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Posted on 08/26/2003 2:37:54 PM PDT by RedBloodedAmerican
TAMPA -- The man considered the top Outlaw Motorcycle Club member in the world set out to claim Florida and other states as territory in a decades-long "campaign of terror," federal prosecutors told a jury Tuesday.
Through killings, bombings and intimidation, Harry "Taco" Bowman commanded his legions of bikers and lived by the credo, "Snitches are a Dying Breed," Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Kunz told jurors in opening statements at Bowman's racketeering trial.
"What this case is not about is individuals who have chosen a different lifestyle, wear long hair, ride motorcycles and want to be left alone," Kunz said.
"It's not going to be about a bar brawl. ... These acts were thought out, they were planned. They were part of a campaign of terror."
Bowman, a 51-year-old family man from the upscale Detroit neighborhood Grosse Point Farms, is being tried on 10 counts of racketeering stemming from what prosecutors describe as his 20-year reign over the Outlaws.
The biker club, symbolized by a skull and crossed pistons, has chapters throughout the United States, Canada and Europe.
Bowman's attorney, Henry Gonzalez, reserved his opening statement for when the defense begins its case. The trial could take more than six weeks.
The twelve jurors and four alternates are serving anonymously to protect their safety, and security at the courthouse was tight in anticipation that many of Bowman's fellow gang members would turn out for the trial.
None did, though.
Bowman was on the FBI's most wanted list before his arrest in 1999 in Sterling Heights, Mich.
Prosecutors said Bowman ordered some of the Outlaws most violent acts, but did not actually carry them out himself.
Three slayings are alleged in the indictment, including the 1991 slaying of a rival club member in the Florida town of Edgewater. Raymond Chaffin was shot in the back of the head as he worked on his motorcycle; his 12-year-old daughter found him when she came home from school.
Kunz said Bowman was determined to claim Florida and other states as Outlaw territories and would strike out against other motorcycle gangs who crossed the Outlaws' path.
Bowman built a sophisticated information network, sending Outlaws into trials to take notes on witnesses against the club, collecting search warrant affidavits and newspaper clippings that told of law enforcement efforts against the Outlaws, jurors were told.
He was so adamant in enforcing the Outlaws power that even the slightest alliance between other clubs would bring the Outlaws wrath, Kunz said.
Bowman once became enraged at seeing a newspaper photograph of a member of the Fifth Chapter Motorcycle Club, a group of "clean and sober" bikers, comforting a Hells Angel member at a funeral, Kunz said. Bowman ordered the destruction of the Fifth Chapter's clubhouse and its members robbed and beaten, Kunz said.
Also among the crimes Bowman is accused of ordering are two 1994 bombings, one of the Orlando clubhouse of the rival Warlocks and the other a car bomb that exploded outside the Chicago clubhouse of Hells Henchmen. Bowman thought the Henchmen were aligning with the Hells Angels, the Outlaws' arch enemies, Kunz said.
My two cents
Des
Glad you finally got here.
Thread is from 2003. ;)
LA Occupiers are calling for violence too - all the creepy people are coming out of the woodwork...
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See # 11
Exactly. Or witnesses in the BATF *Gunwalker* schemes. Or pesky congressmen threatening to reduce the budget of runaway federal agencies. Or Tea Party members. Or anyone else they or their political masters want out of the way, eliminated and silenced forever.
And speaking of law enforcement and *hits*....
That's the nickname of the skull above a set of crossed pistons on the Outlaws Motorcycle Club patch that's at the crux of a civil rights lawsuit filed Monday by three of the club's members.
You'd push the Abuse button on someone for calling you a "jerk?" I've been a little hard on the Mods if it turns out they've been flooded with Abuses every time someone got called a jerk.
Ease up CL, you just responded to an eight year old post...........Don't worry, I did it once myself.
Why it was resurrected, who the hell knows.......
Yeah, I noticed the vintage of the thread after I posted. LOL. That guy may not even exist any more. I’m just wondering though...if “Jerk!” gets the button pushed on you, AM’s must be awash with notices about Cyber Liberty.
You’re not a newb. As I recall, FR used to be much more genteel than perhaps it is today. I don’t see that as a bad thing . . .
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