Prosecutors are attempting to break up America’s most violent motorcycle gangs by claiming rights to their logos.
If the government is successful, it will become illegal for a member of the 600-strong notorious Mongols Nation gang to wear its trademarked patch – a black-and-white image of 12th century conqueror Genghis Khan riding a motorbike in a pair of sunglasses.
Police sources say that removing gang logos diminishes the gang’s power and identity.
A source told Fox News: ‘It not just stripping them of their identity, or robbing them of a recruiting tool, it’s taking the star off their helmet. The logo itself furthers a criminal enterprise.’
If successful, one expert says that the government will use the legal precedent to disrupt other violent motorcycle groups, including those involved in Sunday’s horrific shoot-out in Waco.
Donald Charles Davis, author of ‘Aging Rebel: Dispatches From The Motorcycle Outlaw Frontier’, told Fox that the other clubs see this as ‘just a first step to what the government wants to do to all motorcycle clubs. They want to outlaw motorcycle clubs by taking their insignia away from them’.
The Mongols Nation badge was registered as a trademark in 2005, but prohibited in 2008 after the ATF arrested over 100 members of the gang on a variety of serious charges, including murder and robbery. However, the ban was later lifted.
The case between the gang and the government will be argued out in an LA court on June
Experts have revealed that confrontation between the Cossacks and the Bandidos – the two main gangs involved in Sunday’s shooting in Waco – had been simmering for months when one biker’s foot was apparently run over by a rival in a restaurant parking lot.
Police said the injury to the biker’s foot is thought to have sparked the shootout when the rivals faced off at a gathering at a so-called ‘breastauraunt’.
And Edward Winterhalder, a former member of the Bandidos who has written 10 books about biker gangs, told Daily Mail Online that the feud began when the Cossacks angered their rivals by putting a Texas patch on a territory-claiming part of their vests known as the ‘bottom rocker’ a year ago.
‘The Cossacks decided they were big enough and strong enough,’ he said. ‘The Bandidos told them to take it off but they didn’t back down.’
The Bandidos, who formed in Texas in 1966, have long dominated the territory over the Cossacks, who formed there three years after their rivals.
There are now around 200 Cossacks in the area and 150 Bandidos, but the Bandidos have many more support biker groups than their rivals, he said.
Meanwhile, the police count of the number of weapons recovered from the scene of the deadly Waco shootout continues to fluctuate.
Waco police Sgt. W. Patrick Swanton now says crime scene officers have made a new weapons count and come up with 318 ‘and still counting.’ Swanton said he expected the count to continue to rise.
Of those weapons counted so far, 118 are handguns, one is an AK-47 assault-style rifle and 157 are knives. Swanton says weapons still uncounted are clubs, knives, brass knuckles, firearms and chains with padlocks attached.
Earlier, Swanton had lowered an estimate of recovered weapons from about 1,000 to about 500. The uncertainty over the count prompted Swanton to ask the police crime scene supervisor to give him a firmer count.
The scale of the incident is likely to overwhelm McLennan County District Attorney Abelino Reyna and his team of about a dozen felony prosecutors, predict legal experts.
‘It’s pretty much uncharted territory for anybody,’ defense lawyer Walter Reaves Jr., told USA Today. ‘It’s going to put a strain on the entire court system.’
Engaging in organized crime can bring a sentence of five years to life in prison, but some of those charges could be upgraded to murder, a capital offense. Texas has the death penalty.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3090757/Feds-biker-gang-members-claiming-rights-logos.html#ixzz3app3ZcwM
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If they can do this to the Mongols gang, THEY’LL eventually end up doing this with anything THEY find to be a threat…
This is what is going on in Australia in regards to laws set in place to combat bikie ‘gangs’. Most states are enacting or attempting to enact laws of these types. http://www.ozbike.com.au/qldlaws/ As we all know it wont just be applied to the bikies eventually it will apply to any groups that the government find ‘disagreeable’.
I have a bridge to sell you too.
Obviously the FOCUS of the “news” now is: BIKERS. You never hear a word about bikers, then the Waco thing, now this. So they want us to think: BIKERS, right now. That’s the social engineering thought of the day.
Naturally they are going to attack bikers. They are afraid of men that are tough, trained to fight, unafraid, and free. Who’s next? Roughnecks?
Yep , it will be anyone or any group they feel threatened by for what ever reason they can come up with
“First they came for” etc you know the drill
I also have to laugh at the way they are going at it
Trying to take the “rights”to a patch that a group of outlaws wear , lmfao
You dip shits they are outlaws , rules and your laws mean shit to these people
And that’s another thing that scares the PAB
They know they won’t win if these groups are allowed to exist
This is what it looks like when the beast meets with a group they cant control
just like any Militia, or Moms Knitting clutch, ranchers, or cowboys , Roughnecks , etc a group of like minded people is dangerous to a brain washing system they are so hard at trying to formulate , not to mention a DICTATORSHIP!!
people WTFU.. that stands for wake the F up!
I think you’re right, Enemy.
This is just the opening salvo in a war against all organized groups, and I’m sure that militia groups are next.
They started with the bikers because they’d rather keep the militia out of the press for fear of doing some accidental recruiting. This incident will give them a precedent that’s not going to raise too much public opposition, but once it’s established, the policy will continue against all groups with no mention of it in the news.
The American people need to stand up for the bikers’ rights to the freedom of expression displayed by their logos, and their right to peaceably assemble, which is what they’re doing when they ride around together.
“Organized” JR . that’s the concept.
Gangs are not organized. They are people running the streets ready to take advantage of any week person in their path.
Yes, militias are next, only it wont be televised.
People, these bikers are christian veterans that are organized. I read today in the msm that they now have explosives from their tour of duty and are the next isis! Now they gonna blow up all police.
Its getting real, real!
I gotta stop
Just in time for Jade Helm….. Who would be the first ones to fight back if things go wrong? Take out the bikers and eliminate a threat. Texas is listed as hostile…
What a bunch of BS…