Please note in these posts we differentiate between true motorcycle clubs and riding organizations:
Shocked rival motorcycle gang members are seeking a meeting after a man was bludgeoned to death in front of horrified passengers at Sydney's Domestic Airport yesterday in a major escalation of the city's bikie gang war.
Four men have been charged with affray and more charges are expected to follow after the 29-year-old western Sydney man was repeatedly smashed in the head with a metal bollard, used to keep passengers in line during check-in
.
The killing has raised questions about the level of security at the airport and prompted vows from the New South Wales Premier Nathan Rees to crack down on gangs.
Mr Rees is holding emergency meetings with police chiefs this morning and has promised to give officers whatever powers they need.
Passengers at Sydney Airport were left clearly traumatised after the attack, which started when a group of men got off a plane and were set upon by by a rival group of bikies about 1:30pm yesterday.
The brawl between at least 15 rival bikies is believed to have then moved from the secured area of the terminal to the check-in area near the curbside entrance.
Some of the men beat each other with metal bollards. A Lakemba man was knocked to the ground and repeatedly smashed in the head.
A nurse tried to resuscitate the 29-year-old but he was pronounced dead a short time later after being taken to hospital.
Witnesses say security staff were slow to act. Police arrested four men shortly after the attack but it is believed many others involved escaped, possibly in taxis.
It is also believed the attack was captured on security cameras.
The four men, aged between 21 and 25, have been refused bail to face a Sydney court today.
Security expert Neil Fergus, the director of intelligence at the Sydney Olympics and the co-author of a damning government-commissioned report into airport security, says the incident has raised many questions about procedures in place at Sydney Airport.
"There's a great deal of time and money invested into security at Sydney Airport and it's dramatically improved," he said.
"Questions in relation to this one stem largely from the fact that the policing model that's been put in place there has been designed to deal with acts of criminality.
"So there are some inquiries the appropriate authorities will undoubtedly want to make to try to determine how long it took from the start of the incident to when a police response was able to attend."
Gang violence escalating
There have been various reports about which bikie gangs were involved in yesterday's incident. Some indicate the man who died was a member of the
Hells Angels but a senior motorcycle gang source has told ABC Radio's AM program this is not the case.
Other bikie gangs suspected to be involved include the
Comancheros, the
Bandidos and
Notorious, an emerging force on the bikie scene.
Police are also investigating a gun battle in the western Sydney suburb of Auburn early yesterday morning in which two teenagers were injured. It is believed the battle was between members of the
Bandidos and Notorious.
Officers also believe Notorious members sprayed two western Sydney houses with bullets on Wednesday night. The seven people inside the homes at the time were lucky to escape injury.
There was yet another drive-by shooting in western Sydney last night, when a house in Bossley Park was shot at while a man and woman were inside. They also escaped injury.
There have been many other shootings across the area in recent weeks,
as well as the bombing of a Hells Angels clubhouse in February.
Senior motorcycle gang sources have told the ABC Radio's AM program they are shocked by the violence and are seeking a meeting between rival clubs as a way to let cooler heads prevail.
Emergency meetings
Emergency meetings are also being held in Sydney this morning between NSW Premier Nathan Rees and police chiefs, as pressure mounts for the state to consider introducing tough new anti-bikie laws.
Mr Rees says he will give police whatever powers they need to crack down on bikie gangs.
"If the Commissioner has a request for more penalties or more powers, then he will get them," he said.
South Australia introduced what have been described as the toughest anti-bikie laws in the world last year, after a series of shootings, murders, home invasions and drug deals, but the verdict is out on whether the crackdown has worked.\
Introduced last September, the Serious and Organised Crime Control Act was aimed firmly at South Australia's eight bikie gangs and their 250 members.
Under the powers, the state's Attorney-General can declare a bikie gang an outlaw organisation. Magistrates can also issue control orders stopping members associating, while police can ban gang members from attending public events or places on public safety grounds.
SA Premier Mike Rann says his state faced an enormous threat from organised criminal gangs and while the law is in its infancy, he is convinced it will work.
"[We're] treating bikie gangs as you would treat terrorists," he said. "These are basically terrorists within."
