Original subtitles

[♪]

Gangs rule their territories through ruthless enterprises,

fear,

and a strict code.

Deviate from this code

or challenge their power...

and retribution soon follows...

especially in the most dangerous biker gang in America...

The Hells Angels.

Ruled by a ruthless president,

Sonny Barger's Hells Angels

creates the bloodstained blueprint

for all outlaw biker clubs that follow.

Here are three stories

that cement the criminal legacy of this vicious gang.

First, one member pays the ultimate price

for stealing from his chapter president.

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

Abject terror, abject fear.

[screaming]

[Narrator] Next, the Hells Angels kill a man

in front of thousands at a rock concert.

The Angel stabs him three times in the neck

and takes him down to the ground.

[Narrator] And finally, the Feds attempt

to take down the Oakland Chapter.

[Julian Sher] One of the prosecutors says

"We want to prove they're the mafia on wheels."

[Narrator] These are the stories

from the Sonny Barger years of the Hells Angels.

This is Gangland Chronicles.

1957.

Oakland, California.

A new and menacing sight

appears on the streets of this hard-working port city.

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

A lot of these biker gangs

are made up of these ex-servicemen

who have just come back home.

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

[Narrator] The Hells Angels founded their first chapter

in San Bernardino in 1948.

By 1958, the gang has added chapters

in San Francisco and Oakland.

Early Hells Angels members embrace a freewheeling lifestyle

of partying and violence...

but they lack organization.

That would change

when a new leader would emerge in Oakland, California.

[Narrator] His name is Sonny Barger.

When he assumes control of the Oakland Hells Angels,

he sees an opportunity

to bring order and strength to the club.

He created a structure within this organization,

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

[Joel Selvin] Sonny Barger had genuine leadership capabilities.

He was also probably

the toughest son of a bitch in the bunch too.

[Narrator] Under Sonny's leadership,

the Oakland Hells Angels go from organized recreation...

to organized crime.

They start by building a fearsome reputation

through brutal gang violence.

The Hells Angels are fighting with rival gangs.

They have confrontations with police.

They openly declare themselves as outlaws.

[Narrator] In the 1960s, Barger and his lieutenants

turn the gang's muscle into serious money...

seizing control of the area's booming LSD market,

and crushing any competition.

They were hands-on involved

in a massive organized drug trade.

[Narrator] The vice president of the chapter alone

is making as much as $200,000 a year

dealing drugs...

1.8 million dollars today.

[Sher] Now they're not just poor ragtag bikers.

There's a lot of money involved,

which will lead to territorial turf wars

and a lot of murder.

[Narrator] The Oakland Chapter's rise

from rags to riches

inspires a fanatical loyalty to Sonny Barger.

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

even if the culprit is one of their own...

like 21-year-old Oakland member Paul Ingalls.

February 1, 1968.

Oakland, California.

A group of Hells Angels interrogates Ingalls

for allegedly breaking a cardinal rule

of the gang's code of conduct.

He had been accused of stealing Sonny Barger's

rare coin collection.

[Narrator] The Hells Angels demand

that Ingalls admit his guilt.

So they start to go to work on him.

And then starting using things like a cattle prod...

[electricity crackling]

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

[screaming]

on his face...

[screaming]

The amount of pain that Ingalls is in...

not only just pain, but I'm sure shock and terror

and just abject fear for his life.

[Narrator] Time is rapidly running out for Paul Ingalls.

[groaning]

February 1, 1968.

The Oakland Hells Angels

are trying to beat a confession out of Paul Ingalls,

a young member

they think stole from club president Sonny Barger.

Ingalls insists he is innocent...

...but the bikers don't believe him...

and they take the torture to the next level.

[screaming]

At one point, one of the Angels goes, "Well, hang on, boys.

Don't mark him up.

Can't make this look like a murder, can we?

No, we got to keep things above board."

So they decide to take another route.

They opened his mouth, they pried open his mouth,

and they shoved a bunch of reds, which were barbiturates,

down his throat,

and they tried to make him swallow it...

[Jarroush] And it gets to a point

that Ingalls has ingested so many of these pills

that eventually his body just gives up,

goes limp, and he falls into a coma.

