Hells Angels Making a Comeback in Ventura

Rarely has an act of violence been so public in this peaceful beach community as the beating Antonio Juarez absorbed as hundreds of rock fans watched at the Ventura Theatre in February.

Police say the 21-year-old bouncer was punched to the floor, kicked as he rolled in a fetal ball and left struggling to breathe after security guards tried to throw an unruly Hells Angel associate out of a concert.

Even after police arrived to find Juarez lying in the theater lobby bleeding from his nose and mouth, Hells Angels lingered nearby, Ventura Police Sgt. Ken Corney said. Then they mounted their Harleys and slowly rode away.

Five months later, several Hells Angels are still suspects, Corney said, but no charges have been filedbecause witnesses are too afraid to testify.

“A lot of people saw it, and a lot of people didn’t want to say anything,” the muscular Juarez said recently, his broken nose mended, his fractured rib healed, the bruises on his head, chest and back no longer colored or swollen. “I don’t think it’s right, but that’s the way it is.”

George Christie Jr., the Ventura chapter’s longtime president, said he was there when Juarez was beaten and never saw an Angel throw a punch. In any case, far too much is being made of a minor incident, he said.

“There was nobody ever arrested in that incident,” he said. “None of our members were charged with anything. . . . I saw it as just a free-for-all, a brief incident.”

But others say the lesson of the Ventura Theatre beating should not be lost on this sleepy city known for its funky downtown and the safety of its streets.

“If it could happen to that kid, it could happen to my kid,” said Jim Salzer, owner of a local music and video store. “Essentially, they got away with it. And who’s to say they just can’t do this any time.”

Police, too, are frustrated, not just because Juarez is the only witness willing to testify about a brazen act of violence, but because they see the theater incident as a troubling example of a resurgence of classic Hells Angel behavior in Ventura County--ranked consistently as the safest urban area in the West.

“In the 1990s, these guys seem to be reverting back to what motorcycle gangs were in the 1960s,” said Ventura Police Lt. Carl Handy, an expert on local gangs. “They’ve had a lot more enforcement activity against them in the last two years than in the 10 years before because of their demeanor.”

After years of laying low, Handy said, the tiny Ventura chapter of the Hells Angels has tripled its size to more than 20 members and generally brought an intimidating presence to the heart of downtown Ventura.

City Manager Donna Landeros supports that assessment.

“I personally have received phone calls from business people who have been intimidated and are afraid to come forward because of fear of reprisals,” Landeros said. “What really got my attention was for five or six people to go out of their way to comment to me that they’re afraid.”

Especially ominous, gang specialist Corney said, is that many new Hells Angels are graduates of local street gangs, particularly a group of young Ventura toughs police thought had died away--the Pierpont Rats.

The Hells Angels’ influence can even be seen on the Ventura High School campus, where students have told police they are proud to wear red-and-white Angel colors, some of their garments bearing the Angels’ emblematic flames, he said.

“We have these local street gang members we feel are now involved with organized crime,” Corney said. “And average citizens who are witnesses to these crimes tell us they are intimidated by these people.”

While some Ventura residents consider the Hells Angels a relatively benign local presence now involved with charity fund-raising, records show that about half of the local Angels, including three of the recent young recruits, have felony criminal records. Their crimes include burglary, possession of narcotics for sale, assault with a deadly weapon, rape and murder.

But Christie--who describes his group as a recreational motorcycle club--said the Angels pose no threat to the community.

“If people are intimidated by us, that’s a problem they’re going to have to deal with,” Christie said. “We certainly don’t go out with the intent of intimidating anyone. . . . I think the community knows we’re no threat to them.”

As for the Angels’ increased membership, Christie cites the heightened popularity of motorcycling. “There’s a lot of people interested in being Hells Angels in this town,” he said.

And what do his young Ventura recruits have in common that qualify them to be Angels?

“They all had motorcycles,” he said.

The Hells Angels’ presence can be seen mostly in downtown Ventura at a Main Street tattoo and body-piercing parlor operated by Christie. Just around the corner from Christie’s parlor is the Ventura Theatre, an aging Art Deco concert hall the Angels frequented until it closed last month.

