‘Dynomite’s’ Last Run

Dino Murphone was a 6-foot-3, 270-pound Harley rider with a beard down to his belt buckle and a closet full of leather. On the surface, he was all biker.

But like a lot of graying bikers, the 49-year-old Murphone hardly lived the outlaw life. One of his favorite haunts was Starbucks, where he’d step up to the counter in knee-high boots and thick black gloves and order a chocolate latte.

Though his nickname was “Dynomite,” thanks to what was once an explosive, bone-crushing temper, friends said Murphone had mellowed with age, holding down a steady construction job and spending time reading, cooking and writing poetry.

“To look at Dino, he’d scare the hell out of you, no doubt about that,” said John DeFino, a biker who used to ride with Murphone. “But, man, he was more than that.”

Late last month, Murphone was killed in a violent midnight chase in Northridge. Police say he was part of a group of nearly 20 bikers from the San Fernando-based Sundowners and Humpers motorcycle clubs who beat up a man outside a bar and then attacked him again after he drove off in his van.

Murphone was run over as the van driver was trying to escape from a swarm of bikers, passing motorists told police. The Los Angeles County district attorney’s office decided not to press charges, saying the van driver was in fear for his life.

In San Fernando, police and others say they haven’t had trouble out of the Sundowners or Humpers for years. At Christmastime, the bikers thunder through town on their Harley-Davidsons, collecting toys for a police charity.

But the incident in Northridge may be a reminder that violence is still part of hard-core biker culture. Police and hate watchdogs still keep an eye on certain groups. And some Sundowners bragged recently about “lumping up” anyone who picks a fight with them.

But they also say the circumstances of the fight were misrepresented.

Several Sundowners acknowledged fighting with the van driver but say he had tried to run them down. The Los Angeles Police Department at first said it was the van driver, a 33-year-old Northridge man, who “initiated aggressive, evasive driving maneuvers which led to several collisions.”

Club members, angered that charges were not filed, say it’s just another sign that the public sees them as outlaws.

“I guess there’s an open season on bikers now,” said Cliff Zigmont, a member of the Humpers.

Two days after Murphone’s death, Zigmont had the back of his shaved head tattooed with a message that reads, “In Memory of Humper Dino Dynomite, Feb. 26, 2000.’

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Inside the windowless brick building of the Sundowner clubhouse on Kalisher Street is a full bar, a beer cooler, a big-screen TV and a pool table. Members, who call themselves brothers, sometimes play “boot pool” in which the loser gets the honor of drinking beer out of another man’s boot. The biker lair, it turns out, is a frat house for bike-loving middle-aged men--with an edge.

There’s a stocked tool chest, a place to fix bikes, padded restaurant-style booths and some curious stuff hanging from the ceiling: greasy wrenches, pictures of big bearded men, a porn star’s red leather bra and several Nazi flags and other Nazi memorabilia.

“Just old relics,” DeFino said.

According to David Lehrer, regional director of the Los Angeles chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, collecting Nazi gear does not necessarily translate into racism or anti-Semitism, though there’s often a link between the two.

The Sundowners motored into this quiet, Mexican American neighborhood in 1970 and were welcomed their first New Year’s Day with a drive-by shooting that left three bikers wounded. There were those in the neighborhood who recalled they didn’t appreciate the newcomers.

“I was [angry] when all these white boys with big bikes showed up in our barrio,” said Ted Villa, who grew up down the block from the Sundowners clubhouse. “Back then, there weren’t many Mexicans with Harleys.”

Villa bought his first Harley in 1977. Seven years later, he stitched a Sundowner patch onto the back of his leather jacket, becoming one of the first Latino Sundowners.

In the 1970s, police investigated the club for drug use and the suspected gang rape of a woman at the clubhouse, according to Dominick J. Rivetti, San Fernando’s police chief. But the woman was too frightened to testify, and the case never got to court, Rivetti said.

In 1988, federal agents raided the Sundowners clubhouse and hauled away several members on drugs and weapons charges. In January 1999, federal agents raided again, seizing nine guns and drugs, according to an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. He said the investigation is still open.

“They still have their problems,” Rivetti said. “But with most of these guys approaching AARP age, they’ve mellowed out and are pretty discreet about what they do.”

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A big part of Sundowners culture takes place far from its San Fernando clubhouse on “runs,” where 50 or more bikers chug down the highway in a long, gleaming line of Harleys--almost exclusively the bike of choice--to a campsite or destination a couple of hours away. The Sundowners and the Humpers, who have separate clubhouses but often ride together, make an annual spring trip to a Redding campsite. Each group has about 100 members, mostly in their 40s and 50s.

A smaller version of the run is the weekly ride after meetings, often to a local bar. On Feb. 25, the Humpers and Sundowners headed to the ClassRoom, a Northridge beer and blues joint.

A group of bikers got into a fight with the Northridge man in the parking lot. Afterward, the man, whose name is being withheld because police say he remains in danger, drove away in his van.

Fifteen minutes later, the bikers passed the van in a nearby 7-Eleven parking lot. Police say it’s not clear if they were following the van or just happened by. But several jumped off their bikes and attacked the van, said prosecutor Phil Halpin.

Halpin, who reviewed statements from passing motorists, said one biker swung a tire iron against the van and another hurled a flashlight through a passenger window. Several bikers said they acted in self-defense, after the driver came after them.

At some point during the melee, the van plowed into Murphone and another biker, whose vintage Harley exploded. That man’s leg was badly broken. Murphone died minutes later at a hospital.

Murphone, who lived in the Humper clubhouse in San Fernando, leaves behind a wife who is hospitalized with multiple sclerosis, an adult daughter, a crumpled Harley-Davidson named “Beulah” and a circle of bikers who feel wronged.

“He was like an older brother to me who would talk about his wife, his work and what he wanted to be,” said Wayne Woods, 33.

Woods said he’s going to try to publish Murphone’s poems. In one, titled “Depression,” Murphone wrote:

“This mortal pain is so bad, that all I want to do is remain in my deep slumber. For in my sleep I have a dream . . . where God has . . . showered me with sunshine and riches and a woman that would always be there for me to love. And, when I awake, I realize the cruel reality, and once again, cry myself back to sleep.”