ROUGH RIDE FOR JUSTICE

OUTLAWS PAST

The Grim Reapers brought the Angels to Alberta, but the Edmonton Rebels
wrote the outlaw history of this city.

The Rebels, 17 of whom became prospective members when the Alberta Hells
Angels were created, were this city's dominant club for longer than any
other, even the Reapers.

The Rebels destroyed 15 rival clubs in their 28-year run, according to
newspaper clips, cops' memories and a university student's thesis.

Those vanquished opponents included an older, more established outlaw club
(the Warlords), a serious upstart (the Highway Kings) and a host of
pretenders who either never got close or didn't realize how tough, mean and
serious about their turf the Rebels could be.

All left their patches hanging in the tattooed fists of the Rebels.

But history suggests the Rebels' 1979 decision to ally with the Reapers is
what, 18 years later, left them as the Number 2 club once the Angels came to
Edmonton.

This city's first motorcycle club was the Coffin Cheaters, a 1960s-era squad
that faded away like old skid marks on asphalt. Former members of it and the
Sinners motorcycle club created the Warlords in 1968, according to oral
history recorded by Daniel R. Wolf.

Wolf was then a University of Alberta student of anthropology - the study of
humans, their societies and customs.

The Rebels, Wolf and newspaper clips agree, came in 1969.

A veteran Edmonton city cop recalls from his early days on the job how the
two clubs evolved differently.

"In the end the Warlords' members were older. The Rebels were a bit smarter
and a new kind of biker."

The clubs had an often-friendly and sometimes tense relationship that ended
after about 15 years, but stories differ on how.

Wolf's history claims the clubs merged - the Warlords took off their lion's
head patches and donned Rebels colours in about 1983.

The cop remembers it differently.

"The Rebels just said one day, 'It's time for you to go.' By 1980 the
Warlords were gone."

The peak of the struggle was a one-sided battle at the Warlords' hangout in
Edmonton's Riverdale district.

"When the Warlords and the Rebels finally had it out it was the funniest
thing you ever saw," the cop recalls. "I remember the night - the Rebels
went down there and just tuned all of them."

But at about the same time the Rebels quit their exclusive alliance with the
King's Crew, a Calgary club that had fought a long and bloody war with the
Grim Reapers - and up to six other Calgary clubs - for about a decade.

That war would return, but in the new order the Rebels set up a Calgary
chapter (1981) and the Reapers came to Edmonton (1980), becoming the
dominant club in Alberta. They had precarious control of Calgary, a lock on
Red Deer and second power in Edmonton.

The Rebels, meanwhile, incorporated the Spokesmen M.C. of Saskatoon and
formed a Moose Jaw chapter as well.

Then, in 1983, Calgary's scene literally exploded as the Crew and Reapers
entered a pitched battle. Two men would be killed.

In the capital, only a single blast was felt. On July 30, 1983, a bomb
exploded at a south-side motorcycle shop owned by a Reaper.

Nobody was hurt and no further clear signs of gang-warfare were recorded in
this city.

Edmonton's Rebels remained allied with the Reapers and the two clubs held
this city ever since - but their power shifted.

When the Hells Angels took over the Reapers in 1997, the Edmonton chapter
started with 12 full members.

None were Rebels.

The 17 Rebels, prospects for the Angels, gathered for a class photo sent to
Angels chapters worldwide, a precaution against imposters.

The photo was taken in the Rebels clubhouse at 11522 82 St.

The Rebels' run was over - the last patch they'd retired was their own.