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Gangs rule their territories through
ruthless enterprises, fear, and a strict code.

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Deviate from this code, or challenge
their power, and retribution soon follows.

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Especially in the most dangerous
biker gang in America, the Hells Angels.

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Ruled by a ruthless president,

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Sonny Barger's Hells
Angels creates the bloodstained

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blueprint for all outlaw
biker clubs that follow.

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Here are three stories that cement the
criminal legacy of this vicious gang.

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First, one member pays the ultimate price
for stealing from his chapter president.

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I can't even begin to
imagine what he's feeling.

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Abject terror, abject fear.

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Next, the Hell's Angels kill a man in
front of thousands at a rock concert.

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The Angel stabs him three times in the
neck and takes him down to the ground.

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And finally, the feds attempt to
take down the Oakland chapter.

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One of the prosecutors says, we want
to prove they're the mafia on wheels.

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These are the stories from the sunny
barger years of the Hell's Angels.

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This is Gangland Chronicles. 1957.

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Oakland, California.

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A new and menacing sight appears on the
streets of this hard-working port city.

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It's the outlaw motorcycle
gang called the Hell's Angels.

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A lot of these biker
gangs are made up of these

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ex-servicemen who've just come back home.

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They find that it's difficult
to readjust to civilian life.

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The Hells Angels founded their first
chapter in San Bernardino in 1948.

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By 1958, the gang has added
chapters in San Francisco and Oakland.

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Early Hells Angels
members embrace a freewheeling

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lifestyle of partying and violence.

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But they lack organization.

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That would change when a new leader
would emerge in Oakland, California.

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His name is Sonny Barger.

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When he assumes control of
the Oakland Hells Angels,

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he sees an opportunity to bring
order and strength to the club.

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He created a structure
within this organization,

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so he borrowed the
rank-and-file structure from the military.

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Sonny Barger had genuine
leadership capabilities.

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He was also probably the toughest
son of a bitch in the bunch, too.

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Under Sonny's leadership,

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the Oakland Hells Angels go from
organized recreation to organized crime.

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They start by building a fearsome
reputation through brutal gang violence.

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The Hells Angels are
fighting with rival gangs.

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They have confrontations with police.

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They openly declare themselves as outlaws.

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In the 1960s, Barger and
his lieutenants turned

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the gang's muscle into serious money,

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seizing control of the area's booming
LSD market and crushing any competition.

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They were hands-on involved in
a massive organized drug trade.

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The vice president of the
chapter alone is making

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as much as $200,000 a year
dealing drugs. $1.8 million today.

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They're not just poor ragtag bikers.

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There's a lot of money involved,

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which will lead to territorial
turf wars and a lot of murder.

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The Oakland chapter's
rise from rags to riches

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inspires a fanatical
loyalty to Sonny Barger.

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They'll make anyone who
crosses him pay the ultimate price,

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even if the culprit is one of their own.

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Like 21-year-old
Oakland member Paul Ingalls.

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Oakland, California.

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A group of Hells Angels
interrogates Ingalls for allegedly

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breaking a cardinal rule of
the gang's code of conduct.

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He had been accused of stealing
Sonny Barger's rare coin collection.

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The Hells Angels demand
that Ingalls admit his guilt.

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So they start to go to work on him.

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And then starting using
things like a cattle prod.

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And they're using it on
things like his groin.

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On his face.

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The amount of pain that Ingalls is in.

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Not only pain, but I'm sure shock and
terror and just abject fear for his life.

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Time is rapidly running
out for Paul Ingalls.

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February 1st, 1968.

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The Oakland Hells Angels are trying to
beat a confession out of Paul Ingalls,

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a young member they think stole
from club president Sonny Barger.

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Ingalls insists he's innocent.

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But the bikers don't believe him.

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And they take the
torture to the next level.

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At one point, one of the angels
goes, hang on, boys, don't mark him up.

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Can't make this look like a murder, can
we? No, we gotta keep things above board.

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So they decide to take another route.

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They opened his mouth, they pried open
his mouth, and they shoved a bunch of reds,

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which were barbiturates, down his
throat, and they tried to make him swallow it.

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And it gets to a point that
Ingalls has ingested so many

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of these pills that
eventually his body just gives up,

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goes limp, and he falls into a coma.

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The Oakland Hells Angels dump Ingles at
his house in the middle of the night,

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where he's later discovered by
his wife and rushed to the ER.

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Paul Ingles is pronounced dead on arrival.

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Members of the Inner Sanctum were
actually killing one of their own,

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and they did that to set an
example for the other members.

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If you mess with Sonny
Barger, if you steal

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from the president, you will be executed.

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No one is ever charged with Ingle's death.

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Across Hell's Angels chapters,

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the message of intimidation has
been received and understood.

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But the rest of the world has yet to see
the Hell's Angels for who they really are.

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And it all comes to a head
on one fateful weekend when

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the Hell's Angels are caught
in the national spotlight.

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The Altamont Free Concert.

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December 6, 1969.