Angel haunts have come to include the popular Nicholby’s nightclub nearby on Main Street. And, as more former Pierpont toughs have joined the gang, hangouts on Seaward Avenue have drawn Angels on thundering motorcycles dressed in leather jackets with a distinctive winged skull on the back.

Christie sometimes holds court on the curbside at the end of Seaward as ocean waves crash nearby, or from a sidewalk table at Duke’s, a busy surfer restaurant.

“Quite a few of these guys grew up in this area and came to this restaurant as kids,” Duke’s owner Mike Blue said. “This is kind of like their home turf, and they take care of it.”

Larger and more visible, the local Angel chapter has drawn increased scrutiny not only from Ventura police but also from sheriff’s intelligence officers and the district attorney’s office--all concerned that the gang has evolved from a low-profile nuisance to a more intimidating threat to the community.

Police motorcycle gang experts in Ventura and elsewhere theorize that Christie, 50, reputed heir to the Oakland chapter’s Sonny Barger as the motorcycle gang’s top leader nationwide, decided to show other Angel officers that he could wrest his moribund Ventura chapter to life.

Mostly in their 40s and 50s, local Angels had numbered so few that the chapter’s membership once threatened to drop below the required minimum of six, law enforcement analysts said.

That low-key facade was by design, analysts said, since the last thing the Angels wanted was to sully Christie’s name. Indeed, since the early 1980s, Christie has presented himself as the icon of Angel respectability--never convicted of a crime until a misdemeanor conviction in 1993.

He had run a leg of the Olympic Torch charity relay for the Angels in 1984. He had hosted a barbecue for jurors after a murder-for-hire acquittal in 1987. He had spoken in Ventura college and high school classes on the ethics of prosecutors and journalists. He had sold his life story to Hollywood.

*

When the Angels were in trouble, it was Christie they would put before the national news media to argue that they were free-spirited but upstanding citizens harassed by law enforcement, and not the nation’s principal source of illegal methamphetamine in the 1980s, as federal authorities insisted.

Christie, a Ventura martial arts instructor who helped found the local Angel chapter in 1978, is calm and precise in his speech. Acquaintances describe him as smart and gentlemanly--and nearly always in control of himself and those around him.

Just this month, Christie stepped forward as regional spokesman to defend the Simi Valley Elks Lodge for renting its facility to Hells Angels for a charity fund-raiser: He chastised Simi police who objected to the rental and declared the Angels nothing more than a big-hearted motorcycle club.

And a few weeks earlier, a children’s museum in Oxnard solicited Christie’s support, and the Angels agreed to host a July 19 fund-raiser at their fortified clubhouse in an industrial area of Ventura. Four local bands will perform. The Gull Wings Children’s Museum hopes to raise $6,000 to $10,000.

“I had read in the paper about the Hells Angels’ activities in helping children, especially Toys for Tots at Christmas,” said Madelon Hendel, immediate past president of the Gull Wings board. “So when we were contacting service clubs, I thought of them. . . . We contacted many organizations and business leaders, but nobody came to our rescue like they did.”

As for the Angels’ reputation as a band of outlaws, Hendel said: “That was back in 1950.” And of Christie: “God, he’s a doll--just the nicest man, really concerned and caring. If I had a business, I’d sure want him running it. He followed right through with everything he said he’d do.”

Some downtown business owners see the Angels, particularly Christie, the same way: as good neighbors who generally keep to themselves and should be allowed by police to live as they please.

“They’re well-behaved, they’re good customers and for the most part they’re nice guys,” said Nick Taylor, owner of Nicholby’s nightclub and a former martial arts student of Christie. “If anything, they’ve been a positive at the club. They have stood behind my security guards, acting as a friend of mine, in situations that do come up at bars.”

As for intimidation, Taylor said he has never felt pressure from the Angels. He admits them to his club for free sometimes, he said, but they pay for their drinks.

*

But some other local shopkeepers say they know of business operators who feel pressured to provide free services to the Angels, including cover charges, food and drinks. One shopkeeper told others that he was pressured to remove merchandise from his shelves that the Angels found offensive. A musician said that when the Angels ask bands to play for free at fund-raisers, performing is not considered optional.

