POLITICAL WILL TO FIGHT BIKERS LACKING: CHIEF

Gangs Are Not Yet Seen As A Serious Threat In Ontario, Says Nicholls

Combating the Hells Angels and other organized crime groups is not merely a
matter of police work, says Niagara Regional Police Chief Gary Nicholls.

It is also a matter of political will that is, in many cases, absent across
the country, he said.

"This isn't just a Niagara problem. This is a provincial problem and indeed
a national problem," he said in an interview. "The provincial and federal
governments need to give us the resources -- money, manpower, all of that
- -- to cope with it."

Part of the challenge, Nicholls suggested, is that Ontario residents don't
see biker gangs as a serious enough threat to public safety for them to be
placed high on political priority lists.

In Quebec, it has been a different matter. A long, bloody war between the
Rock Machine and the Hells Angels claimed nearly 170 lives. While most
victims were bikers, an 11-year-old Montreal boy was killed in 1995 by
shrapnel from a bomb meant for a gang member.

The bloodshed mobilized public opinion against the bikers, which in turn
pushed politicians into action.

Nicholls said that push led, in part, to the recent wave of Hells Angels
arrests in Quebec, responsible for netting a Hamilton biker and reputed
sponsor of the Niagara Hells Angels chapter, Walter Stadnick. He is in
jail, facing 13 counts of murder.

Nicholls' comments follow the opening last month of a Hells Angels
clubhouse on Darby Road in Welland.

Ontario, home for decades to 13 biker clubs until the Hells Angels recently
absorbed many of them, has never suffered a vicious biker turf war.

"I don't know why that is," said Nicholls. "Maybe we just do things
differently here in Ontario, but the fact is we've never seen that kind of
violence here from the bikers."

Yves Lavigne, author of three books on the Hells Angels, said the bikers'
desire for profit eventually overcame any bloodlust.

So they signed truces with longtime enemies, ending the biker wars being
fought in Canada, the United States and Europe.

"The truces were drawn up by lawyers," Lavigne said. "They carved up
territory between them so nothing would interfere with money-making
operations, like drug dealing."

The end of the biker wars has enabled them to keep a lower profile.

"Call it a business decision," Nicholls said.

Without the same kind of biker violence seen in Quebec, Nicholls said it is
difficult to convince politicians of the need to allocate resources for
combating biker gangs.

Police say gangs such as the Hells Angels traffic in drugs, particularly
cocaine, from coast to coast. They also say that despite the grungy
appearance of some members, bikers are intelligent and sophisticated, not
to mention being well organized and well financed.

"The Hells Angels can make a business decision and effect it almost
overnight," said Nicholls. "The political process, by its very nature,
grinds slowly."

That leaves police leaders between a rock and a hard place, said the chief.

"What do I do? Do I cry 'Biker war! Biker war!' because I think we can get
more money? Well, that just isn't truthful," he said. "Or do I handle it,
in what I think is a responsible fashion, by meeting with (the police
services board) and apprising them of our needs?"

Lavigne, a vocal critic of how the police have handled outlaw bikers, said
it's up to men such as Nicholls to make politicians understand what the
Hells Angels are really about.

"The lack of political will is only in part the inability of politicians to
grasp the problem," he said. "The police have not articulated the issue
very well."

But Nicholls said the Association of Ontario Chiefs of Police have begun to
draft an operational framework to combat organized crime.

The intention, Nicholls said, is to eventually present the plan to Queen's
Park, a way to lobby for increased police resources.

"I expect that when we present this strategy, the provincial government
will support it," Nicholls said.