#329 Justin DeLoretto - Ex-Mongols President Reveals What Really Happens Inside a 1% Club

Justin "Mooch" DeLoretto is a former president of the Oregon and Missouri chapters of the Mongols Motorcycle Club and a founding member of its Portland charter. After years immersed in motorcycle club culture, he retired from the Mongols in 2021 and transitioned into a career as a social worker focused on youth violence prevention and at-risk children. He is the author of The Ride of My Life: From Street Gangs to Motorcycle Clubs to Social Worker, hosts multiple podcasts, and founded the Lift Train Ride community, where he shares lessons from his unconventional journey. Privacy isn't Paranoia. It's Protection. Download Glacier - https://srs.site/glacierapp Website - https://theglacierapp.com Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: Head to https://factormeals.com/srs50off and use code SRS50OFF to get 50% off and 1 free breakfast item per box for 1 year, while supplies last until 10/31/2026. New customers can save 35% on your first month of Dose for Cholesterol by going to https://dosedaily.co/SRS or entering SRS at checkout. Upgrade your eyewear for summer at https://roka.com and use code SRS for 20% off sitewide at checkout. Live better longer with BUBS Naturals. Get 20% OFF on collagen, MCT creamers, and more with code SHAWN at https://bubsnaturals.com/srs Get firearm security redesigned and save 10% off @StopBoxUSA with code SRS at https://stopboxusa.com/SRS #stopboxpod Justin "Mooch" DeLoretto Links: Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/og__mooch Patched Podcast - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCCDTEGIccZCWqJgZd1MBwwg Mondays with Mooch Podcast - https://www.youtube.com/@mondayswithmooch Book: The Ride of My Life - https://a.co/d/01IKZ4hD Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:05Shawn Ryan?

  Justin DeLoretto. How you doing?

• 0:08Speaker 01

  Good, good. Thanks so much for having me on, bro.

• 0:10Shawn Ryan?

  Thanks for coming. So, yeah, we just had, uh, our mutual friend on.

• 0:15Speaker 01

  I saw that. I saw that.

• 0:16Shawn Ryan?

  And then, uh, and then we connected and so here we are.

• 0:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I appreciate it, man.

• 0:22Shawn Ryan?

  Diving into the biker gang, one percenter lifestyle.

• 0:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. They're gonna kill me if I don't correct those motorcycle club, but. You call it what you want.

• 0:34Shawn Ryan?

  Oh shit. But, uh, Ben, just go pick it through your outline. You've got a hell of a life story, man.

• 0:40Speaker 01

  It's been a wild one.

• 0:41Shawn Ryan?

  Love what you're doing now.

• 0:42Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 0:43Shawn Ryan?

  Really fucking cool, man. So I'd like to do full blown life story on you and.

• 0:48Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 0:50Shawn Ryan?

  All that.

• 0:50Speaker 01

  Awesome. Excited to get into it.

• 0:51Shawn Ryan?

  Cool. All right. Let me start you off with an intro.

• 0:56Shawn Ryan?

  Justin Mooch DeLoretto. You spent years in street gangs before becoming a chapter president in the Mongols Motorcycle Club. During a nearly 15 year run with the Mongols Motorcycle Club, you helped lead the club's expansion across the Northwest, Midwest, and Australia. You served as president of several chapters before rising to regional representative. You reinvented yourself as a social worker and mental health therapist helping at-risk youth. You documented that journey in your book, The Ride of My Life: From Street Gangs to Motorcycle Clubs to Social Worker. It's quite the arc.

• 1:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:34Shawn Ryan?

  Quite the arc. But, um, yeah, and then before we get going, a couple of things here. Everybody gets a gift.

• 1:43Speaker 01

  Awesome. Thank you so much.

• 1:44Shawn Ryan?

  Vigilance Elite gummy bear is made in the USA, legal in all 50 states.

• 1:49Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 1:50Shawn Ryan?

  At least for another year.

• 1:51Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:52Shawn Ryan?

