End of the Road for the Mongols MC

Arrested and Shirtless, Always a Sign of a Morally Upright Individual [photo from LAT]

The ATF and local law enforcement launched a massive crackdown on the notorious Mongols Motorcycle Club in Southern California and elsewhere this morning. While the ATF may conjure up some negative feelings about their botched raid against the Branch Davidians in Waco that left a pile of charred corpses, they most certainly had justification to use heavy-handed tactics against the thugs in the Mongols. Their history of offenses includes starting a shoot out at the Harrah's casino in Laughlin, attempted assault against law enforcement in Eugene, and suspicions that there gang is funded by the sales of methamphetamine. The LA Times mentions one disturbing fact about the colors of their insignia:

There are also patches associated with the gang's alleged sexual rituals. Members are awarded wings of varying colors for engaging in sex acts with women at pre-arranged "wing parties," the indictment states. Members who have sex with a woman with venereal disease are given green wings; those who have sex with a woman's corpse are given purple wings, according to the indictment.

In his famous book on motorcycle outlaws, Hunter S. Thompson discussed how the "red wings" were awarded to members of the Hell's Angels when they performed oral sex on a lady during "that time of the month", but necrophilia crosses the line from comic relief to moral depravity. It should be noted that the Hell's Angels and Mongols are bitter rivals, but their culture of being "one percenters" amongst bikers seems to have some similarities.

On the personal side, I once walked to the gentlemen's club near my apartment in Hollywood several years back, and saw a bunch of Mongols getting on their choppers in a hurry. I walked into the entrance expecting to see strippers soliciting me for a lap dance, but instead there was a well-dressed guy in his 20s lying face down with blood all over the place. He was still moving, but the bouncer was frantically calling the paramedics and yelling that those bikers fuck did this to him. Not sure what the poor guy did to receive such a savage beating, but I was lucky it wasn't me.