POLICE WATCH OVER THE ANGELS' DIRTY DOZEN

On a side wall in the cluttered war room of the Winnipeg Police Service's
vice office is a fuzzy picture of 12 guys standing shoulder to shoulder,
some wearing sunglasses, a couple even grinning.

There's no mistaking who they are -- the Winnipeg chapter of the Hells
Angels. They're all wearing black vests that sport the now familiar
red-and-white colours of the world's most notorious outlaw motorcycle gang.

The picture was taken in a local lawyer's office. The boardroom provided a
legal cover that allowed the 12 members to briefly get together, despite
some having bail conditions that they not associate with each other.

The picture has been superimposed on the Winnipeg skyline at night. In the
upper corner is the copyrighted logo of the Hells Angels. The picture was
taken for one reason: It identifies the men as full-fledged Hells Angels to
other HA chapters scattered throughout North America and the world. It has
been posted on a secure Internet site that only Hells Angels have access to.

Winnipeg police have a copy, but they're not willing to share it or say how
they got it.

Police have lots of other pictures, too, tacked up on the wall. The dozens
of mug shots and surveillance pictures form an organizational chart of
who's who in the Hells Angels food chain in Manitoba. Sitting at the top is
president Ernie Dew, a former Los Brovos motorcycle gang member. In the
picture he has a neat haircut and appears to be smiling.

Below him are the other 11 members of the Winnipeg chapter of the Hells
Angels, the local guys who found themselves 18 months ago joining the
infamous outlaw motorcycle gang as it rushed to consolidate power across
Canada.

It was a decade-long ride that culminated at their Chalmers Avenue
clubhouse, a building they had taken over from the rival Spartans on
Saturday, July 22, last year. In what's called a patch-over ceremony, seven
members of the Los Brovos retired their colours in exchange for the red and
the white of the Big Red Machine. Four other Los Brovos were patched over
when time, parole or bail permitted. Only one member of the current group
was not a Los Brovos: Bernie Dubois was a Redliner.

Dubois is also smiling in the picture of him in the police organizational
chart. In fact, most of them are smiling. They look quite content being who
they are and doing what they do.

Probation

Under Hells Angels rules, they were supposed to be on membership probation
for an entire year, but they were given full chapter status only six months
later when Hells Angels organizers patched over bikers in Ontario to full
chapter status almost overnight in a lightning attempt to ward off
competition from the rival Rock Machine and Bandidos.

If you do the math, Winnipeg's Hells Angels celebrate their first
anniversary as a full "81" chapter just before Christmas. The number
derives from H being the eighth letter of the alphabet and A being the first.

The gang falls under the umbrella of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club --
Western Canada, which is controlled out of the Vancouver area. They have a
Web site (www.hamcwc.com), but the Winnipeg link is still under
construction. The site is mainly used to sell Hells Angels shirts, jackets
and caps, with proceeds going to their Bill C-95 defence fund, set up to
finance their legal fight against Ottawa's anti-gang legislation.

A party commemorating this first-year milestone is planned today at the
Transcona Country Club. At this time, they'll also unveil their new
clubhouse, just inside city limits off north Main Street, a nice-looking
house that overlooks the Red River and Chief Peguis Bridge.

Winnipeg police don't think the bikers have much to celebrate, and say
their first year as full Hells Angels has been nothing short of a colossal,
embarrassing flop.

Out Of The Spotlight

Police officers familiar with the Angels -- a handful of officers have
devoted their careers to pursuing them -- will say that the idea of being a
Hells Angel is to stay out of the spotlight, to stay quietly behind the
scenes to take care of business as others do the dirty work.

That business, police say, is focused mostly on drug dealing -- cocaine,
marijuana, ecstasy and crystal methamphetamine. The area of business is
centralized in Winnipeg, but extends to rural Manitoba and northwestern
Ontario.

