SAFETY OF POLICE CONSIDERED IN HELLS ANGELS CLUBHOUSE TAKEOVER

A B.C. Supreme Court judge who ordered the seizure of the Nanaimo
clubhouse of the Hells Angels referred to the motorcycle club as a
criminal organization, according to a recently released court judgment.

Justice Daphne Smith last Nov. 8 approved an application to seize the
clubhouse under B.C.'s Civil Forfeiture Act at an in camera hearing
- -- excluding the public and the media, and without giving notice to
the Nanaimo chapter of the Hells Angels -- because of personal safety
concerns for those carrying out the order.

"The potential for an armed and violent resistance to the execution
of the order was considered to be real," Smith said in her written
ruling, released this week.

Another concern, the judge noted, was the preservation of the
property before the seizure order was executed on Nov. 9 by dozens of
heavily armed RCMP officers.

"The basis for public and personal safety concerns," she said,
"included the criminal nature of the organization, which is a chapter
of the larger Hells Angels Motorcycle Club (HAMC) criminal
organization in Canada."

Smith said other concerns raised were "the fortification of the
property, the weapons seized during the execution of a search warrant
at the property on Dec. 12, 2003 ('Project Halo') and the conviction
and/or involvement of members of the [Nanaimo Hells Angels chapter]
in a number of violent crimes including assaults on police officers."

Past searches of Hells Angels clubhouses, including the earlier raid
on the Nanaimo clubhouse, resulted in the discovery of "restricted
weapons, gang regalia, drug accounting tools and records and various
other instruments of unlawful activity," the judge wrote.

Smith also considered the affidavit evidence of Det. Mark Loader of
the Ontario Provincial Police, Biker Enforcement Unit; of RCMP Insp.
Robert Turnball of the Organized Crime Agency of B.C. who is now
seconded to the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit (CFSEU) of
B.C.; and Andy Richards of the CFSEU-BC, who was personally involved
in the execution of four search warrants on three separate Hells
Angels clubhouses in B.C., and who is an expert on the history and
structure of the Hells Angels.

The biker cops all agreed the Hells Angels "was held to be a criminal
organization" within the definition of Section 467.12(1) of the Criminal Code.

It was also alleged the Hells Angels are "involved in a wide variety
of criminal activities, the most lucrative of which is
drug-trafficking. Many members and/or associates have been convicted
for the offences of illicit drug importation, exportation,
distribution and manufacturing, and trafficking."

The full text of the judgment is on the Internet at:
http://www.courts.gov.bc.ca/Jdb-txt/SC/07/16/2007BCSC1648.htm.