BIKERS GOING ON WARPATH

Get Set For More Violence, RCMP Gang Expert Warns

The Hell's Angels are cranking up their war machine and Montrealers
should brace themselves for even more violence, a top police expert
said yesterday after a leader of the rival Rock Machine gang was shot
dead in his Laval home.

"The Hell's Angels seem to be quite serious in ending the war," said
RCMP Staff-Sgt. Jean-Pierre Levesque of Criminal Intelligence Service
Canada. "For a long time they were going after the knees (of the Rock
Machine), now they're going for the head."

In the past two months, Rock Machine leader Richard (Bam-Bam) Lagace
and Johnny Plescio, one of the founders of the gang, have been killed.
Lagace was gunned down outside his Saint-Lin health club and Plescio
slain at home - killed by several shots fired from outside his house.

More than 50 people have died in the past four years in the
criminal-gang war, fought between the Hell's Angels and the Rock
Machine for control of the lucrative illegal-drug trade in Quebec.

A member of Plescio's family found the 34-year-old man's body in his
Katia St. home in Laval's St. Francois district yesterday afternoon -
less than 24 hours after a burned-out car with two machine guns in the
back seat was found in the same neighbourhood.

Police officers had their antennas up after that - a burned-out car is
often the signature of a crime committed by one of the criminal gangs.

Plescio - described as one of the Rock Machine's strong arms - had a
criminal record for narcotics, criminal harassment and
intimidation.

Two of the Rock Machine's other leaders - Giovanni Cazzetta, 41, and
Gilles Lambert, 42 - are in jail, while a third man, Fred Faucher,
heads the gang's activities around Quebec City. They could be the next
targets, Levesque said.

"We expect more attempts - I think the Hell's are really out to get
the heads of the Rock Machine," he said.

The Hell's have stepped up their attacks since five members of the
Hell's-affiliated Rockers gang were acquitted in July of the murder of
a Rock Machine member, Levesque said.

"Until then, everything was low-key," Levesque said.

"But that kind of gave (the Hell's) a second wind, and it was time for
them to take care of business."

Taking care of business means wiping out the Rock Machine leadership
and any ties it might have to the Texas-based Bandidos gang, Levesque
added.

The Bandidos and the Hell's have been locked in a brutal war in
Scandinavia, where at least 14 people have died.

There have been reports the Rock Machine wants to join the Bandidos,
whose U.S. national vice-president, George Wegers, is a candidate to
become president. Wegers was arrested in Quebec City in October while
having dinner with Rock Machine members.

"If the Hell's Angels are able to get rid of some of the big names in
the Rock Machine, they'll be able to say to the Bandidos, why would
you want the Rock Machine," Levesque said.

But the Rock Machine appears to be striking back through spectacular
car bombings, including one yesterday morning in Montreal's Point St.
Charles district.

Pierre Dore, 40, a Rockers sympathizer, narrowly escaped death when
his car exploded as he drove down residential Ropery St. Dore, who
police described as a drug dealer, was taken to a hospital, but his
injuries - lacerations to his back and an arm - weren't considered
life-threatening.

Police say it was the second attempt in a week aimed at people
associated with the Rockers.

On Friday, two men also suspected of having ties to the Rockers were
injured when a bomb went off in the pickup truck they were driving in
Montreal's Cote St. Paul district.

A Montreal Urban Community police spokesman said the early indications
of their investigation are that both bombs are very similar.

Dore was driving along Ropery St. and turning westward on St. Charles
St. after 9 a.m. when the bomb went off in his car, a maroon-coloured
Grand Prix. It came to rest with its front wheels on a sidewalk. The
driver side of the vehicle was heavily damaged.

The blast was strong enough to shatter the windows of the two
buildings on either side of the street where the bomb went off. People
living as far as two blocks away said they felt their apartment floors
shake. They also said they saw a second man take off his shirt and
wrap Dore's arm with it.

Veronique Jubert was sleeping in her apartment when she was awakened
by the sound of the explosion and glass flying through her room. She
was asleep in a bed less than 20 metres from where the car exploded.

"A few minutes later, I looked outside and saw a man sitting on the
sidewalk. His arm was wrapped in a shirt and he looked badly injured,"
she said. The bomb also shattered several windows of a building across
the street from Jubert's, a seniors' residence.

No one in either building was injured, police said.

Police reported Dore was able to get out of the damaged car on his
own. Foam from a car-seat cushion sprayed out of the vehicle, and
police marked off areas as far as 35 metres away indicating where
debris from the car had landed.

One woman who lives a few doors away from where the explosion occurred
complained that if the gangs are at war they should keep it among
themselves, adding that many young children live on her block.

She recalled the 1995 incident where 11-year-old Daniel Desrochers
died after he was hit in the head by a piece of shrapnel. The boy was
riding his bike when a drug dealer's booby-trapped jeep exploded.

His death sparked public outrage and led to the creation of the
Wolverine anti-gang squad, which was composed of the RCMP, Surete du
Quebec and MUC police until the latter force decided to pull out last
February.

With debris from the blast barely swept up, Marcel Sevigny, Point St.
Charles city councillor, said MUC police should rejoin the anti-gang
force and, in an open letter to MUC chairman Vera Danyluk, demanded
the idea be considered immediately.

"It seems to me that the Wolverine squad had a certain control over
the war, and it's not a coincidence that the attacks have started
again since that pressure has slackened," he pointed out.

The fact that yesterday's explosion occurred in a residential
neighbourhood shows that the Rock Machine is feeling the pressure from
the Hell's, Levesque said.

"They're like rats," he said.

"When you're stuck in a corner and you feel the heat, you'll do
anything. It seems they want to go back to what we lived through in
1994 when the war started - anything goes."

Checked-by: Patrick Henry