The Outlaws Motorcycle Club has been fairly low-key since its International President Harry “Taco” Bowman was convicted of various murders and racketeering offenses and sentenced to life in prison. Bowman spent time on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted list and had a $50,000 reward on his head when he was captured in suburban Detroit in 1999.
Since Bowman’s conviction in 2001, the motorcycle club has tried to counter the reputation it has earned as the result of several high-profile court cases (one trial lasted a year).
“We may not live by the rules of society, but we do live by it’s (sic) laws,” the North American branch of the organization’s website states. “The government has labeled the Outlaws MC a criminal organization and all it’s (sic) members as criminals simply because they are members. This is one of the most untrue and unjust statements ever made concerning our club. Each and every day through out America and the World members of Law Enforcement, Religious, Fraternal organizations as well as many other groups are convicted of criminal activity. Their membership is not universally labeled as criminals.”
The counter-argument to the Outlaws’ claim is that since the mid 1980s, 29 mid-level and leaders of the gang have been convicted in federal courts. That’s close to 10 percent of the estimated membership of the Outlaw MC worldwide membership, pegged at somewhere between 200 and 300.
Despite its protestations to the contrary, the group has a reputation for brutality and violence. At one point an FBI wiretap of Mafia enforcers in Detroit revealed that they were intimidated by Taco Bowman.
“We refer to the Outlaws as bulls in a china shop,” an ATF Special Agent told the Chicago Tribune. “They don’t use their heads when it comes to violence. The Outlaws have a history of just going in and shooting and beating and knifing, and worrying about it later.”
Bowman, his successors and his rivals — the Hell’s Angels — have been trying to change their clubs, becoming more sophisticated and less brutish, the agent said.
“You have some people with great intelligence calling the shots,” he said. “If they can maintain this kind of control, they can become one of the most formidable organizations as far as crime goes.”
It took the feds 15 years to nail Bowman and the Outlaws, but even after Bowman was convicted and sent away for life, the authorities said they knew the gang would persevere.
Under Bowman’s leadership, testimony at his trial revealed, the Outlaws demanded complete loyalty. Members had to put the club above families, friends and even themselves.
But as often the case, loyalty to the gang meant nothing to members who had previously been convicted and were sentenced to long prison terms. At Bowman’s trial in federal court in Florida, a procession of Outlaw convicts took the stand to testify against him in hopes of lessening their own prison terms.
Bowman’s trial and that of six other Outlaws convicted of RICO violations in 1987 gave the public a look inside the world of the “1-percenters.”
The term “one-percenter”–usually depicted by the symbol “1%er”–is motorcycle gang parlance meaning that the club is comprised of the one percent of the overall biker population who maintain total independence from society.
The Outlaws Organization
The Outlaws Motorcycle Club was founded at a bar just outside of Chicago in 1935. It has since grown to include 64 chapters in the United States and chapters in eight other countries. The United States is divided into five regions, and each other country is considered a region. Chapter presidents report to their regional president. The regional presidents report to the international president.
Membership is limited to men who own American-made motorcycles of a particular size, and membership dues are divided between the chapter and the region. A prospective member is first a “hang-around” or associate. He then becomes a probate and, finally, a patched member.
A patched member is entitled to wear a vest bearing an Outlaws emblem, called “colors.” The patch is surrounded by chapter and club membership information, called “rockers.” A patched member is also allowed to attend the weekly “church meetings.”
After loyal service, the patched member can get an Outlaws tattoo, which can tell other members about his accomplishments. An Outlaw who commits murder, attempts murder, or explodes a bomb on behalf of the Outlaws is entitled to wear “lightning bolts,” a Nazi-style “SS” tattoo. An Outlaw who has spent time in jail may receive an “LL” tattoo, which stands for “Lounge Lizard.”
All patchwearing members are required to attend the weekly “church meetings.” In addition, members are required to attend national, regional, and local “runs,” which are motorcycle trips and parties that may last several days. National runs are held three or four times a year, regional runs occur between five and twenty times a year, and local runs usually occur weekly. Members pay monthly dues, and also have to pay fees for each run. If an Outlaw is in need of legal assistance, each member is usually assessed a fee for that purpose.
The Outlaws and Other Gangs
The Outlaws dislike of Hell’s Angels is expressed in their slogans “AHAMD,” or “All Hell’s Angels Must Die,” and “ADIOS,” or “Angel’s Die in Outlaws States.” They also dislike the Pagans and the Warlocks.