'Reign of terror'
NSW Opposition Leader Barry O'Farrell is demanding SA's laws be considered.
"We've got a reign of terror. We've got drive-by shootings, bashings and murders, including this episode yesterday at Sydney Airport," he said.
"We need to resolve not simply to lock up these bikie gang criminals but to break them up completely.
"That's why Mr Rees should use this week's sitting of the NSW Parliament to introduce South Australian-style tough anti-bikie legislation that seeks to dismantle criminal bikie gangs by declaring illegal the membership or association within individual clubs that have been outlawed."
The Premier has promised to discuss introducing SA-style laws at today's meetings but his Police Minister, Tony Kelly, says the police powers have been hard to enforce.
"The problem with their legislation is that they've still got to spend 28 days getting the public's opinion as to whether its the right thing to do or not and then it's challengeable at court and it's still going through that process," he said.
But it takes a lot to intimidate a bikie. Six-hundred of them united for a protest ride a week ago in South Australia and opponents of the law have launched their own political party, FREE Australia.
Paul Kuhn, a spokesman for the party, says the bashing death must be met with the full force of the law but he is urging NSW to avoid going the way of SA.
"Victoria's come out and said, 'This is not the way to deal with this type of crime or criminal organisation or anything else,'" he said. "Deal with the crime, deal with the individual and deal with it in that way."
The first test case of the legislation will be before South Australia's courts soon.
Police are urging anyone with with information on yesterdays brawl at Sydney Airport who has not yet spoken to them to call Crime Stoppers on 1800 333 000.
Video: Man killed in airport bashing (ABC News)
Audio: NSW under pressure to bring in tough anti-bikie laws (AM)
Related Story: Charges laid over airport bashing death
- Georgina Robinson
- March 23, 2009
- Page 1 of 2 | Single Page View
The State Government will be making a "desperate mistake" if it moves to break up bikie gangs in NSW, an expert on outlaw motorcycle club culture says.
Premier Nathan Rees is meeting with police chiefs to discuss a crackdown on gangs after a man was bashed to death during a brawl between rival bikie groups at Sydney's Domestic Airport yesterday.
Options understood to be on the table include banning members from meeting and giving police greater powers to confiscate groups' assets in a bid to "attack the heart of these gangs".
Opposition leader Barry O'Farrell has also called for legislation similar to new laws in South Australia, where it is illegal to be a member of or associate with outlawed clubs.
But Monash University research fellow Arthur Veno says most gangs perform an invaluable social service by keeping some of the most disturbed and unstable members of society in check through rigid internal structures.
"The rules are odious and clear, the punishment immediate and the actions are done by your peers," said Dr Veno, the author of
The Brotherhoods: Inside The Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs.
"If you eliminated the clubs you'd displace the problem to mental health services. Where are these guys going to go if their group is gone?
"They're going to be wild, loose cannons and it scares the living heck out of me."
He made the comments despite acknowledging that yesterday's violence, believed to have been between Hells Angels and Comanchero members, was a terrifying escalation in bikie-related violence.
The 29-year-old man who died, was the brother of a Hells Angels member but not a member himself.
Dr Veno said the killing broke most gangs' "cardinal rule", which is never to carry out retribution in front of a member or target's family or harm the family members themeselves.
Newer club Notorious, which is believed to have formed in 2007, made the break and yesterday's attack made it clear the Comancheros were following suit, Dr Veno said
But police and Governments were mistaken if they thought forcing the clubs underground would defuse the escalating turf wars, he said.
"It's a desperate mistake and one that makes the police seem as if they're doing something, but in every other country where it's been tried it has had no success," Dr Veno said.
A source with close ties to the bikie community said any move to prevent gang members meeting each other was unfair, dangerous and an expensive measure to target bikie-related crime, which he said was only a small proportion of total criminal activity.
"I think what we are doing is dangerous and reacting to colourful and high profile coverage," said the man, who did not want to be named.
"Don't get me wrong, what occurred at Sydney Airport is disgraceful and the perpetrators ought to be brought to justice and punished to the full extent of the law.
"But it's the individual who should be responsible for the crime.
