Veno Arthur - The Brotherhoods: Inside the outlaw motorcycle clubs

PROFESSOR ARTHUR VENO was born in the United States and has lived in Australia since 1974. Most recently director of Monash Universitys Centre for Police and Justice Studies, Veno has studied bikie clubs for 27 years. But hes no ordinary academiche attends club nights, field days and runs, and counts members of the Gypsy Jokers, Hells Angels and Coffin Cheaters as his friends. Known as the Mad Professor, Veno grows trees on his farm in rural Victoria, and is a consultant to various groups on human rights and criminal justice issues. He also continues to work with the bikie clubs, most recently advising clubs in Queensland, South Australia and New South Wales as they counter tough anti-bikie laws in those states.

He has also served as an adviser providing submissions from bikies and underworld figures to the Secretariat of the Joint Parliamentary Standing Committee to review the Serious and Organised Crimes Act.

He has been called a rat and a dog by bikies and a bikie apologist and total fraud by South Australian Premier Mike Rann.

The Brotherhoods

Inside the Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs

Arthur Veno
with Ed Gannon

3rd Edition

The poems on are reproduced from Some Biker Bitches Poetry
by Kimberly Manning, Authors Choice Press, 2000, with permission from the author.

The story of Sherry on is reproduced with permission of Allen & Unwin and Sherry, and is taken from Biker Chicks: The magnetic attraction of women to bad boys and big motorcycles by Arthur Veno and Edward Winterhalder, 2009.
First published in 2002

This revised edition published in 2009, reprinted in 2012

Copyright Arthur Veno and Ed Gannon 2009

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or 10 per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to Copyright Agency Limited (CAL) under the Act.

Allen & Unwin
83 Alexander Street
Crows Nest NSW 2065
Australia

This book is not authorised, or in any way sponsored, by The Hells Angels or any other motor cycle club, or group, anywhere in the world. The opinions expressed in the work are those of the author, and permission has been sought for any copyright material that is not the authors own. If any person has information in that regard please address your enquiries to the publisher at the address above.

Cataloguing-in-Publication details are available
from the National Library of Australia
www.librariesaustralia.nla.gov.au

ISBN 978 1 74237 601 1

Set in 10.5/14.2 pt ITC New Baskerville Std by Bookhouse, Sydney
Printed by SOS Print & Media Group, Australia

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

To Elizabeth Veno, my partner in life, best friend and soul
mate. And to my missing friend, Steve Horrible Williams.

Thanks and appreciation to Sue Hines at Allen & Unwin
for her support and encouragement.

We are modern-day heroes, like Ned Kelly. Mr Average would be happy being told by the government what to think, when to drink, when to fuck. Thats not us. We are the last free people in society.
Hells Angel

CONTENTS

Lets go get a cup of coffee at Maccas, they said.

Who was I to argue? The guys suggesting it were only the kingpins in one of the meanest bikie clubs in the land whod asked me along to a meeting to discuss a few things.

As I tentatively climbed into what turned out to be an extraordinarily loud car, I somehow knew there wasnt going to be any coffee. My arse is grass, I thought.

There was some small talkthey talked, I felt smallthen they told me what was going on. I was at once relieved and frightened. They didnt want to kill me, but they wanted to do the next best thingget me to grass a bikie. They told me how they had a problem with one of their members and his amphetamine factory. They wanted me to act as a go-between to dump him in it.

At that point I became one of the few outsiders to be not only privy to, but actually involved in, outlaw club business. This was incredible stuff. To dob in a brother in the bikie world is the greatest sin. Yet, here I was being asked to do just that. Id lay a bet I was the first professor to ever be asked to do such a thing. Id also bet I was the first professor mad enough to get myself into that situation.

I tell that story, which Ill expand on later, to answer the most common question people ask me: what does a middle-aged professor know about outlaw motorcycle clubs? Or, more specifically, what can someone whos never been a club member and who rarely rides a motorcycle reveal about bikie clubs?

Id ask the same question. My answer is that things are not always what they seem. Gangs and bikie clubs are my professional and personal passion. I am often referred to as Australias foremost independent expert on the outlaw motorcycle clubs because Ive been studying them for 27 years. This currently makes me one of a small group of academics in the world who have made it their focus.

However, before I get into all that, Id better tell you a bit about myself and how I fell into the world of the outlaw motorcycle clubs.

Im a Yank, born in Burlington, Vermont, just below the Canadian border, in 1945. These days I live in Australia and hold dual AustralianAmerican citizenship.

No sooner could I walk than Dad, a sergeant major in the US army, began his round of international postings. By the age of 12 Id lived in Greece, Germany, Italy, France and Turkey, before we returned to the United States, to a town called Monterey, about 106 kilometres south of San Francisco. An incident was to occur in that town a few years later that changed the image of motorcycle clubs forever. That event also changed my life, for I was caught right in the thick of it.

I suppose my life was headed toward gang culture the moment we moved to Monterey. By this time Dad had retired from the army due to ill health, and was supporting his family on an army pension so, as you can imagine, we werent destined for the flashiest part of town. We settled on the edge of a black ghetto, a part of town characterised by heavy gang activity.

The Hispanic and black gangs were the kings of the neighbourhood. Many of my mates joined these gangs, and Id occasionally hang out with them. But I never joined a gang myself.

I discovered I had an aptitude for American football, or gridiron, as Australians call it. I was pretty good at it, to the point where it enabled me to gain sporting scholarships all the way through high school and junior college in Monterey, then onto San Francisco State University where I completed a Bachelor of Arts in psychology. However, I never made it to the pros. I did try out for the San Francisco 49ers, but I was only good enough to be a practice dummythe guys the good players batter around at practice.