CANADIAN MOTORCYCLE GANGS GUN FOR CONTROL OF ILLEGAL DRUG TRADE

MONTREAL -- The hit took place at 10 in the morning.

Two men dressed in black walked up to a man unloading his car, pumped five
bullets into his back and ran away across a parking lot. Michel Auger, the
reporter who knew too much about organized crime and put it all in the
newspaper, staggered but did not fall.

"I saw someone without a face and a ball of smoke near his belt," Auger
said. "While he was fleeing . . . I immediately knew that my work was the
cause of the pains in my back." He managed to pull out his cell phone and
call for help.

The bullets, which police say they believe were fired by a member of the
Hells Angels motorcycle gang, cut through Auger's body but missed vital
organs. He recovered, and in his newspaper, Le Journal de Montreal, he has
continued to chronicle a deadly and escalating gang war in Canada, a
country known more for its peacekeeping in foreign lands, its civility at
home and its general repulsion of violence.

Police make no claims that they have the gang violence under control.
Giuliano Zaccardelli, commissioner of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police,
contends that the very fabric of Canadian society may be at stake. And
police can't explain why the upsurge is happening now, other than to say
that certain types of violence tend to appear in Canada about 10 years
later than in the United States. Whatever the cause, police are supporting
controversial amendments to the Criminal Code now before Parliament that
would make it illegal simply to be a member of a gang.

The gang battle pits the Hells Angels against a group called the Rock
Machine for control of drug distribution. In the middle, willing to supply
whichever gang is triumphant, are traditional organized-crime groups that
import drugs into Canada.

The violence has killed 157 people in Quebec since 1994, police say. Gangs
have allegedly intimidated farmers into growing marijuana, taken over
small-town drug markets, beaten up bar owners, killed two prison guards and
issued death threats against judges, police officers and prosecutors.

By police count, there are about 105 full-time Angels in Quebec, plus many
part-timers.

The gang does not respond to allegations that it's the cause of a crime
wave. "They keep very quiet, they don't issue public statements," said
Daniele Roy, a lawyer who represents 13 Angels on trial in Quebec City on
162 charges that include kidnapping, assault and drug offenses. They deny
the charges.

Roy contends that authorities single out the gang unfairly. "The Hells
Angels are the flavor of the moment," Roy said. "You have the Italian
Mafia. You have Asian gangs in the West. You have the Warriors, Indians who
are controlling the drug market in Manitoba. . . . I do not think the Hells
Angels are any worse than any other group."

Police say the government needs to get tougher. "We're too nice in Canada,
I'm telling you, we're too nice," said Andre Bouchard, commander of the
Crimes Division in the Montreal Urban Community Police. He said a former
Sicilian Mafia leader recently told Canadian Television that Canada was a
"preferred place" for the business of crime because police forces are
small, sentences are light and the prisons are "like hotels."

Bouchard is sitting in his office above a shopping mall. Only a glass
window separates the homicide squad from the shoppers below. Frequently, a
reputed Hells Angels leader named Maurice "Mom" Boucher, a well-dressed man
who wears designer glasses and commutes to his office near another police
station, comes for lunch at the food court below with an entourage,
Bouchard says. Police view his presence there as a taunt.

"He thinks he's higher than God," said Bouchard, popping open a soda in the
canteen of the squad office. "He thinks he can run anything. . . . They
took over Quebec. Now, they want Ontario. They will start a war."

Few of the killings that police blame on the Angels have resulted in
convictions. Only three top members of the gang have been charged with
murder since 1995. None was convicted -- in part, police say, because of
intimidation from leather-clad bikers who packed courtrooms and stared down
jurors.

Canadian law enforcement officials argue that stronger laws are needed. "We
don't have real anti-gang legislation," said Louis Dionne, director of the
Quebec government's organized-crime unit. "Real legislation would
criminalize participation in gangs," so authorities wouldn't have to prove
people had committed specific criminal acts.

The Criminal Code amendments also would allow authorities to seize the
property of criminal organizations. "We want the judge to [be able to] say,
'You have a big house and all these cash investments, you tell us where you
get that money,' " Dionne said.

Quebec police also want to replace jury trials with three-judge panels for
organized-crime cases. "It scares 12 people to sit in a courtroom with
these bikers," Bouchard said. "It is easier to protect three judges than 12
jurors."

Talk like this concerns many Canadians, who are proud of their open legal
system. It also concerns lawyer Roy, who argues that in its enthusiasm to
go after crime, the government should not eliminate rights that are
considered the "cornerstone" of Canadian society.

"I'm not trying to pretend it is okay to commit a crime," she said. But "if
you want to fight crime, fight crime -- don't change society's principles.
If you want to fight crime, give more money to police officers and give
better education."

The gangs' battle for control of the drug trade began in earnest in 1995,
Bouchard said. Angels, who ride the streets wearing "colors" -- the
insignia of a winged skull in a motorcycle helmet -- attacked smaller crews
and the Rock Machine. That gang was not strong enough to fight them off, so
it paid the Dark Circle, another gang, to attack the Angels.

The Angels used guns; the Rock Machine liked noise, so it used bombs. In
1995, a car was blown up on a street and flying metal killed an 11-year-old
boy.

In the police view, the attack on Auger was only the latest skirmish in
this war. Police say they believe the people who attacked Auger are dead.
By the code of the gangs, Bouchard said, "when you make a mistake, you
should be dead. . . . You don't miss. How can you walk up to someone, hit
him with six bullets and [he doesn't] die?"

On the morning he was shot, Auger had been out on interviews. It was the
day after publication of a series of articles on murders, attempted murders
and disappearances. "Police believe that the killers of Louis Roy,
nicknamed Melou, will be found in the highest-ranking members of the Hells
Angels," Auger had written in Le Journal de Montreal.

Auger drove to his office that morning and looked for a nearby parking
space. He was expecting to run in and out. He didn't see the two men
approaching, one of them holding a .22-caliber handgun with a silencer. "I
was getting stuff out of my trunk when I was shot in the back," he said.
"It happened so fast."

As he talks, he is standing at the very spot of the shooting, under clear
skies. Later, he walks into the newsroom through a back door that was
equipped with a special lock after the shooting. He sits down at his desk.

"I received threats in the past," he said. "I was taking precautions. I was
not expecting to be shot. I was expecting maybe my car would be blown up. .
. . I never thought, as a young reporter, it was a dangerous job. I thought
in Colombia, life is more dangerous, but not here in Canada."