"If a group of people form together for a criminal activity there's various consort type laws that can be brought to bear.
"But to brand an organisation because some people in it have committed crimes before .... if four members of a bowling club commit a crime, are we going to ban the bowling club?
"
He described the South Australian laws as an expensive "social experiment".
He estimated bikie-related crime in NSW accounted for a tiny fraction of total criminal activity.
"What's interesting is it's spending a lot of time and effort on controlling [such a small proportion] of crime."
In 2007, President of the Hells Angels in Sydney Derek Wainohu said levels of bikie crime were exaggerated by police.
"Go to the local RSL club, the local football club. Within that group of men you'll probably find someone that's got a criminal record for assault, or drugs, or break and enter," he told ABC.
"But nobody says that the entire football club or RSL or leagues club is a break and entering drug dealing organisation.
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- Georgina Robinson
- March 23, 2009
- Page 1 of 2 | Single Page View
Australia's most infamous counter-culture requires of aspiring members a commitment to its creed, lifestyle and hierarchy on par with religious devotion, an outlaw motorcycle gang expert says.
You find a place of worship, pull up a pew, observe for a while and after careful consideration submit to an omnipotent male authority figure.
But if it sounds like a roadmap to Christian salvation, it isn't.
In this case, your place of worship is a pub that clubbies are known to frequent, your pew is a bar stool and your submission to an all-powerful father figure will require endless 3am pizza runs, hard manual labour and, if you're really unlucky, the occasional wipe of your sponsor's bottom.
Such is life for the traditional aspiring bikie, eager to join the ranks of one of New South Wales' 20-something outlaw motorcycle gangs.
"It's the hardest yards you're going to do," says Arthur Veno, a Monash University research fellow and author of The Brotherhoods: Inside The Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs.
"You're expected to do what the members want you to do, whenever they want you to do it.
"It's very tough on marriages and the women (find) it really tough."
Before the entrance of hardline newcomers Notorious, the path to membership usually began in a bar.
"You start out by hanging around a few pubs where clubbies tend to hang out if they have an outlaw state of mind," Dr Veno says.
"If you're taken by the look of a particular club, you then enter a period where you sort of hang around with that club or scene that draws you in."
At some point, Dr Veno says a club member suggests you join the fraternity.
"After a few poker runs and hanging around a few parties, he would become your sponsor and it's a big thing because if you screw up, your sponsor is responsible," he says.
If you agree to devote yourself to the sponsor as his "prospect" or "nominee", you then spend between six and 12 months at his beck and call.
"Some members are abusive of that power - in much the same way (bikie club members) are often victims of abuse - and have very low respect for their nominee," Dr Veno says.
"Those guys end up wiping their (sponsor's) arse and things like that, but usually it's pizza at 3am in the morning or `we're going to put in a little pool at my house, come over now'."
The actual initiation ceremony is far less dramatic than police or the media make it out to be, he says.
"The worst you'd get is having to wear an orange mohawk and get shaved on the run," Dr Veno says.
"Making women take their underwear off in the street is just police whipping things up, it's more entrepreneurial work."
Once inside the fold, the rules are clear and transgressions are punished swiftly. There is an overriding mentality that members who choose to break the law should "do the time".
And Dr Veno says it is true most bikies are not involved in organised crime.
"Half of one per cent of total crime in NSW is gang-related at all, it's infinitesimally small," he says.
By Joe Hildebrand
March 23, 2009 11:00pm
ONE of Australia's most infamous outlaw bikie gangs is selling merchandise in NSW to children as young as eight.
The Bandidos Motorcycle Club is using an official website to peddle T-shirts from a Tweed Heads post office box specifically targeted at children.
The same website also advocates violence against civilians and threatens revenge on any club member who steals "possessions, money or women" from a fellow "brother".
The two kids' T-shirt designs both support the insignia SYLB - "Support Your Local Bandidos" and can be ordered via the Bandidos website.
When ordering the T-shirts - which sell for $37, including postage and handling - the form defaults to size 8, the typical size for a child of the same age.
The club has established its own merchandising line, "Bwear", which sells ladies' and men's clothes as well as stubby holders and stickers.
