Hell's Angels?

Question

What can you tell me about the Hell's Angels Motocycle Club? ie. Structure, Reputation etc

Answer 1

I was born in 1965, my father, a biker, brought me & mom home...which just happened to be a few houses away from an Angels house...Mom was petrified, Dad knew some of these guys, did work for them and told mom we were safer on this street than if we lived next door to a police station.
25yrs later, Daddy had MS, was thrown in jail for some past misdeed and ran into an Angel he had known for years...Dad was defenseless and the Angel got Daddy into the hospital area of jail for his own protection........now at the age of 40, I still know a few of the guys....and will always feel safer with them than with most men I know. The Angels my father associated with were always polite & kind if not a little rough around the edges.

I know all about the violence, crime etc but wanted to point out they arent all like that............

D~~

Answer 2

Hells' Angels are a nation wide gang which has been known to have tipped their hands to every illegal form of operation in this dtae. Many members of the Hell's Angels are also 2%'ers. Part of the Aryan Brotherhood. They have groups in every part of the nation and are somewhat powerfull in the criminal arena.

Answer 3

I was born and raised in San Bernardino, Calif. where the HAs originated. They were nice fellas as far as I was concerned. They Never gave me any problems. They would buy our beer for us when we were underage too.

Answer 4

They are generally bad ppl.

Answer 5

"The Hells Angels outlaw motorcycle club is viewed by many as the epitome of the outlaw biker counterculture of the 1960s. The Hells Angels have been purported to take in large sums of money from illegal activities such as prostitution and drug trafficking, but the club itself claims that these are individuals within the club that are involved and not the club as a whole. In rural areas of the United States (especially the U.S. South and Southwest), it has been claimed by law enforcement that the Hells Angels are heavily involved with the production and distribution of methamphetamine.

The HAMC (Hells Angels Motorcycle Club) still professes to be just a motorcycle club. (See Hells Angels - UK.)

The HAMC is one of the original "1%"[One Percenter] motorcycle clubs, a euphemism for clubs that are considered "outlaw bikers" by most citizens . The phrase was adopted by the HAMC after the AMA (American Motorcyclist Association) claimed that 99% of motorcycle riders were law-abiding citizens, while the remaining one percent misrepresented the family oriented motorcycle culture that the AMA was attempting to perpetuate.

The Hells Angels Chapter, Oakland, has been particularly infamous, partly due to its connection with Ralph 'Sonny' Barger, whose autobiography, Hell's Angel: The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club was a national bestseller. Sonny Barger has spent over a decade in prison, wrote biker-related fiction after his release, and settled down finally as the eponym of his own brand of beer.

The HAMC organizes a number of motorcycle runs all over the world and also runs a patch system (similar to a military medal); the meaning of each patch is not publicly known, although will have great meaning within biker circles. The HAMC follow a militaristic regime and code, whereby no member can talk to the police without seeking the consent of higher authority within the organization.

Altamont
Perhaps the most notorious event in Hells Angels history involved the 1969 Altamont Concert—partially documented in the 1970 film Gimme Shelter[1]—featuring Jefferson Airplane and the Rolling Stones. The Angels had been hired as crowd security for a fee which was said to include $500 worth of beer. A shoving match erupted near the stage during a rendition of the song "Under My Thumb" (not, as is commonly thought, "Sympathy for the Devil"). A concert patron by the name of Meredith Hunter was stabbed to death after brandishing a hand gun and charging the stage. Hunter fired his weapon, striking a HAMC member with what Sonny Barger later described as "just a flesh wound." A Hells Angel member, Allan Passaro, was later acquitted of murder on grounds of self-defense. Don McLean later sang of the event in his classic American Pie.

After the concert, and critical media attention given to the HAMC, Sonny Barger went on a local California radio station to justify the actions of the HAMC and to present their side of the story. He claimed that violence only started once the crowd began vandalizing the Hells Angels' motorcycles.

In the sixties, during the Vietnam era, the group offered its "services" to the U.S. military in its conflicts abroad. Although they were never taken up on their offer, many who previously idealized the group as a counterculture began to see this alliance with the government as a betrayal. Antagonism between the Hells Angels and anti-war counter-culture groups manifested itself in physical violence when members attacked demonstrators at the Vietnam Day Committee march in Berkeley.

