UNDER & ALONE

UNDER & ALONE
A Book Review
OMG, OUTLAW MOTORCYCLE GANGS, that is. That’s the official truncation or acronym. The ATF, yeah, another acronym for Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and lately E for explosives surveillance, was on their case, those MONGOLS, the worst scourge of motorcyclists to date, worse apparently even than the HELLS ANGELS, OUTLAWS, or any other upstart bad guy dudes on cycles with colors.
Colors are the gist of the brotherhood – yes, brotherhood, very much so – of the various motorcycle clubs, the insignia that distinguishes the one from all others and commonly ensues in bloody battles for territorial rights as if some medieval rite of passage. It’s childish passion to be sure but it’s very real blood and guts battleground nonetheless. These guys are playing for keeps. And so are the ATF guys. This is the story told by one William Queen an undercover agent for the ATF for more than two years in a very dangerous situation throughout that excursion. What a time it was balancing that supposed brotherhood against moral and ethical – and legal (hoo haw) – imbalance.
To go undercover an agent must balance to some degree his ethics with legal precedent and not overstep the line, for instance murder or severe beatings, rape and pillage and the like, those activities so common to the motorcycle world or indeed any undercover surveillance of criminality. Outlaw bikers are criminals in every sense of the word but they do maintain a brotherhood as if medieval vassal highwaymen protecting their own.
Billy St. John, aka William Queen, infiltrated the Mongol motorcycle gang of southern California in the late 90s and actually achieved status of full-color membership and secretary treasurer of the club, his talents being recognized. He made “good ole boy” status in jig time. How does a guy do that? How can someone play such a role and be double standard all the way? Well, that’s the world of subterfuge and intrigue for pay. We some of us recall the TV show of the 50s, I LED THREE LIVES, HERBERT A. FILBRICK, the undercover agent rooting out Communists in America during the FBI’s J. Edgar Hoover administration, the closet homosexual director for half a century. It was no picnic for one lone guy to infiltrate such a treacherous territory as a motorcycle club; the ramifications were mortal suicide.
But this guy Queen did it and did it in style. How does one separate ethics from criminal brotherhood? Not easily as explained in this book. At first I figured this was cheap pulp fiction, guilty pleasures grade B movie stuff and indeed it seemed so for the first 50 pages and I was about to discard it. But then I came to realize that this guy was earnest and really concerned about both the cycle guys and the victims assimilated. This is a psychologist’s playground but one in which he played an almost active part.
People are conditioned to think that the HELLS ANGELS are the preeminent motorcycle gang bad guys gone commercial and that’s a fact, Hells Angels even market their name. But the MONGOLS are the true bad guys. These guys are ruthless killers and manipulators personified in such names as RED DOG, RANCID, BUCKETHEAD, BOBBY LOCO, EVEL, PANHEAD, DOMINGO, THE KID and so on, playing like nasty children can and will. These guys, while very much aware of the superior power of the law, are lawless and devoid of compassion for any outside of their club. Though they may and do display compassion for the passing of a club member’s mother, they think nothing of raping or even murdering some outsiders’ passersby. They don’t mess with their membership but they sure do mess with anyone else who they encounter. When they do their preplanned real dirty deeds they go “66”, viz. in regular clothes in automobiles, undercover so to speak.
This book was published in 2005 so we may know that this is an ongoing ordeal just as is the black youth gang ensemble in the ghettos and the prisons. These boys and girls are heathens, scurrilous barbarians, but they do hold a brotherhood of thieves tradition and heartfelt at that. This author told of sitting in the courtroom about to testify against a long term “brother” and glancing at the criminal saw not the “death stare” but a conflicted disappointment gaze much to his amazement. He had been a brother who had broken the covenant. That’s how these guys operate. They’re convinced that they’re right and proper. I suppose that Genghis Kahn of the original Mongols felt quite the same. That’s where the epithet MONGOLS comes from. These guys intend to be bad dudes and wholeheartedly so without reservations or qualms. These guys will beat anyone to a bloody pulp at a moment’s instigation without compunctions. They just don’t care about anyone but themselves. But they do feel strongly about their membership – which takes a long time to incur familial trust – and when violated they feel slighted and hurt. Curious combination that. The club greeting involves a special handshake and a hug and an “I love you, brother” salutation as if a religious ceremony even as they slaughter any others who might be innocent bystanders.