  When they outlaw red dye, but, uh, and then I got a Patreon account. Patreon's, uh, it's a subscription account. We've built it into quite the community and, uh, to be honest with you, they're the reason I get to sit here with you today.

• 2:05Speaker 01

  Very cool.

• 2:06Shawn Ryan?

  Uh, so

• 2:09Shawn Ryan?

  they get the opportunity to ask every single guest a question. This is from Mac. How would you apply your life experience and testimony to today's children to be tomorrow's community support on aspects pertaining to a strong family unit? Along with accountable, interactive fellowship and brotherhood, sisterhood within a local community?

• 2:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, you know, I think every, especially male youth is in the search for identity, right? And, um, to be surrounded by people with similar morals and values and, and, you know, in an early age, maybe you don't recognize it, but we're, we're pulled together. This is tribalism. And I think, you know, from my experience, what I've learned is if you can get involved in positive activity, like pro-social activities, like for me, wrestling was huge for me growing up because I got to learn personal accountability. If I was losing, it was my fault. I couldn't blame the quarterback. But I also got to be a part of the team and travel with the team and see the role my, my, my role played in the whole, in the bigger picture. And so I think, you know, getting youth involved in these pro-social activities, getting them to learn these positive lessons instead of, you know, hanging out unsupervised with negative peers.

• 3:17Speaker 01

  You know, that plays a really big role. And then on top of that, I came from a very tight-knit Italian family. So I had a lot of support even when I was in trouble. Um, I mean, I learned, you know, to make sure I was learning lessons, um, but I still always had that support and, you know, not everyone has that these days. There's a lot of single parent households. A lot of the youth I work with, their parents are, are, you know, they're a single parent and they're working all the time. So also trying to find that community piece, I think is super important. I think a lot of that's been lost where, you know, neighbors don't talk to each other and, you know, that, but if, if people are friendly and they open up or you find like-minded people or shared morals and values, when you find this community, be it church groups or, you know, there was all sorts of different stuff that were, where if it's your identity is tied to it or your hobbies are tied to it.

• 3:58Speaker 01

  So I think that, that would be the link. That would be the important part is finding a community, um, instead of trying to do things on your own.

• 4:04Shawn Ryan?

  That's, I mean, it seems like the whole.

• 4:09Shawn Ryan?

  One common theme of your entire life is looking for brotherhood.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  For sure.

• 4:12Shawn Ryan?

  From, from being a kid to young adult to, I mean, even today, it seems like that. Am I right?

• 4:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely.

• 4:19Shawn Ryan?

  Where, where did, uh, where did that come from?

• 4:22Speaker 01

  You know, on reflection, I think maybe it's from being an identical twin. Um, you know, everywhere I went, I had somebody with me, you know, like you mean, family vacation, school. Um, you know, any, any kind of, we followed in each other's footsteps for the most part. I think that played a big role. I think starting sports really early. Um, all of my, pretty much every one of my family was a school teacher or sports coach. So I, you know, played every sport there was growing up. Um, and really got into wrestling. And so I was always in this team thing. And I think I was kind of, once that started, I really kind of kept it, it going. Um, but I also think being a twin is trying to identify, at least the goal at the time was to kind of come up with my own identity. And, and at the time, I don't think I realized it, but looking back, there was this big piece of like separating myself. We're not two people. I'm one.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  And finding this identity piece. And I think that played a strong role in it as well.

• 5:10Shawn Ryan?

  Is that do I have twin nephews. Is this a, they're very young. Is this, is this a common thing with between twins, searching for your own identity?

• 5:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, I, I would think so because the tough part is, right? Like most people, their parents dress them the same when they're young, right? And they go to the same school and then the same grade and they share the same friend group. Um, one thing my parents tried to do is in high school, they separated. We went to different high schools. I lived with my grandparents actually. And yeah, we went to different high schools, which initially the plan was so we didn't have to compete at the same weight class. Um, but in reality was so we could try and develop our own peer groups and, you know, have different, like I was, he was in the country and I was in the city. Um, but what that little experiment taught me is it didn't help much. Like we still, we still, you know, his friends would come over or mine would come and we all got to know each other and we'd have this big overlap. Um, but yeah, I definitely think like, you know, if you spend a ton of your time with somebody, um, it's something, eventually people refer to you as the twins, right?