A Ventura car dealer who filed a battery complaint against an Angel last year said he would never have called police had he known his nemesis was a member of the outlaw motorcycle club.

“I did file a police report before I knew he was a Hells Angel, “ said the car dealer, who asked not to be identified. “But now I don’t want any part of this guy.”

Nor do police see the Angels as a charity-minded recreational club.

“This is an attempt to make them appear legitimate,” Ventura Police Chief Richard Thomas said of the museum fund-raiser. “But that’s like a wolf putting on sheep’s clothing. A good portion of them are hardened criminals and have been convicted of a variety of violent offenses.”

Currently, two local Angel veterans, Tom Heath and David Ortega, are in prison or awaiting confinement for violating probation on murder or drug charges. A Ventura Angel “prospect,” Gary Wilson, is also in state prison for possession of drugs for sale, court records show.

Another Angel, Todd Martin, a young Pierpont recruit, faces charges of assault with a deadly weapon for allegedly smashing a bottle over a man’s head at a beach party last month. One more young member, Mario Lopez, was convicted of drug use this spring, violating probation from a 1995 conviction of carrying a loaded weapon and resisting arrest during a back-alley chase by police who responded to a 1 a.m. burglary call.

*

Other young members convicted of felonies are John Adams Jr., 24, and Robert E. Lee Hill, 24, both found guilty of assault with a deadly weapon. Adams is now serving 220 days in jail for crimes including battering an officer and resisting arrest. Hill also was imprisoned for possession of drugs for sale.

Heath, 50, was convicted of assault with a deadly weapon in 1993 and two counts of second-degree murder in 1994 and is back in state prison for violating parole this year. Heath’s murder charges, finally filed in 1992, stemmed from a 1977 bombing of a Los Angeles auto shop run by a rival motorcycle gang.

Two teenagers were killed when a flat tire Heath dropped off for fixing exploded, Los Angeles County Deputy Dist. Atty. Anne Ingalls said. She settled for a second-degree murder plea partly because “a lot of the witnesses were very scared of this organization.”

Ortega, 52, imprisoned for possession of methamphetamine in 1991, is set to begin a 150-day jail term next month for being under the influence of drugs.

Forty-year-old Jimmy LeRoy “Tiny” Shankles, the 6-foot-5, 300-pound former sergeant at arms for the Ventura chapter, was released from state prison last fall after incarceration for possession of methamphetamine while on probation for possessing 54 grams of methamphetamine for sale.

Christie himself, whose conduct has been tracked by investigators for two decades and who successfully argued he was entrapped by federal authorities during his murder-for-hire trial 10 years ago, was finally convicted of a crime in 1993.

He pleaded no contest to fighting in public, a misdemeanor, after prosecutors dropped a charge that he battered the proprietor of a Thompson Avenue clothing and spray-paint shop, court records show.

The victim, a 19-year-old named Tony Torres, intervened after Christie began to argue with a customer. Torres accused Christie of striking him 10 times, first hitting him with his fist and then knocking him to the ground with strikes to his hip and knee with an 18-inch-long retractable baton.

*

Christie said the man punched him first and that he only defended himself. No baton was ever found. And Christie ended the fight by holding the proprietor on the ground with a martial arts hold until police arrived.

“He attacked me,” Christie said in a recent interview. “I put him in a submission lock, and that was the end of it.”

Only he was charged with crimes, and not the shopkeeper, because of the bias against him by authorities, Christie said.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Kim Gibbons, who prosecuted the case, said: “I think Christie just lost his temper. And when he got under control he stopped.”

In the end, prosecutors dropped the battery charge partly because the victim did not want to testify. Police say the man was intimidated, and a source close to the victim said he fled the state, fearing Angel retaliation.

“I did hear that when Torres found out who the guy he’d been in the fight with was, he was scared,” Gibbons said. “But nobody ever told me he was threatened by George Christie or anybody else.”

Christie said he never seeks to intimidate anyone--not in the Torres fight nor before bouncer Juarez’s beating at the Ventura Theatre.

