells Angels. Lil Joe from Purdue owned the company. So usually a typical Hells Angel vest, you would have the three-piece on the back, which would be Hells Angels top rocker, a middle patch, which is the death head, and the lower rocker, stating where you're from.
You have the choice of either wearing a leather or a denim, a vest, you know? And I personally wore a black leather vest, so I'd base it on a 4 probably overall. Told you to take that stupid jacket off.
You'd have to kill me to get this jacket off. Where he said, "You'll have to kill me to get this patch off me," I'm sure that would've been a member's reply. That's what I called the cut, or whatever.
You know, that jacket has the insignia on the back. As far as any outlaw club, especially a 1% club, it is probably about the biggest insult you could possibly have as an outlaw member, losing your patch. And if you're going to join one of them 1% clubs, well, they say 99% of motorcycle riders are law-abiding, and 1% is not law-abiding.
And the Hells Angels happens to be one of the 1% clubs. You lose your patch, that's a pretty important thing. There's going to be retaliation.
What about the bar? Burn it down. A scene like this where the bar gets burnt down could have very well happened.
In 1994, we had a prospective chapter that the Minnesota was Hells Angels were sponsoring, the Hells Henchmen. And they had a clubhouse in Chicago. Well, naturally, the Outlaws are from there, and they didn't like another club wanting to join the Hells Angels.
So there was a bomb placed in a car right outside the clubhouse, and I believe it was the third-biggest bomb in history on the United States soil. One of my members from Minnesota was down there, and I was worried about him being, I remember this very well, so I called down to find out if he was OK, and he was. And nobody got hurt on this deal, but it was quite a big deal.
This would be a 10, because it's happened. I mean I've, you know, witnessed it personally. A prospect, you know, has got to at least prospect for one year before he can be brought up for membership.
I run a lie-detector test on potential members before I ever let him become a prospect to see if they had ever worked with law enforcement or ever testified against anybody. In the membership of the Hells Angels, there's naturally the president, a vice president, secretary, a treasury, and a sergeant of arms. And the idea of prospect is to get to know the individual and see what he's about.
With the drugs out in the open in a place where other folks are working, and it seemed like the club was all there doing it as a whole, that wouldn't happen in the Hells Angels. Because all the Hells Angels aren't into illegal activities. Some are, some aren't.
In the Hells Angels, I did get involved eventually with distribution of methamphetamine. In my situation, there would've never been no clothing store involved, or any store, you know? Mine was all hand-delivered and flown in to me.
I was very transparent with what I did. So members, if they wanted to be involved in an illegal act, my illegal activity, could, and there was no problem if they didn't want to be, either. As far as the drugs as a whole and a business scene like that, no, I'd say that's a probably about a zero, from my point of view.
The clubhouse was being attacked by a rival club. That does happen. My experiences, you know, with rival gangs, I run into a lot of clubs drag racing, and when I went to the races, I wore a bulletproof vest at all times and always made sure there was a handgun close, as I was surrounded once by the Outlaws and another time by the Pagans.
After one incident in Milwaukee, there was a bomb, C4, planted in my truck. In '93, December 15, is when my truck was blown up. So things like this do happen, you know.
Unfortunately it does go on, and I don't know that it's ever going to end. Have your vote? I vote for war.
I vote war. Membership voting on the president not wanting to go to war with another club. The Hells Angels are probably the most democratic club there is.
And it's a "one man, one vote. " So the president's only, you know, he says what's going on at the time, but if there's a meeting, he's only one man, one vote, too. But it depends on, you know, the president's usually a pretty respected individual from that charter, and so he does have a lot of say.
And then the other two, I'd give an 8 at least. Well I'd like to say, you know, the revving of the motorcycles maybe early on in the Hells Angels, but like I said, again, the club used to try to be low-key, you know, when we come to town and stuff. Fellas, youse are not dressed properly.
Youse going to have to leave. Properly? What's wrong with the way we're dressed?
Them are mostly Hells Angels in that scene. Steve from Bridgeport, Butch from New York City, and Greg Domey from Massachusetts. Bars for clubs to hang out in, but it's usually bars that were, the club knows folks, so they can come in with their attire on.
A lot of bars refuse to serve you for that purpose. Which goes into, in Minnesota here I had a lobbyist help me with a bill that we passed for, it's illegal for bars to discriminate against the clothing you wear and the mode of transportation when you do go to bars. That wasn't very nice.
Now youse got to leave. I'll tell you when the f--- we leave, all right? That happens quite a bit.
Barroom fights generally, if they tell you they refuse to serve you with your colors on, or once you take them off, the club would leave. An instant go to jail, you know, when you get into brawl like that. Well this happened in Laughlin, Nevada.
The Hells Angels ran into another club called the Mongols in a casino. And naturally the two clubs don't get along, and it jumped off in the casino. Wasn't planned that way, but in them circumstances, brawls do happen.
Sonny, come on, let's get the f--- out. In the scene here, I see Sonny in the movie as the mafia boss. Well, you know, I've never encountered anything like that.
And in the club, don't care if it's the mafia or who it is at the time that's telling them they're refusing to serve him with their patch on. It would happen. There would be a brawl.
I give it a 7 or 8, because it has happened and not real frequent. Members only, pork chop. It's OK, I'm meeting a friend.
What's this big shot's name? If you have somebody unannounced come to the clubhouse, you usually talk to them before, you know, you let them in the club. That part is very doable there.