• 6:03Speaker 01

  And then so like wanting to like stand out on your own and not be, you know, just conjoined with somebody else the whole time.

• 6:11Shawn Ryan?

  Makes a hell of a lot of sense.

• 6:14Shawn Ryan?

  All right, let's start at the beginning.

• 6:16Speaker 01

  Cool.

• 6:16Shawn Ryan?

  Where'd you grow up?

• 6:17Speaker 01

  I grew up in Salem, Oregon. So the capital of Oregon. And like I said, I grew up, um, in a tight-knit Italian family. So we did, you know, all the breakfast or all the dinners on Sundays, uh, every holidays and birthdays and a real supportive community. Most of my family members were school teachers. Um, my biological father and mom were never married and then he went to prison when I was six, I believe for 10 years. But then my stepfather, he was like my dad. He was my role model. He was, he was, uh, he came into our life when I was around five and that's around the time they married. So he was in, you know, he was involved a lot more than my biological father was. I know growing up, my mom wanted to have a relationship with my dad. So we'd go visit him in prison once a month.

• 6:57Speaker 01

  And, uh, one of those things upon reflection was, was like, well, okay, I was exposed to some things that, you know, nothing crazy, but just getting used to that, that system, right? Like, and just the institution and, um, you know, one of the things I've learned as I got older is you don't know what's normal and what's not. When you live in a household and that's what you see, you know, it's not stuff people talk about often.

• 7:16Shawn Ryan?

  It's your normal.

• 7:17Speaker 01

  It's your normal, you know? And, and we said a lot with, you know, children of abuse and, and, you know, and domestic violence, all that stuff. It's not like you go to your friend's house and talk about it normally, right? And so you think that's normal until you have other experiences. And so I think,

• 7:31Speaker 01

  not knowing my father, my, you know, not having that type of relationship with my, my biological father.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  But then like I said, we started playing sports, you know, got really involved in team stuff. And then I really fell in love with wrestling at a very early age.

• 7:44Shawn Ryan?

  Do you, do you remember your biological father?

• 7:46Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. He's still like, he's in my life. He's been, uh, I hate to say it, so probably watch it, but I, I equate to him like as a friend of like, we talk often. He's, as his older years, he's been very supportive and he's been great. Now, at the time, you know, he would write me letters and I'd visit him once a month. And when he got out, he would go see him every couple of weekends or whatever. But, um, you know, he was figuring his life out too. He'd just gotten out of prison and trying to figure out what was next. And so he played a role in my life, but it wasn't like the, necessarily the father figure like my stepdad did.

• 8:15Shawn Ryan?

  Do you remember when he went to prison?

• 8:17Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 8:18Shawn Ryan?

  Tell me about that.

• 8:19Speaker 01

  So he was involved in a cocaine conspiracy, drug dealing operation. And, um, again, thinking about things you don't notice till you look back on, like we'd spend the weekends there and there'd be stacks of cash on like, you know, on the kitchen or on the, on the coffee table. And I'm, you know, I'm like five, six years old. So, you know, I didn't really think much of it, but you know, he had the jet boat. We used to go skiing and, you know, knee boarding and all and inner tubing and stuff. Um, so he had all the nice stuff, but I remember people were coming, going all the time. I remember his house got robbed once and I was thinking, who would rob my dad? That's crazy. You know? There was a, yeah, there was a very specific memory I have where me and my twin brother were in the backseat of a car. And he got out of it, talking to a friend, like kind of in the country and he had like a Uzi and he was, they were shooting at pot plants with it.