That February confrontation began, according to police reports, when a dancer wearing a “Pierpont” T-shirt began to batter other dancers in a “mosh pit” near the stage as the band Raging Arb pounded out a raucous beat. Security guards tried to evict the man but were stopped by eight to 10 customers in Hells Angel jackets, police said.

Christie led the Angels as they confronted security guards, Corney said.

“I’ve talked to him about it,” Corney said. “He said he was talking to one of the bouncers because he thought they used excessive force in throwing [the dancer] out, that they got carried away. But who appointed George Christie the decider of how much force could be used?”

*

Then, the security guard who had stopped the flailing dancer was pulled toward a group of Angels, prompting Juarez to jerk his co-worker from the fray, Juarez said.

Juarez said in a recent interview that the man who struck fellow security guard Carlos Martinez was 21-year-old George Christie III, the son of the Hells Angels’ leader and an Angel himself.

Previously, Juarez told The Times that the younger Christie also punched him. He said he also made the same identification to the police. But, during a later interview, the bouncer told The Times he did not actually see Christie deliver the blow because his head was turned. He said he looked after the punch to see only the younger Christie and another Hells Angel near enough to have struck him.

Juarez and the younger Christie went to Ventura High School together, Juarez said. “So I know him.”

Christie III could not be reached for comment. But his father said that neither he nor his son hit anyone. In fact, Christie said he did not see any Angel strike either injured bouncer.

“I was concerned about myself not being attacked,” the Angel leader said. “That was my only interest.”

Corney confirmed that Juarez identified two assailants shortly after the February attack, as he was being treated in a hospital. The bouncer also picked other Hells Angels out of a photo lineup, saying they were there when the attack occurred. But Juarez said he did not know how many actually struck him.

No arrests have been made, Corney said, because even Martinez, the second security guard, will not testify.

“We need corroborating witnesses,” the investigator said. “And we have a reluctance from the other victim and witnesses, which is not unusual in any case we have involving the Hells Angels. . . . They just don’t want to get involved.”

Young Blood

Just what Christie is up to with his Ventura chapter--why he would recruit so heavily among young former street gang members--is of keen interest not only to law enforcement but to other Angel leaders, motorcycle gang analysts said.

Experts say the Hells Angels are expanding rapidly worldwide and are, in fact, in a deadly rivalry with the Diablos motorcycle gang in Europe. So the local push by Christie may reflect a club philosophy that has led to a worldwide increase from about 900 members and 67 chapters a decade ago to about 1,600 members in more than 100 chapters today, said Yves Lavigne, author of two books on the Hells Angels.

But why would the Angels’ principal mouthpiece nationwide align himself with so many young members instead of the typical experienced recruit?

“They don’t recruit those kinds of guys,” Lavigne said. “They draw too much attention and they’re more likely to make real stupid blunders. Law enforcement in Ventura must be smiling right now.”

Carlos Rose, a Bay Area police officer who lectures on outlaw motorcycle gangs, said Christie’s recruitment practices are well-known statewide and have stirred some discontent within the Angels.

“The hierarchy is weary of this hastily put together bunch of punk kids,” he said. “It seems they’re just grabbing kids to have numbers instead of having the qualified people they usually get.”

An average Angel chapter has 10 to 15 members, Rose said. Ventura’s now has more than 20, he said. That makes it harder to keep a tight rein on members, he said.

Christie said he has heard no complaints from other Angel leaders.

“No one has confronted me about that,” he said. “I haven’t really explained myself to anybody, but I certainly know that the members from around the country have embraced all of our new members here.”

But gang investigator Rose points to an incident last year during the Angels’ mass ride to Sturgis, S.D., as a case in which a young Ventura member caused problems. On the way to Sturgis, the Ventura member, since thrown out of the gang, is suspected of shooting two Hells Angels from the San Fernando Valley during a 2 a.m. fight in the ski town of Steamboat Springs, Colo., authorities say.