While not openly boasting of criminal activity, the Bandidos website does contain many sinister messages that clearly imply they will assault civilians - and their own members.
"We are men who ride and take our colours seriously, and we have a strong brotherhood," it states. "We stand up and take care of business when need be, but that is not all we are about . . .
"If a citizen hits your brother will you be on him without asking why? There is no way your brother is always right but he is always your brother! It's one in all and all in one. If you don't think this way then walk away. Because you are a citizen and don't belong with us."
Other outlaw clubs are sponsored by legitimate business. Many are motorcycle-related but some are separate.
For example, the Hells Angels Brisbane chapter website shows it is sponsored by 13 companies, including a hire car firm and a party equipment business.
Dylan Welch, Ellie Harvey and Jonathan Dart
March 24, 2009 Page 1 of 2
Single page viewTWO Canberra men, one believed to be a member of the Rebels Motorcycle Club, have been shot dead in what is feared to be the latest and bloodiest explosion in the bikie wars.
The men, believed to be aged 48- and 57-years-old, were found dead in the front and back yards of a house in the southern suburb of Chisholm shortly after 3pm yesterday.
ACT police arrested a man minutes after the double killings, and he was taken to Tuggeranong police station.
A 20-year-old man from Chisholm has been charged with two counts of murder and is expected to appear before the ACT Magistrates Court about 9am today.
Sources suggest the shooting could have been related to a drug deal.
A witness said she had heard the shots but had dismissed it as usual, neighbourhood noise.
But then police arrived.
"I went outside and looked around. There were not many police cars yet … and we saw a body on the road," she said.
"My daughter said, 'Mum, look. There's somebody on the road, bleeding."'
She then saw a "young man" dressed in a white shirt and brown shorts lying on the road covered in blood.
A witness, 11, chanced upon the horrific scene on her way home from school.
She told the
Herald: "He was lying on his side with blood pouring [out] and dripping out of him. It just makes me feel sad and disappointed [in] whoever did that, because nobody deserves to die like that. Nobody should ever have to deal with that."
Police refused to rule out links to the escalating bikie war, but this morning said investigations indicated the shooting was not gang related.
Love triangle
But a Rebels Motorcycle Club life member said club ties had nothing to do with the shooting, which allegedly occurred at the hands of an ex-lover.
The man, who did not wish to be named, said one of the victims was a close friend and a fellow Rebels member for around 30 years.
"He's been in a lot of trouble over his life, had a pretty tough time in his life at times,'' the man said.
"I sort of expected (him) to be somebody on the other side of things, more likely to be shooting at somebody than getting shot at.
"It was over a girl from what I believe. It's a love triangle.''
The man said he did not know the identity of the other man involved in the shooting or if he was a member of the Rebels or any other motorcycle club.
"All I know was that it wasn't club related,'' he said.
The man said bikers were wrongly portrayed as violent drug dealers and unfairly targeted by the police.
"We get misrepresented all the time, rolled into a bundle like a piece of dough and portrayed to be something that we're not,'' he said.
"The way it's portrayed on the news that we are the ultimate crooks, drug dealers, whatever, is a load of crap and I really know it is for a fact.''
A local Chisholm resident, who also wished to remain anonymous, said the suburb was not a haven for bikie gangs.
"There's some bikes around here but I don't think (it's) anything gang related,'' he said.
"We've been here for 19 years and haven't heard nothing like that.
"We're just peaceful people here. Everyone sort of minds their own business.
"When you first hear about it you think the bikie gangs are coming around here now, apparently it's not that.''
The man was home at the time of the shooting but said he didn't hear any disturbance.
Tit-for-tat shootings
The Rebels, the country's biggest bikie gang, were involved in a series of tit-for-tat shootings with the Bandidos in Sydney's west in December .
The Canberra killings came only hours after NSW detectives arrested a senior Bandido Motorcycle Club member at his home in Sydney's south-west.
Dozens of detectives and tactical operations officers carried out a dawn raid on the home of Mahmoud Dib, the serjeant-at-arms of the Bandidos' Parramatta chapter.
Dib was taken to Auburn police station, where he was charged with six firearms offences.