It’s a fair assessment to say a state of war exists between the Outlaws and these other gangs.
The Hell’s Angels
In the spring of 1974, Outlaw district regional president James Nolan discovered that three members of the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club were on their way to South Florida. At the time, the Hell’s Angels and the Outlaws were embroiled in a feud that had begun the year before when an Outlaw had been severely beaten by a group of Hell’s Angels in New York.
After receiving a tip that the three Hell’s Angels were going to be at a local bar, Nolan and other members of the South Florida Outlaws went to the bar. Meeting the Hell’s Angels there, Nolan suggested they get the discussion “off the street,” and persuaded the Hell’s Angels to go to the Outlaw clubhouse, promising that no harm would come to them. At the clubhouse, however, Nolan ordered several Outlaws to drive them to a deserted area and “make sure they don’t come back.”
Following Nolan ’s orders, four Outlaws drove the captive Hell’s Angels to a remote water-filled quarry. They tied up the three men and weighted them down with cinderblocks, shot each one in the head with a shotgun, and dumped the bodies into the water. The bodies were discovered three days later. Nolan and three other Outlaws were charged with the murders, but Nolan was acquitted after presenting what other witnesses testified in his federal racketeering trial was a fabricated defense.
The Warlocks
“We were supposed to do whatever we could to the Warlocks,” Wayne “Joe Black” Hicks testified at Bowman’s trial. “Kill them, if we could. Burn or bomb their clubhouses. Find their place of work and hit them there. Get them out of Florida.”
Hicks is a former Outlaws vice president and the gang’s highest-ranking member to turn government informant.
In the early 1990s, the Warlocks allied with the Hell’s Angels and began selling drugs for them. This ignited a war. When the Outlaws learned that Raymond “Bear” Chaffin was the leader of a Warlocks chapter in Edgewater, Bowman told Hicks to find Chaffin and kill him. Alex “Dirt” Ankerich, an Outlaws probate, was given a .22 silencer-equipped pistol and went into Chaffin’s garage, where he shot Chaffin four times in the back of the head, and ran away.
Chaffin’s 12-year-old daughter found her father lying in the garage.
“I got a blanket and put it on him,” she testified in U.S. District Court. “I laid down beside him to keep him warm. … I thought he was breathing and I thought he was OK.”
But Chaffin was dead.
Bowman, in 1994, also asked the Outlaws to do anything they could to destroy the Warlocks. Stephen “DK” Lemunyon, a Daytona Outlaw, was given the task of determining the best way to destroy the Warlocks clubhouse in Orlando. Lemunyon and Steve “Stevo” Hilton, another Outlaw, constructed a bomb in October 1994.
A few months later, the Outlaws planned another firebombing, this time of the Warlocks clubhouse in
Brevard County. The plan was thwarted when authorities arrested the Daytona Outlaws and, during a search of Lemunyon’s residence, seized the firebomb.
The Invaders
On New Year’s Eve 1993, Bowman called a meeting of all Outlaws at a party in Fort Lauderdale. During the meeting, Bowman announced that the Outlaws would step up their activities against the Hell’s Angels and their allies.
In June 1994, many Outlaws descended on a Gary, Indiana, speedway. This location was also customarily attended by the Invaders, another motorcycle club. The Outlaws suspected that the Invaders were affiliated with the Hell’s Angels.
On the night before the event, Bowman met with attending Outlaw presidents. Randy “Mad” Yager, the president of the Gary Outlaws, also held a meeting with the attending Outlaws and announced that they were to attack the Invaders at the speedway. To carry out this attack, the Outlaws planned to use a “war wagon,” or a vehicle modified with steel plating and several gun ports. The war wagon was equipped with firearms and other weapons to facilitate the attack.
The Outlaws drove the war wagon to the speedway, but no Invaders ever arrived. After the war wagon left, it was stopped by Gary police officers. The officers seized firearms, ammunition, and smoke grenades from inside the war wagon.
Hell’s Henchmen
In the spring of 1994, Bowman complained about the presence of Hell’s Henchmen in the Chicago area and the failure of the Chicago chapter president, Pete “Greased Lightning” Rogers, to do anything about it. In September, Bowman ordered the Hell’s Henchmen clubhouse destroyed.