Police negotiated briefly with Christie and then with another Angel spokesman for about 45 minutes before they were allowed to enter a hotel the gang had taken over, town police Lt. Rick Crotz said. By then, all evidence, including bedding and drywall with bullet holes, had been removed. Angels will not testify against each other, so no arrests were ever made, he said.

“It’s funny, thinking back on it,” Crotz said. “We had intelligence that they were trying to change their image, that they’d be here with their family members. But they turned out to still be a bunch of thugs.”

Strong Leadership

The undisputed leader of the Angels’ Ventura chapter is George Gus Christie Jr.

A Ventura native, Christie is unusually well-educated for a local Hells Angel. He has two years of college classes and a history of employment as a high-voltage electrician for the Defense Department and a cable splicer for General Telephone.

Physically fit from morning runs, Christie holds a black belt in both Japanese karate and kung fu. He has mixed those disciplines with lethal Filipino martial arts and he has taught students how to kill if attacked.

His son, daughter and estranged wife all live in Ventura. Christie and his son live on Ventura Avenue in a two-story house behind a high metal security gate near the Hells Angel clubhouse.

Daughter Moriya graduated from Ventura College of Law in 1995 and passed the state bar exam in February 1996. She has been active at the county courthouse, representing Hells Angels and other clients.

The elder Christie can be seen often at the Ink House parlor on Main Street near Chestnut, talking with Angels, employees and tattooed and skin-headed hangers-on.

Some of his neighbors say it can be disconcerting to have such company on the block. But they also say that Christie usually seems to have his young disciples under tow.

“They’re kind of scary looking, but I’ve never had any trouble with them,” said Fred Yasukochi Jr. of Trufflehound’s, who mixes fine chocolates as he watches the comings and goings at the parlor across the street.

“I get the sense that George keeps the guys in line,” Yasukochi said.

Christie would not comment on how he picks and disciplines new members, except to say: “Each and every one of my members, I love them. They’re part of my family, and sometimes families have serious conversations about things.”

He said he still agrees with a comment he made to The Times in a 1983 interview on the “mellowing” of some members of the motorcycle gang. He said then: “Being a Hells Angel means that people listen to you when you talk, and they move out of your way when you walk down the street. There’s a lot of power, and you want to make sure that guys that get into the club aren’t going to abuse it.”

Tom Welton, who left as manager of the Ventura Theatre in January 1996, said that in his 8 1/2 years overseeing concerts, Christie was a peacemaker, not a provocateur. The aging Angels would sit quietly by themselves in the theater, turning the heads of other customers but causing no problems.

“There were these gangs of kids, these Pierpont Rats and, depending on the show, it could get rough,” Welton said. “And we’d go to George the next day and say, ‘Can you help us out?’ And he’d talk to these kids. And the next day these guys would show up and apologize.”

As the Pierpont Rats became Hells Angels over the last couple of years, “they were a lot more respectful than when they were on their own,” Welton said.

Still, the Angels are making a name for themselves downtown, and the trigger for that concern was the Ventura Theatre beating.

“A lot of people in the downtown started talking when the Ventura Theatre situation happened,” said Sandy Smith, owner of the Rosarito Beach restaurant, two doors away from Christie’s Ink House. “It’s a small downtown, and it’s kind of like talking over the fence.”

Several business owners have quietly complained of feeling it necessary to provide complimentary services to the Angels, said Salzer, the video store owner. Each one had a different complaint, but all related to intimidation, he said: “When [Angels] come in their doors, people will comp them.”

Christie said he finds it hard to believe that business people are actually saying they feel pressured to comp the Angels, since his group is careful not to try to intimidate others.

Still, some business people who discussed the Angels asked not to be identified in the newspaper, even after they praised Christie. “I would rather not have my name in the paper in regards to the Hells Angels; I have three little kids at home, OK,” one store manager said.

This reluctance to offend the Hells Angels was on former bouncer Juarez’s mind recently.

In the days after his beating, Juarez said, he drove past the Ink House and saw Ventura Theatre employees joking with Angels. “I saw people who used to manage that place over talking to them and laughing.”

So as time passes, Juarez said, he wonders if he too should just walk away and refuse to testify.

“If I’m just the only one going to testify, that puts me in a bad position, you know.”