For the most part, everything was quiet until Hells Angels member Rodney
Sweeney was shot and wounded last June 21 while sitting in his tow truck at
Grey Street and McCalman Avenue. His two-year-old son next to him was
uninjured. Sweeney was hit in the head, shoulder, arm and knee but survived
the attack, staggering to a nearby home, where an ambulance was called.

All hell broke loose moments after those shots as the Hells Angels hit the
street looking for the shooter and as police pulled out the stops to put a
lid on things.

The violence continued the next night when a Hells Angels associate was
shot and injured outside Teaser's, a St. Boniface strip club.

Then on June 27, a 33-year-old man was wounded in a shooting outside his
Harbison Avenue East home in what police believe was retaliation for the
first two shootings.

On July 19, witnesses heard three shots ring out in a shoot-out between two
cars in broad daylight on the residential street of Ross Avenue West. No
one was reported hurt.

Then on July 31, several shots were fired at a silver Cavalier, thought to
be driven by ex-biker Kevin Sylvester, which was being chased by a black
truck eastbound on Portage Avenue near Midway Chrysler. Sylvester is the
younger brother of Darwin Sylvester, who disappeared in early June, 1998.
He is believed to be dead, a victim of the decade-long internal biker war
over who would earn the right to become Hells Angels. The next day, Dale
Sweeney, a member of the Angels and brother of Rod Sweeney, and a gang
associate were charged with attempted murder in the Portage Avenue attack
on Sylvester.

On Aug. 9, police charged Sylvester with attempted murder in the June 21
Sweeney shooting. That charge is pending.

And then the shooting stopped.

The swiftness in which police contained the gunfire surprised no one, as
those familiar with the city's biker scene know Winnipeg police have a good
handle on their comings and goings.

Vice Insp. Stan Tataryn said Winnipeg is well-respected within Canadian law
enforcement for having good intelligence on the bikers. Evidence of that
was a Nov. 23 drug bust in which city police seized 10 kilos of almost-pure
cocaine from a truck being driven by a Hells Angels associate.

Tataryn wouldn't comment on police tactics, but added they don't plan on
changing them. Their focus is on the Angels themselves and those close to
them, not the little fish out on the street peddling drugs. Their approach
is slow, steady and thorough, so that when a charge is laid, it won't be
challenged by a lawyer looking to score points using the Charter of Rights
and Freedoms.

That strategy appears to be working. Right now, three Angels are behind
bars and one of them, Ricardo Oliveira, is to be deported to Portugal in
the new year after he was caught with a restricted firearm with ammunition,
and a loaded .27-calibre semi-automatic firearm with its serial number removed.

In total, seven of the 12 members are either before the courts or have
criminal charges pending.

Complacent

Tartaryn adds that the Hells Angels make no bones about who they are and
what they do, and the last thing police and Winnipeg citizens should be is
complacent about their presence.

"I think when a good, hard-working citizen is sitting at a restaurant and
somebody comes in with their colours on, they should get up and leave, and
I'd question whether they should pay their bill," he says. "This is a
criminal organization and these are criminals."

Representatives of the Hells Angels declined requests to be interviewed.
However, through a spokesperson they made it clear that much of what police
say about crime and the local drug trade is unfairly and inaccurately
blamed on them.

They also say they're often the victims of police harassment. For example,
two members are fighting traffic violations for having illegal exhaust
pipes and handle bars on their motorcycles; they got the tickets several
times in one day.

Tataryn and other police officers say too bad.

They also say they're under no illusions the gang is going to go away.
There's too much money to be made selling drugs, and there is always
someone down in the Angels' organization willing to rise to the occasion,
just so they can wear the red and the white of the Big Red Machine.
Currently, there are no gang prospects, although there are plenty of
friends, associates, and hang-arounds, including a father and son. There is
also the Zig Zag Crew, an organized gang of young men doing legwork for the
Angels in the city's drug trade.

"Two years from now, it might not be the same people running the store,"
Tataryn said. "The weak people will be weeded out. Eventually, we'll have a
strong chapter."