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The Rolling Stones are set to play a
free concert at the Altamont Speedway,

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about 50 miles east of Oakland.

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Rolling Stones was one of them.
But they had the Grateful Dead,

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they had Jefferson Airplane,

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and the manager of the Grateful
Dead had this wonderful idea, hey,

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let's get the Hells
Angels to be our security.

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At first, the gang tells
organizers they aren't interested.

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But the Stones' manager sweetens the deal.

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So we're at $500 in beer,
the Hells Angels were there.

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It's sort of the muscle for the event.

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An estimated 300,000
fans descend on Altamont.

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They immediately put their bikes
parked right along the front of the stage.

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It created a natural barrier
between the stage and the audience.

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Stoned kids squeeze past the bikes
and begin climbing up onto the stage,

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only to be roughed up and
thrown off by the Hell's Angels.

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But the crowd, strung out
on drugs, just keeps coming.

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Hell's Angels in front of the
stage came bearing pool cues.

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And they beat the hell out
of people in the front rows.

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As evening falls and the
Rolling Stones hit the stage...

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Sonny Barger and his Hells
Angels are running low on patience.

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Somewhere during that time,

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a young black guy named Meredith
Hunter tries to climb up on the stage,

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gets knocked back down by
one of the Hells Angels.

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In a fit of rage,
Meredith Hunter draws a gun from

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his jacket and points
it towards the stage.

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Alan Pissarro sees him pull out a gun,
reaches into his ankle where he has a knife,

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The Hell's Angels are
about to take the violence

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at Altamont to a terrifying new level.

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December 6th, 1969, Altamont Speedway.

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A rock concert headlined by the
Rolling Stones has descended into

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brutal violence between the
audience and the Hells Angels.

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Gang member Alan Passaro pulls a
knife on 18-year-old Meredith Hunter

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after he draws a gun and
points it at the stage.

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Alan Passaro jumps on Hunter's back,
stabs him three times in the neck,

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and takes him down to the ground.

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Where Hell's Angels swarm over
his body, kick him, stand on him,

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and Barger's sitting there watching.

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Someone in the crowd convinces them
to pick up Meredith Hunter's body.

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He is taken backstage, where
medical staff pronounce him dead.

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Alan Passaro is the only
member of the Hells Angels

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tried for the killing of Meredith Hunter.

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But he is found not guilty.

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They were able to verify that
Meredith Hunter actually did lunge

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at the stage and look like he
was going to shoot Mick Jagger.

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And so the Hells Angel gets off.

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From this point on, the Hells
Angels are known nationally.

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The spotlight doesn't slow down the gang,

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but it does get the
attention of the feds. 1970s.

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The Hells Angels enter
into a new criminal era.

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Sonny Barger will say, in the
1970s, we were all gangsters.

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The group pivots their
trafficking operation from

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LSD to a highly addictive
and lucrative drug, meth.

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It was easy to mass produce,
manufacture, distribute, sell,

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and you could make it domestically.

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The Department of Justice
estimates that by the late 1970s,

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the Oakland meth operation is raking
in $160,000 a day in street sales,

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$245 million a year today.

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And this puts them on the Fed's radar.

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So police and law
enforcement feel that they have to

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go after the Hells Angels
in a more systematic way.

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And they start cracking down,
investigating the meth network.

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Local law enforcement pursues
the Oakland chapter relentlessly.

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The gang hits back at the cops
with a new level of violence.

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Their first victim, San Jose
Police Sergeant John Kroc,

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Has recently busted several Oakland
Hells Angels on meth trafficking charges.

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So the Hells Angels decide that, okay,

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these police officers are
becoming a bit of a nuisance,

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so it's time for us to take care of them
by sending them a little bit of a message.

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February 19th, 1977.

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Sergeant Crocht approaches his car.

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He doesn't see what is coming next.

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The bomb badly injures
Crocht, but he survives.

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Their next target is Solano
County Detective William Zerbe.

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Neither of them will
die in these explosions,

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but it is these bombings
that make it so that the feds

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are fed up with this
chapter of the Hells Angels.

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They said, you know, how are
we going to go after them?

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So they started to go
after them with the RICO Act.

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The RICO Act will later bring down
New York Italian mafia families.

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But its first real test is
actually the Hells Angels.

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Essentially, the idea
was, how can we go after

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the head of the snake,
which was Sonny Barger?

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If we take off the head of the snake,

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then we're going to
topple the whole organization.

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But they are going to need to
prove that Sonny Barger is calling

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the shots in order to nail him
and the Hell's Angels to the wall.

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One of the prosecutors says, we want
to prove they're the Mafia on wheels.

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00:16:11,019 --> 00:16:14,330
After a year of interviewing
eyewitnesses and reviewing

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prior convictions of
Oakland chapter members,

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the feds believe they have
enough evidence to indict

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00:16:20,549 --> 00:16:23,450
Sonny Barger and his fellow Hells Angels.

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Will they bring Barger and
his Hells Angels chapter down?

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June 13th, 1979.

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Oakland, California.