Canada
In the province of Quebec, Canada, the Hells Angels have gained immense notoriety. Police claim that the club controls much of the organized crime in the province. Criminologists believe that the 1970s Royal Commission on Organized Crime (CECO: Commission d'Enquêtes sur le Crime Organisé), formed to combat the Montreal based mafia, allowed the Hells Angels to flourish by greatly reducing would-be competitors. Before the commission, the Hells Angels were reputed to be the thugs of the Montreal mafia, but in the power vacuum left in the wake of the commission, the Hells Angels managed to effectively gain control of much of the crime in the province. In the years following 1994, biker wars in the province have resulted in more than 100 deaths (including a child killed by an exploding car bomb), 84 bombings, 130 reported cases of arson, and 9 missing persons. In the fall of 2001, The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) and the Sûreté du Québec conducted major raids in many different locations of the province. Many high-ranking members were arrested along with prospects and other associates. The operation was codenamed Printemps 2001 (Spring 2001). Members arrested during the operation subsequently pleaded guilty to various crimes, from drug traffic to plot for murder, others were condemned on various accounts.

Despite the continued growth of Hells Angels clubs in Canada, both in Quebec and in Ontario, various law enforcement agencies continue to crack down on the organization. While some consider Canada to be the unofficial home to a new modern Hells Angels movement—one based on the original tenets of the club (i.e., protection for those who cannot protect themselves)—the organization continues to face opposition from police forces and other elements of Canadian society.

In March 2005, Route 81—the official store of the Hells Angels—opened an outlet in Prince Edward Island to join existing outlets in Moncton, Halifax and Toronto. The numbers 8 and 1 correspond to where the letters 'H' and 'A' fall within the alphabet.

In January 2006, Operation Husky resulted[2] in the arrest of twenty-seven suspects, including five 'full-patch' Angels from across Eastern and Central Canada.

Media speculation has suggested that this operation, an effort conducted by a combination of agencies including the RCMP, the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and the Sûreté du Québec may result in the end of the club's presence in Canada. Some familiar with the inner workings of the Angels suggest that a new effort focusing on modernization of the club—with a concentration on education and harm reduction—may help restore the image of the Hells Angels among an aging law enforcement community that finds it easy to target biker clubs. In some parts of Canada, it is illegal to wear symbols identifying yourself with a motorcycle club, while symbols of identification and recognition among other groups are permitted because of a failure by law enforcement to recognize the credentials and identifying symbols of gang culture.

Hells Angels vs. Disney
In March 2006, the Hells Angels sued Walt Disney Co. for allegedly engaging in trademark infringement. The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court of California alleges that an upcoming Disney film entitled Wild Hogs[3] uses both the name and distinctive logo of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Corp. without permission. The movie, tentatively set for release in 2007 and starring John Travolta, Tim Allen and Martin Lawrence is described on the Internet Movie Database as "a group of middle-aged wannabe bikers look for adventure out on the open road, where they soon encounter a chapter of the Hell's Angels."

References
Author Hunter S. Thompson traveled with the club in the 1960s and his adventures are chronicled in the book that made Hunter Thompson's reputation as a counterculture journalist, Hells Angels: The Strange and Terrible Saga of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs.
The Hells Angels enjoyed a special relationship with Ken Kesey, the history of which was told by Tom Wolfe in his book, The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.
During the late 1960s and early 1970s many biker exploitation films featured Hells Angels lookalikes. Usually considered better than run of the mill was Hells Angels on Wheels (1967) with Jack Nicholson and members of the Oakland Hells Angels.
A documentary, Hell's Angels Forever, produced by the club has a soundtrack featuring Jerry Garcia and Willie Nelson.
A soundly based recent documentary about the club was produced in 1999 for The History Channel (A&E Network): In Search of History: Hell's Angels includes an interview with Sonny Barger.
The Road to Hell : How the Biker Gangs are Conquering Canada, Julian Sher and William Marsden, 2003
Angels of Death; Inside the Bikers' Global Crime Empire, William Marsden & Julian Sher, Hodder & Stoughton 2006
Police claim a victory over bikers in Thunder Bay CBC News, Thursday, 19 Jan 2006
http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/04/11/biker-war-sher.html?ref=rss
Gangs; A Journey into the heart of the British Underworld, Tony Thompson (journalist) 2004
In 'The Simpsons' Episode titled 'Take My Wife, Sleaze,' Homer Simpson wins a motorcyle and sets out to form his own biker gang, with Ned Flanders and others in tow. He names his gang "Hell's Satans" which results in the kidnapping of his wife Marge when the real Hell's Satans motorcycle gang (loosely based on the Hells Angels) come to Springfield to force him to stop using their gang name."