[Narrator] The Oakland Hells Angels

dump Ingalls at his house in the middle of the night,

where he's later discovered by his wife

and rushed to the ER.

Paul Ingalls is pronounced dead on arrival.

Members of the inner sanctum

were actually killing one of their own,

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

If you mess with Sonny Barger,

if you steal from the president,

you will be executed.

[Narrator] No one is ever charged with Ingalls' death.

Across Hells Angels chapters,

the message of intimidation has been received and understood,

but the rest of the world

has yet to see the Hells Angels for who they really are,

and it all comes to a head on one fateful weekend

when the Hells Angels are caught in the national spotlight...

The Altamont Free Concert.

December 6, 1969.

[♪]

The Rolling Stones are set to play a free concert

at the Altamont Speedway, about 50 miles east of Oakland.

[Droban] Rolling Stones was one of them,

but they had the Grateful Dead,

they had Jefferson Airplane,

and the manager of the Grateful Dead

had this wonderful idea,

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

[Narrator] At first, the gang tells organizers

they aren't interested,

but the Stones' manager sweetens the deal.

[Droban] So for $500 in beer,

the Hells Angels were there

as sort of the muscle for the event.

[Narrator] An estimated 300,000 fans

descend on Altamont,

with the Hells Angels between them and the stage.

They immediately put their bikes

parked right along the front of the stage.

It created a natural barrier

between the stage and the audience.

[Narrator] Stoned kids squeeze past the bikes

and begin climbing up onto the stage,

only to be roughed up and thrown off

by the Hells Angels.

But the crowd, strung out on drugs,

just keeps coming.

[Selvin] Hell's Angels in front of the stage

came bearing pool cues,

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

[Narrator] As evening falls

and the Rolling Stones hit the stage,

Sonny Barger and his Hells Angels

are running low on patience.

Somewhere during that time,

a young black guy named Meredith Hunter

tries to climb up on the stage,

and gets knocked back down by one of the Hells Angels.

[Narrator] In a fit of rage,

Meredith Hunter draws a gun from his jacket

and points it towards the stage.

[Selvin] Alan Passaro sees him pull out a gun,

reaches into his ankle,

where he has a knife...

[Narrator] The Hells Angels

are about to take the violence at Altamont

to a terrifying new level.

December 6, 1969, Altamont Speedway.

A rock concert headlined by the Rolling Stones

has descended into brutal violence

between the audience and the Hells Angels.

Gang member Alan Passaro

pulls a knife on 18-year-old Meredith Hunter

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

[Selvin] Alan Passaro jumps on Hunter's back,

stabs him three times in the neck,

and takes him down to the ground...

where Hells Angels swarm over his body,

kick him, stand on him,

and Barger's sitting there watching.

[Narrator] Someone in the crowd

convinces them to pick up Meredith Hunter's body.

He is taken backstage,

where medical staff pronounce him dead.

Alan Passaro is the only member of the Hells Angels

tried for the killing of Meredith Hunter...

but he is found not guilty.

They were able to verify

that Meredith Hunter actually did lunge at the stage

and looked like he was going to shoot Mick Jagger,

and so the Hells Angel gets off.

[Narrator] From this point on,

the Hell's Angels are known nationally.

The spotlight doesn't slow down the gang...

but it does get the attention of the Feds.

The 1970s.

The Hells Angels enter into a new criminal era.

[Sher] Sonny Barger will say, "In the 1970s,

we were all gangsters."

[Narrator] The group pivots their trafficking operation

from LSD

to a highly addictive and lucrative drug...

Meth.

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

and you could make it domestically.

[Narrator] The Department of Justice estimates

that by the late 1970s,

the Oakland meth operation

is raking in $160,000 a day in street sales,

$245 million dollars a year today...

and this puts them on the Feds' radar.

So police and law enforcement feel

that they have to go after the Hells Angels

in a more systematic way,

and they start cracking down,

investigating the meth network.

[Narrator] Local law enforcement

pursues the Oakland chapter relentlessly.

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

Their first victim, San Jose Police Sergeant John Kracht,

has recently busted several Oakland Hells Angels

on meth trafficking charges.