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00:16:45,100 --> 00:16:49,940
200 agents from the FBI and
ATF raid the Hells Angels.

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00:16:54,879 --> 00:16:58,840
Thirty-two gang members
and associates are arrested,

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00:16:58,840 --> 00:17:02,240
including Sonny Barger and his wife.

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00:17:06,980 --> 00:17:11,759
The Department of Justice announces
a total of 64 indictments connected

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00:17:11,759 --> 00:17:16,549
to the Oakland Chapter's meth
operation under the 1970 RICO Act.

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They go after them for drug
trafficking, arms smuggling, attempted murder,

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conspiracy to commit murder.

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00:17:27,910 --> 00:17:31,910
One of the things that Sonny
Barger is worried about early on

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00:17:31,910 --> 00:17:35,910
during this RICO trial is that
there's a lot of members here,

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00:17:35,910 --> 00:17:38,579
and that they'll start
flipping on each other.

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00:17:39,759 --> 00:17:43,160
Barger knows that if the
prosecution can convince just

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00:17:43,160 --> 00:17:46,569
one defendant to flip and
testify against the gang,

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00:17:46,569 --> 00:17:50,359
it could mean the end of
the Oakland Hells Angels

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00:17:50,359 --> 00:17:53,380
and a 20-year stint in prison for him.

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00:17:54,589 --> 00:17:56,490
But Barger has a plan.

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00:17:57,440 --> 00:18:00,809
He says, nobody's taking a
deal, nobody's cooperating.

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00:18:01,470 --> 00:18:04,809
We're going to be a united force, and
this is how we're going to win this.

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00:18:08,259 --> 00:18:11,660
The RICO case against the
Oakland Hells Angels goes

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00:18:11,660 --> 00:18:14,309
to trial in San
Francisco's federal building.

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00:18:15,349 --> 00:18:17,509
And the feds try to make their case.

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00:18:18,009 --> 00:18:21,430
And they have a lot of
convincing, powerful evidence.

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00:18:24,150 --> 00:18:29,380
They'll reveal the weapons that have
been found in Hells Angels hangouts.

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00:18:30,750 --> 00:18:33,630
They'll allege that
Sonny Barger has boasted

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00:18:33,630 --> 00:18:36,920
that he has committed
eight to ten murders.

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00:18:40,170 --> 00:18:44,039
On the stand, Barger's
testimony is convincing,

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00:18:44,039 --> 00:18:48,470
poking significant holes in the
prosecution's racketeering case.

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00:18:49,950 --> 00:18:50,990
Sonny's defense?

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00:18:51,650 --> 00:18:53,269
Yes, he's the figurehead.

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00:18:54,970 --> 00:18:57,789
But technically,
legally, by Hells Angels rules,

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00:18:57,789 --> 00:19:02,630
he really couldn't command his
fellow members and what they could do.

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00:19:04,430 --> 00:19:07,980
Any criminal activity a member
does, does as an individual,

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not as part of the Hells Angels.

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00:19:11,559 --> 00:19:16,809
Things go from bad to worse for
the feds when they fail to convince

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00:19:16,809 --> 00:19:20,569
a single defendant to rat
on the Oakland Hells Angels.

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00:19:22,500 --> 00:19:26,720
As a Hells Angel, you do not snitch
on your own, especially, you know,

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00:19:26,720 --> 00:19:28,819
Sonny Barger's chapter, you don't do it.

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00:19:29,519 --> 00:19:33,700
As the trial goes on, the
defense gains the upper hand.

228
00:19:34,769 --> 00:19:39,849
And that was really due in large
part to the brilliance of Sonny Barger.

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00:19:41,859 --> 00:19:43,730
They were not a criminal organization.

230
00:19:43,750 --> 00:19:47,759
They were an organization
that had some criminals in it.

231
00:19:54,380 --> 00:19:59,210
On July 2nd, 1980, the conspiracy
and racketeering charges against

232
00:19:59,210 --> 00:20:04,049
Sonny Barger and most of his
Oakland brothers are dropped.

233
00:20:08,470 --> 00:20:11,630
It's a huge victory for
the Oakland Hells Angels.

234
00:20:12,819 --> 00:20:16,940
And they waste no time
getting back to business

235
00:20:16,940 --> 00:20:19,690
and expanding the gang's criminal reach.

236
00:20:23,319 --> 00:20:25,130
There's like 23 new
chapters by the end of the 70s,

237
00:20:25,130 --> 00:20:27,099
33 new chapters in the
States by the end of the 1980s,

238
00:20:27,099 --> 00:20:27,920
and a huge expansion globally.

239
00:20:36,890 --> 00:20:41,410
This is a massive criminal
enterprise known for their brutality,

240
00:20:41,410 --> 00:20:45,940
and so they continue to
be and pose a threat.

241
00:20:47,539 --> 00:20:53,640
Sonny Barger didn't found the Hells
Angels, but he constructed the myth.

242
00:20:54,569 --> 00:20:58,579
And I think the Hells Angels are
here to stay for a long, long time.