HELLS ANGELS, POLICE TRY TO USE MEDIA FOR OWN ENDS

By itself, the police raid on a house on West 16th a few weeks ago might
have seemed insignificant.

It was, after all, just one more bust of one more marijuana grow operation
- -- albeit one allegedly run by associates of the Hells Angels.

Over the past year, the special projects unit of the Vancouver city police
has conducted more than 50 such raids, and, by conservative estimate,
seized more than $10 million in drugs.

More compelling, however, was the way police announced the bust, and how
clearly it illustrates the growing public relations battle between police
and Hells Angels. It is a fight increasingly being fought in the media,
with each side holding news conferences, issuing statements, and openly
catering to reporters.

On the occasion of the marijuana bust, for example, Vancouver police media
liaison officer Constable Anne Drennan, who usually handles the morning
press conference alone, provided basic details of the raid before
introducing Detective Constable Al Dalstrom, a member of the special
projects unit.

Dalstrom, now in his sixth year of investigating outlaw motorcycle gangs,
proceeded to talk for 45 minutes about the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. He
described in detail members' involvement in drug running, witness
intimidation, car bombings, and organized crime.

He then issued a passionate plea for more police resources to deal with the
problem.

"I can tell you right now that, as a police community, we fear that the
problem has grown to the point in this country, and in this province, and
in this city, where it may no longer be combatable," Dalstrom said. "In
other words, I don't think we're ever going to end the Hells Angels in
Canada. We're long beyond that.

"I think now what we have to do is contain the damage, and reduce the
damage, and for us as a police community to be successful in that, we have
to say to you, our employers [the public], we can no longer do this with
the resources that we've got. The problem has outstripped us."

By the time he was finished, reporters were on the telephone to their
newsrooms. One television anchor even made a personal visit to the station
to interview Dalstrom for the six o'clock news.

As surprising as it was, Dalstrom's cry for help was only the latest
episode in a police media blitz that began last fall. The publicity
campaign has included a cover story in Reader's Digest entitled Biker
Gangs: Getting Away With Murder, and a series of interviews by Jean-Pierre
Levesque, national coordinator on outlaw motorcycle gangs for the Criminal
Intelligence Service of Canada.

In January, around the time Dalstrom made his plea for help, police in
Halifax took a busload of journalists along on a pre-dawn raid of homes and
businesses -- including a small clubhouse -- allegedly run by members of
the Hells Angels.

The new, reporter-friendly policy is key to an over-all national police
strategy for generating public support in the fight against biker gangs.

"It's no longer acceptable for police agencies to operate in silence -- in
secrecy -- as we've done for years," Dalstrom said. "It's time to go to the
public, and it's time to go to our political leaders, be honest about the
extent of the problem, be honest that we are not properly resourced to
fight this problem, and be straight up about what we need to combat this."

The Hells Angels, meanwhile, continue to counter with toy runs for kids and
the ubiquitous Rick Ciarniello, a Vancouver Hells Angel, who has become the
de facto public relations arm of the club. Ciarniello gives reporters his
pager number, and responds promptly to any attacks against the club or its
members.

Last fall, Ciarniello even wrote an opinion column in the Georgia Straight
newspaper, in which he described the police strategy as "propaganda" and
compared attacks on Hells Angels to the persecution of Jews, Communists and
trade unionists in Nazi Germany.

"Is it possible that someone, in the future, will be saying: 'When they
came for the Hells Angels, I wasn't a Hells Angel, so I didn't speak up?'
"Ciarniello wrote. "Think about it."

More frustrating for police, however, is Ciarniello's ability to point out
that none of the more than 90 Hells Angels in B.C. are currently in prison.
A number of them, including associates and members of so-called "puppet"
clubs such as the Regulators, are currently facing a variety of charges.
But Ciarniello has a point when he asks: Where are the arrests?

Police officers, themselves, admit privately that years of neglect have
given Hells Angels an easy out when it comes to defending themselves in
public -- especially in B.C.

Unhindered by police, the five Hells Angels chapters in this province are
now among the richest in the world, investigators say.

Yves Lavigne, journalist and author of several books on the Hells Angels,
blames senior police managers for failing to stop the club's rapid growth
across Canada and internationally. The Hells Angels had 67 chapters
world-wide when Lavigne wrote his first book more than 10 years ago; they
now have more than 120.

"The fault of policing has not been with the ground-level investigators,
but with police administrations which have lacked the will to tackle the
biker problem," Lavigne said in a telephone interview from Toronto.

Police managers, who always thought themselves better or smarter than
bikers, consistently underestimated the strength and intelligence of the
Hells Angels, Lavigne said.

"I believe this strategy -- to be more outspoken -- was prompted by a
certain feeling of impotence that traditional police tactics, encouraged by
police administrators across the country, were failing."

Lavigne views the new tactics as a last-ditch attempt by front-line
investigators. But he remains unconvinced it will work.

"The public still romanticizes the Hells Angels, and the Angels have spent
a lot of money on public relations efforts," he said. "They've got their
lines down pat. They've been saying the same things since 1964: 'We're not
a bunch of criminals. We're misunderstood, and we're being attacked by the
police.' "

The lines become particularly hard to swallow in Quebec, where a turf war
between the Hells Angels and the Rock Machine for control of the drug trade
has resulted in dozens of deaths. The victims included an 11-year-old boy
killed by shrapnel from a car bomb in 1995. His death prompted police to
form a special anti-gang unit.

Then, last December, a high-ranking member of the Nomads chapter in
Montreal was charged with the first-degree murders of two prison guards. A
preliminary hearing is slated for this month.

And the RCMP says another member of the Nomads is wanted in the 1993
slaying of a witness in a drug case.

"Really, when you see a bunch of these guys on stage saying, 'We're not
criminals,' and you flash back to Quebec and the slaughtering of the North
Chapter, and the bombings and shootings and the firebombings in the bars --
it's ridiculous," Lavigne said. "How can the people really believe this?"

Lavigne said he suspects the Hells Angels' greatest worry is that the
police media blitz will actually work.

"They fear that people will answer the call, and that the politicians will
answer the call, and that the police will be more effective."

Last week, the Hells Angels denied any involvement in a suspected death
threat against a CBC Radio reporter in Vancouver. The reporter, whose
series of stories on the Hells Angels began airing March 2, returned home
that night to find his stereo receiver wrapped in plastic and dumped in a
tub full of water.

But if it was a threat, it raises questions about whether club members and
their associates are becoming unnerved by the intense scrutiny of their
activities by police and the media.

Asked about the stereo in the tub, Ciarniello responded: "Why would anybody
do such a thing?"