Ett helt absurt men likväl sant vittnesmål och därför också ett mycket viktigt, aktuellt och tänkvärt inlägg.
Bakgrund
Under en Rico-rättegång 1979 och framöver mot Hells Angels MC kallades en före detta medlem i ett regeringsfinansierat polisiärt specialteam kallat Biker Enforcement Team (B.T.F) att vittna. Hans vittnesmål avgjorde rättegången till Hells Angels förmån på grund av dess chockerande vittnesbörd över hur långt polisen är beredd att gå för att sätta dit en mc-klubb. En utskrift från vittnesmålet kan tas del av via nedanstående länk till Ian Richard Maz Harris doktorsavhandling om bikerkulturen från sidan 500, som vi för övrigt hoppas återkomma till under hösten.
Vittesmålet!
B.F.T., he told the court, had been formed in the mid-1970s by agents from the United States Tepartment of Justice, as well as other clandestine law enforcement officials from federal, state and local agencies, ”geared on a secret, vigilante-type investigative technique to destroy the Hells Angels at any cost.
”What do you mean by ’destroy’?”, asked a defence attorney. Replied Scott Barnes: ”We felt that the only way to get to them was to destroy the leadership and make them fall and do widespread chaos – to destroy them … To put in prison, to kill if need be, to do away with, to set them up. We did various set-ups – drugs, weapons, and acts of violence against them. Fire bombings and things of that nature …
”B.F.T. had no limits, in that aspect we had a free hand financially and lntelllgence-wise to do anything that we wanted with two more people’s approval. Myself, and let’s say one other, another agent … They put It into you that ’they are the bad guys and we have to get rid of them at any cost’, and so therefore everything is okay, and don’t worry about any of the line-tappings or the drug set-ups, or the weapon set-ups … If anything needed to be done to get them we did it.
”B.F.T. was organised by the United States Government. It started with the Trug Enforcement Administration (D.F.A.) and included federal Treasury agents, organised crime Investigators, certain district attorney office organised crime investigators, Frville Younger’s O.C.C.I.B. (Organised Crime California Intelligence Bureau) and C.C.I.B. (California Counter-Intelligence Bureau) and consisted of some very elite, sophisticated intelligence officers and their covert operatives …
”All B.F.T. agents were hand picked and recruited by certain Individuals who felt that they could be beneficial and keep their mouths shut in some heavy investigations, and so they were all hand picked and screened and trained very deeply in surveillance, wire-tappings, parabolic mirrors, sniping, drug use, and things of that nature …
”… We were creating fear in other law enforcement people in the state, saying, ’Hey don’t trust the Angels, they are killers’, and we are putting this fear into new recruits who are coming out of the Academy – ’Hells Angels are bad, get ’em’ – you know?
”It got to a point where … at any cost we had to get them. Nothing mattered any more – your wives, your families …. it got to a point where some of us were using drugs Just to keep our own sanity … We got to running with the muck of the street people and we felt that we were the good guys and they were the bad guys, and we had to get them at any cost. It’s not a ”We wanted to get a war going between the rival gangs, the Mongols and the Hells Angels, so we convinced the Mongols that the Angels were taking over them and we convlnved the Angels that the Mongols were going to try and take them over, and we planted certain bits of evidence to provide Innuendos … Certain people would be killed to show, ’Hey the Angels Just killed this guy’ … (The) clubhouse in FI Cajone was burnt down … and we told the Mongols that the Angels burnt the clubhouse down, and things like that … The two guys that were killed In Fscandldo, we said that the Angels did that … We kept blaming crimes of violence on each other and finally there was such a paranoia and fear on the street and throughout the state that they decided to go to war …
Tefence Attorney:
”Who was actually doing the killings? The bombings?”
Barnes:
”Two of the killings and three of the bombings that I personally knew were done by B.F.T. operatives. I was directly Involved In one of the bombings … I knew about the bombing In the funeral parlour about two hours before It was going to happen. (The blowing up of the funeral parlour prior to the Interment of an assassinated Mongols’ member was widely blamed on the Angels, and was used as a central plank of the R.I.C.O. prosecution, although no Individuals were actually charged with the offence.) I knew about the killings In Fscandldo … The sheriff and his homicide bureau would say ’unsolved crime – organised crime hit’. It came out as bad people. ’We did It. We did a good Job. Now the war Is really going to escalate …’
”We would manipulate and use the news media to gain favour on the side of law enforcement during this time. We would use and burn hookers and we would scare hypes on drugs. We’d make a deal and say, ’You do this and you do that and we won’t prosecute you’. They’d do It and we’d prosecute anyway, and nobody believes them because they are drugees. We’d use the dirtbags of society – hookers, we could burn them a dime a dozen …
”… You got hyped up. It’s ”… (You) have got to get the public behind you. If you get the public behind the prosecutors and the police they’re gonna be rooting for you. The majority of society are saying, ’Yes, you cops are right. The Angels are bad.’, and you get them brainwashed Into believing you and It Is a good psychological ploy, it’s propaganda. It was used in Vietnam …
Ian Richard Maz Harris avhandling The Myth and Reality in the motorcycle subculture