Many of the characterizations profiled in this book are doing time now, as one might imagine. These guys are organized criminals with an agenda to perform. Billy St. John was checked out via records of his supposed employment, family background, all aspects of his identification and was supported by the government agency’s ATF agents’ setup of phony phone numbers and the like to substantiate the Mongol snoop’s investigations. These guys take this very seriously, the more reason to wonder at the audacity of Queen’s infiltration. Of course he had constant backup surveillance all this while, always an agent watching his back. And he had electronic devices up the yin-yang to record all conversations transpiring, both on his body and in his car but also in his UC apartment, that is, Under Cover pad. Although the Mongols did their own background checks quite assiduously, the government agents were two steps ahead at all times. Nonetheless one slip-up would have cost Queen his life.
The wrap-up after more than two years of undercover investigation saw a couple dozen convictions both federal and state but the Mongols continued their rampage regardless, a huge fight ensuing with the Hells Angels causing several deaths at a casino and one more immediate revenge killing but two years thereafter Queen’s last day undercover. Like Bad Seed children they’re hardwired for illicit action. Length of sentencing is not broached and one can only presume that the Parole Board will take into account the backgrounds of all concerned. Oddly the state of Michigan rides tougher herd on convicts and defendants alike than all other states, California included, the stronghold of many biker clubs. CA’s overcrowded prison system may or may not be inclined to parole such beasts.
But these guys – and girls – are children in essence playing at opposing clubs albeit using fists, boots, knives, guns and clubs in lieu of dirtballs, water pistols, slingshots and peashooters. And the gang even sports confidential henchmen in law enforcement, attorney representation, inroads wherever they can coerce participation through intimidation or payoff. Indeed the Mongols intimidate many a business or bar for their pleasures, extortion &c. They’re like the Hollywood bad guys in every melodramatic sense of the phrase.
And it must not be avoided that the ATF harbors some bad guys as well. They’re the bunch behind the Randy Weaver Ruby Ridge fiasco and the Waco Texas massacre. Lon Horiuchi is their main shooter, a trigger happy maniac at best characterization, a loco psychopath at base. Thus it must be supposed that all coteries involve diverse caricatures and William Queen refers to some of the motorcyclists with compassion and regret at their outcomes. Rico charges were still pending at the publication of this book. Though it is indeed true crime pulp the syndrome is very real and you don’t want to go there in any sense beyond reading about it. Most of these guys have no more qualms about killing and maiming, extorting and pillaging than hungry wild cats on the Serengeti Plains pawing their prey. It’s their nature inbred and innate.
How a guy of conscience could pull this off is beyond me but that’s the nature of law enforcement as well, to deceive and act like the bad guys just to catch them. This is in fact the nature of arrest and prosecution and judges well know this. It was only in quite recent history that a judge, prosecutor and two cops were indicted for lying in court, the judge for knowingly allowing it to happen. The prosecutor and cops were jailed briefly in token gesture; the judge endured the scrutiny for several years but no further action although held in abeyance. The gist is that law has been allowed to bend the rules for sake of arrests and convictions. The defendant was guilty and convicted thusly but it was the deception sanctioned by the officials of the court that was taken to task, perhaps a sea change, perhaps not. William Queen is a Vietnam veteran so there’s that, there having been many references to skullduggery by American troops in that war, trained assassins and the like. One murderous Chicago con said that he did a lot more evils for the US armed services in Vietnam than anything he did thereafter for organized crime.
In denouement Bill Queen and family are still undercover, relocated somewhere presumably with assumed names and fabricated lives. Motorcycle gangs have chapters in various states and the grapevine travels far and wide even through the prison system. No doubt Queen has backup surveillance. But he has kids too. And a wife. For bikers the cardinal sin is betrayal. The bikers all seemed to like him so there’s some conflict there but prison time sets the clock back for no man. Now with his hairy biker persona glaring at the world on the celluloid cover of a paperback book he’s a marked man no matter his personal appearance now.
Certainly it’s in the best interest of the public to get guys like these off the street. And it’s good to be aware of these kinds of miscreants. Trouble is, like a grade B movie it keeps replaying; you can never get rid of it. Quite like for William Queen the Mongols will be a constant threat. To stretch a point – and maybe adlib a little distancing – Siddhartha Gautama who became the Buddha saw his first taste of inequity and possibly iniquity at age 29 after an otherwise sheltered life as the son of a raja. It’s highly unlikely anyone’s going to rehabilitate the Mongols or help them find enlightenment so somebody has to do the undercover work just to try to curtail their activities. Getting back to the way law works, it’s not the awareness of lawlessness that resolves it; it’s the proof of committed or planned crimes. A tip of the hat to William Queen for gathering recorded evidence before more and ongoing crimes were perpetrated. Which they undoubtedly still are. Fortuitously these gangs kill one another far more than the general public. If you see a hog parked out front of a bar, that bar’s not for you.
Well, I dare say it’s safe enough here in this little town far, far from southern California. Wait, what’s that roar…? 