So the Hell's Angels decide

that, okay, these police officers

are becoming a bit of a nuisance,

so it's time for us to take care of them

by sending them a little bit of a message.

[Narrator] February 19, 1977.

Sergeant Kracht approaches his car.

He doesn't see what is coming next.

[explosion]

The bomb badly injures Kracht, but he survives.

Their next target

is Solano County Detective William Zerbe.

[explosion]

[Jarroush] Neither of them will die in these explosions,

but it is these bombings

that make it so that the Feds are fed up

with this chapter of the Hells Angels.

[Droban] They said, you know,

"How are we gonna go after them?"

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

[Narrator] The RICO Act

will later bring down New York Italian Mafia families,

but its first real test is actually the Hells Angels.

[Droban] Essentially the idea was

how can we go after the head of the snake,

which was Sonny Barger.

If we take off the head of the snake,

then we're going to topple the whole organization.

[Narrator] But they are going to need to prove

that Sonny Barger is calling the shots

in order to nail him and the Hells Angels

to the wall.

[Sher] One of the prosecutors says,

we want to prove they're the mafia on wheels.

[Narrator] After a year of interviewing eyewitnesses

and reviewing prior convictions of Oakland Chapter members,

the Feds believe they have enough evidence

to indict Sonny Barger and his fellow Hells Angels.

Will they bring Barger and his Hells Angels chapter down?

June 13th, 1979.

Oakland, California.

200 agents from the FBI and ATF raid the Hells Angels.

Thirty-two gang members and associates are arrested,

including Sonny Barger and his wife.

The Department of Justice

announces a total of 64 indictments

connected to the Oakland Chapter's meth operation

under the 1970 RICO Act.

[Droban] They go after them for drug trafficking,

arms smuggling, attempted murder,

conspiracy to commit murder.

One of the things that Sonny Barger is worried about

early on during this RICO trial

is that there's a lot of members here,

and that they'll start flipping on each other.

[Narrator] Barger knows that if the prosecution

can convince just one defendant

to flip and testify against the gang,

it could mean the end of the Oakland Hells Angels,

and a 20-year stint in prison for him...

but Barger has a plan.

[Droban] He says nobody's taking a deal,

nobody's cooperating.

We are going to be a united force,

and this is how we're going to win this.

[Narrator] The RICO case against the Oakland Hells Angels

goes to trial in San Francisco's Federal Building.

And the Feds try to make their case,

and they have a lot of convincing, powerful evidence.

They'll reveal the weapons

that have been found in Hells Angels hangouts.

They'll allege that Sonny Barger has boasted

that he has committed eight to ten murders.

[Narrator] On the stand,

Barger's testimony is convincing,

poking significant holes

in the prosecution's racketeering case.

[Sher] Sonny's defense: yes, he's the figurehead...

but technically, legally, by Hells Angels rules,

he really couldn't command his fellow members

and what they could do.

Any criminal activity a member does,

he does as an individual,

not as part of the Hells Angels.

[Narrator] Things go from bad to worse for the Feds

when they fail to convince a single defendant

to rat on the Oakland Hells Angels.

As a Hell's Angel, you do not snitch on your own,

especially, you know, Sonny Barger's chapter.

You don't do it.

[Narrator] As the trial goes on,

the defense gains the upper hand.

[Droban] And that was really due in large part

to the brilliance of Sonny Barger.

He says they were not a criminal organization;

they were an organization that had some criminals in it.

[Narrator] On July 2, 1980,

the conspiracy and racketeering charges

against Sonny Barger and most of his Oakland brothers

are dropped.

It's a huge victory for the Oakland Hells Angels,

and they waste no time getting back to business

and expanding the gang's criminal reach.

There's like 23 new chapters by the end of the '70s,

33 new chapters in the States by the end of the 1980s,

and a huge expansion globally.

This is a massive criminal enterprise

known for their brutality,

and so they continue to be and pose a threat.

[Sher] Sonny Barger didn't found the Hells Angels,

but he constructed the myth,

and I think the Hells Angels are here to stay

for a long, long time.