Two months later, Outlaws Kevin “Spike” O’Neill and Raymond “Shemp” Morgan Jr. set off a car bomb outside of the Hell’s Henchmen clubhouse. The bomb damaged nearby structures, parked cars, and injured commuters but failed to destroy the clubhouse. The Outlaws finished the job in December by dousing the clubhouse in gasoline and burning it down.
The Fifth Chapter MC
The Fifth Chapter Motorcycle Club consisted of men and women who were recovering from substance-abuse problems. They sought to be neutral, maintaining good relationships with all clubs, and the Outlaws allowed them to exist in Florida. But the Outlaws also targeted the FCMC in 1994.
In September of that year, a Hell’s Angel named Michael Quale was killed in an altercation with some Outlaws. At Quale’s funeral, a photographer took a picture of an FCMC member hugging a Hell’s Angel. Bowman believed that this hug was disrespectful to the Outlaws because one of their own, “Buffalo Wally” Posnjak, had also been killed in the altercation. Bowman ordered the eradication of the FCMC.
In December, Lemunyon invited about 15 members of the FCMC to the Outlaws clubhouse in Orlando.
Once inside, the members were seated at two picnics tables and surrounded by armed Outlaws. Lemunyon then announced that there was a problem, displayed the newspaper photograph, and began beating FCMC national president Mike Malone with a flashlight while the other FCMC members were held at gunpoint. Lemunyon told the FCMC that they could no longer exist and ordered them to remove any clothing
that bore the FCMC logo. After the FCMC members complied with Lemunyon’s instruction, the Outlaws began beating them as well.
“They must have hit me 20 or 30 times until the point I thought I would pass out,” testified Alven Harrington, a former Fifth Chapter member.
Besides being beaten, Harrington said, he and fellow club members were threatened with death and robbed. Wedding rings, other jewelry, wallets, leather vests and chaps, and club insignia were taken, he said.
“I was bleeding very, very bad,” Farmer testified. “I couldn’t see through my glasses. … All the blood had ran over my glasses and my face.”
“God Forgives, Outlaws Don’t
A federal prosecutor told Bowman’s jury (whose identities had been kept secret out of concern for their safety) that Outlaws lived by the motto, “Snitches are a dying breed.”
In March 1992, during Daytona Bike Week, Irwin “Hitler” Nissen, a former Outlaws probate, got into a fight with James “Moose” McLean, the president of the Outlaws’ Atlanta chapter. Bowman heard about the fight and directed Murphy to bring Nissen to him. Christopher “Slasher” Maiale, another Outlaw, placed a lock on Nissen’s motorcycle to prevent him from leaving.
The next morning, Dennis “Dog” Hall, an Outlaw, brought Nissen to Bowman’s motel room. Bowman greeted Nissen by punching him in the face. Murphy then held Nissen while Bowman put a knife to Nissen’s ear and threatened to kill him if he ever raised his hand against another Outlaws officer. Murphy and Maiale, at Bowman’s direction, began beating and kicking Nissen until Bowman told them to get rid of him. Murphy then proceeded to push Nissen off of a three-story balcony, which resulted in severe injuries to Nissen, including a broken ankle.
At Bowman’s trial, Slasher Maiale testified that he got his nickname after a bar fight in which he was on the bottom of a pile of men.
“I cut my way out,” said Maiale, who was testifying against Bowman because God told him to. “I stabbed everyone who was on top of me. Thirteen or fourteen people.”
When Bowman learned that Alan “Greaser” Wolfe, an Outlaw, had testified before a grand jury. Bowman, told Hicks to kick Wolfe out of the club and otherwise take care of him. Hicks and another member revoked Wolfe’s membership and beat him.
At a 1994 meeting in Chicago, Bowman told Hicks and others that an Outlaw had become a snitch. Bowman said that the snitch would be killed and explained that the killing would be made to look like an enemy had done it. He also said that the murdered snitch would be given an Outlaw funeral.
A few weeks later, authorities found the body of Donald Fogg, an Outlaw, lying face down in the snow. Fogg had been shot in the head in a field near an Outlaws clubhouse. Fogg received an Outlaw funeral. At the funeral, a story was circulated that a policeman interested in Fogg’s girlfriend had shot him, but none of the Outlaws seemed interested in revenge. Bowman later acknowledged that Fogg was the snitch he had targeted. Fogg, it turned out, had been talking to the police.
All black and white images are Copyrighted © Doug Barber.