A loaded, unregistered .45 calibre semi-automatic pistol was allegedly found in Dib's car, hours after it was raked with gunfire in a drive-by shooting on March 16.
He was refused bail at Burwood Local Court.
An associate of Dib who was at the court wearing a white singlet with the "Bandit" - a nickname of the Bandidos - tattooed on his throat, caused a commotion when he appeared to make a slashing movement near his throat to a news photographer.
He then spat on the photographer and was tackled to the ground by four police officers.
Dib was arrested in the early morning, hours after yet another Sydney drive-by shooting, although police have yet to link that to the latest gang violence.
A black BMW four-wheel-drive parked in the driveway of a house in Frances Street, Merrylands, was hit with several bullets about 8.45pm on Monday.
Five people, including three children aged 12, 11 and seven, were inside the house.
- with Yuko Narushima and AAP
Source: The Sydney Morning Herald
| | |
The World Today - Wednesday, 25 March , 2009 12:22:00Reporter: Michael EdwardsELEANOR HALL: A leading international expert on bikie gangs is warning that Australia's problems could get worse.
William Marsden is a Montreal-based journalist who has reported for years on outlaw motorcycle gangs.
He says that more than 100 people were killed in a Canadian bikie war in the late 1990s and that Australian law enforcement authorities must act in order to stop the situation in Australia from escalating.
William Marsden spoke to Michael Edwards.
WILLIAM MARSDEN: Well, biker wars can get extremely serious because they can just flare up right across the country. What happened here in Canada was that an effort on the part of the Hells Angels to dominate the drug trade from sea to sea which is a pretty big country.
And what they did is they basically went after every biker gang in the country that refused to ally with them and started killing people.
Initially police thought that it was just, you know, a bunch of punks going after each other. They didn't really take bikers that seriously but after 160 people were killed in Quebec alone, they quickly found out that this was a serious thing and they had to take action and they put together a special task force.
They went after them over about a three-year period. Investigating everything from their drug dealing, their money laundering, their banks and 2001 they rounded up over 100 Hells Angels bikers and threw them all in jail.
MICHAEL EDWARDS: So in your view, motorcycle gangs are a serious organised crime threat?
WILLIAM MARSDEN: Oh absolutely. They are very, very serious. I mean this is sort of America's crime export to the world and if you look at the patterns in Europe, South America, the Caribbean, in Canada and in South Africa and in parts of Asia now and into Eastern Europe and Russia, the pattern is always the same.
You get the Hells Angels and the Bandidos and the Outlaws and they will go into an area just like an American franchise company.
They will pinpoint the sort of the tritest of street bums around and even form gangs out of them. They will sort of allow them to go at each other in a sort of survival of the fittest. They will pick the meanest and also the smartest in some instances, and they will pass them over to become Hells Angels.
MICHAEL EDWARDS: If a club member or a club associate is killed or harmed in any way, is it incumbent upon the club to exact retribution?
WILLIAM MARSDEN: Well, eventually, absolutely. I mean the thing about a biker is that he actually wears his criminality on his back and he, you know, with his colours, his patches and all of that. He says I am an outlaw biker.
If you do anything against the patch, you have violated the entire Hells Angel gang and retribution is absolutely necessary.
MICHAEL EDWARDS: So here in Australia we have seen the bombing of a Hells Angels clubhouse and then we have seen the bashing death of an associate of the Hells Angels. What for example, Hells Angels hierarchy in the United States hear about this?
WILLIAM MARSDEN: Oh yeah. I mean it would be heard about right across the entire international network and they would analyse it and they would decide what kind of retribution they take eventually.
MICHAEL EDWARDS: But many of the motorcycle club members such as the Hells Angels and the Bandidos say that they are not in it for criminal gain. That they are in the clubs because they enjoy riding bikes and they like the camaraderie that it brings.
WILLIAM MARSDEN: It is just a front. It is a cover. I mean they are in there for, they are outlaws. They are in there for the criminality and whatever form that may take.
ELEANOR HALL: That is bikie gang analyst William Marsden speaking to Michael Edwards. Add to Technorati Favorites |