You have to have a clubhouse to establish a chapter in the Hells Angels. And security-wise, yes, we had cameras to protect ourselves both ways, from law enforcement and other motorcycle clubs that wanted to plant bombs or whatever. I'm a lawyer.
I just, I just need five minutes. Let's say we had a party or a benefit party, and we open up the clubhouse, you're more apt to have a problem there, because they don't get vetted as, you know, there's tickets being sold to everybody. And generally if you're doing a benefit, you want people to come back.
There's a sign on the wall at the clubhouse that said, "If you're not bleeding when you're leaving, you're welcome back. " So I mean, you know, it don't happen that often. I mean, you know, if it is somebody got out of line or whatever, yeah.
If I don't get answers, a lot of innocent blood could be shed. I-90 with four brothers transporting a big score. No, a member don't share information from the club to somebody from the general public, or especially a lawyer or something to that effect.
If he did, he'd be kicked out. What am I going to do here? Four.
Not saying it couldn't happen, but it wouldn't happen as far as I'm concerned. Not in the Minneapolis chapter. I don't think I could stand the smell.
No, that's not a typical, you know, burning it off would be pretty harsh. They're usually just covered up, you know, blacked out. That's bad enough.
As far as tattooing, here's the rules of the Hells Angels. My chapter in Minneapolis, so you had to have a year in before you could get a club tattoo. The thing with getting that tattoo is when you leave the club, if you're in good standing, your tattoo remains the same way it was.
It's just an out date on it. Let's say you was out December 1, 1989, or whatever. That's got to be on there.
Otherwise, if you're out in bad standings, they're inked over. I give it a 4 because of that. The reality here.
This worthless piece of s--- is a cop. With an undercover police officer trying to infiltrate the club, Hells Angels have had a few undercover police try to infiltrate the club. One was Jay Dobyns.
Until they did the raids is when he was finally exposed to who it was. And there was another incidence with Tony Tait. He never got found out either until they did raids.
And what he did was he come to Minnesota, our club was doing security on membership that joined the meeting, and we had a bug detector. He seen that we was checking people and got scared. So I did have a little experience with a situation like this.
What the f--- you looking at, pig? Take it easy, friend. As I see here, Charlie Sheen, he's trying to build his cover so they don't figure out he's working for law enforcement.
In my experience, what I did actually was, I never worked undercover or anything like that. Most of mine was just, you know, confirming what I did in my business. Two individuals went to jail over that, and one was a Hells Angel, and one was my source.
When I decided to cooperate, I was already in jail. I ended up going to federal prison for drugs, and if I didn't cooperate, they was going to charge me with continuous criminal enterprise after they got enough informants. And so I decided that point, because of my family and my age, that I was going to cooperate.
With the other charge, who knows what time I would've done. Could've been life. You're under arrest, Blood.
I was a hard-core Hells Angel, and I don't regret being a Hells Angel. I regret some of the actions that I did when I was a Hells Angel. That part is on me.
As far as when I got out of prison, I was asked to do seminars for law enforcement. Just telling them about my life experiences and what happened to me and how they can maybe stop drugs if they can. This is 10, you know, or 9 or 10, because it does happen.
You can't be here. It's private property. Sign says Yellowstone.
As far as being on private property like that, the Hells Angels would've probably made sure that there was no problem before we camped someplace. When Hells Angels usually are on a run site, it's because they've already asked beforehand and get permission. Trespassing we wouldn't do.
It'd be looking for trouble. You got a problem ? What you say to me?
I called you a ----. There is no membership with women in the club as far as the Hells Angels or the other club I was involved in. And usually the women there are the club members' wives.
As far as the trespassing and the women being involved in a fight like that, I've never seen it happen. And I'd probably rate that at a zero, because I've never seen it happen. The reality of the club being involved in a riot in town, I haven't seen it.
In some cases, it has happened. For instance, in 1948 in Hollister, there was an event that turned into a riot, with a few motorcycle clubs being there. In a situation like this, where just local citizens are being attacked, if there's no reason for it, it don't happen.
I'd only give it a very low score. Two. You're a prospective now, man.
I think if I was a prospect and had that all poured over me, I'd be fighting somebody. You know, usually if a prospect makes member, we'll go out to a bar or party at the clubhouse. My initiation was really nothing.
I mean, you're voted in and congratulated, and we had a big party. That stuff might have happened in the '70s and '60s. '94, we all rode to San Francisco, you know, from Minneapolis to San Francisco, for the World Run.
So it's very common for everybody to get together and ride across country like this, what they're doing here. If there's room to do it and stuff. If they're at a hill climb and stuff, yeah, you know, I can see members joining in to do a hill climb or a drag race, whatever.
But yeah, usually the run site's just mostly dedicated to, you know, hanging out and visiting with members from other charters and where have you from. On a scale from one to 10, I'd give it a 6, because, you know, afterwards they're partying and stuff. The only thing I don't see happening anymore is pouring all the stuff on the member.
As far as clubs and chains in a brawl, yeah, anything's used in a brawl, I guess. I was to say like the women's Polish Hall, they had club, knives, chains. No guns.
They had planted before it opened up for the bike show. But guns come into play also when stuff like this happens. A 3, because attacking people on your motorcycle with a chain just is not really common.
My favorite biker gang show is "Sons of Anarchy," and reason is, there's some Hells Angels that helped film that show, and it's kind of a take off of the membership of the Hells Angels. Thanks for watching. If you enjoyed this video, click on the next one.