• 9:01Speaker 01

  And, uh, you know, it's things, these, these random memories of stuff like that. And I remember coming home from school and my mom telling me, hey, you know, your, your dad was raided by the FBI or DEA. And, um, and I was like, well, why? My dad's never done anything, you know? Like it didn't, my young mind couldn't comprehend it.

• 9:16Shawn Ryan?

  So it came, that came as a complete surprise to you?

• 9:20Speaker 01

  Yeah, I just, I think I was too young to understand like what drug dealing even was or, or.

• 9:24Shawn Ryan?

  That's true.

• 9:25Speaker 01

  You know, I, I remember at one point he lifted up his mattress and showed us some guns. Like he didn't let us touch him or anything, you know, but still. But in my young mind, it was like a BB guns. Cause I remember when she said that he got arrested with, one of the things he had was, was guns. I was like, but they're BB guns. You know, because it was my young mind and it quite, you know, my, my young mind was probably trying to make sense of it, you know? Like I can recall being dropped off there before and he'd still be asleep because probably up late, you know, things like that. Um, again, don't comprehend why. It's just, it was part of dealing with dad.

• 9:55Shawn Ryan?

  Did it come to a surprise to your mom?

• 9:57Speaker 01

  I don't think so.

• 9:59Shawn Ryan?

  She knew.

• 9:59Speaker 01

  Yeah. Or at very least, so his, his whole side of the family, he either died of drug overdoses or been in prison.

• 10:05Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 10:05Speaker 01

  He grew up as a foster youth, um, and it didn't, you know, it kind of an abusive household and alcoholic family. And, um, so he had a really rough upbringing. And so in fact, when we were born, we took my mom's side of the family's last name, DeLoretto. My grandpa, my dad's last name, Miola or Demiola, we didn't take it because, you know, there's the stigma, so to speak, which I guess I didn't help out with the DeLoretto name eventually. Um, but yeah, so there was, there was already kind of that piece, right? Where, where they were already kind of in trouble and, and, and known for that. In fact, my high school wrestling coach went to school with my dad and, you know, would tell me, like, he loved my dad, but he used to, he called him a hood. So, you know, and he goes, yeah, your dad was a great guy, but he was lumped in with the hoods and, you know, I don't want to see you to go down that road. Um, so they kind of had a reputation.

• 10:50Shawn Ryan?

  So you got, you. He was a good dad.

• 10:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:54Shawn Ryan?

  You were close.

• 10:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:55Shawn Ryan?

  He didn't know anything was going on. I mean, he cared about, he loved you guys.

• 10:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, and always has. I mean, like I said, especially now as an adult, he takes, he's, we become very close. Um, but even then, like he did what he could. You know, I just think there was a lot of different factors in his life that put him on a different path.

• 11:11Shawn Ryan?

  How, how was it? Integrating him with a, with your stepfather?

• 11:15Speaker 01

  Good. My stepfather's like, so, uh, he comes from like a working class family. They ended up buying, um, seven up, seven up RC franchise. So they're all like, he has an engineering degrees, like he's, uh, a lot different than my biological dad, but the kindest, nicest guy. And, and there was no jealousy or insecurities. They both got along well.

• 11:35Shawn Ryan?

  Wow, wow.

• 11:37Speaker 01

  Now, my dad's girlfriends all the time didn't always get along with my mom. I remember.

• 11:40Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, okay.

• 11:41Speaker 01

  I remember that because I think, you know, my mom had us when we were 22. And so, you know, when you're a kid and you think of your parents, they're, they're old, you know? And I'm like, I remember my mom dropping us off at my dad's one time and, um, my dad's girlfriend fighting, fist fighting my mom, and my mom's not a fighter. But I, you know, it's one of those things I remember as a kid and I was, now I'm like, at first, you know, I was like, why would, why would someone's mom fight? And I'm like, she was like 27 years old, you know, like, it wasn't that crazy.

• 12:06Shawn Ryan?

  Shit, shit. Any other brothers and sisters?

• 12:09Speaker 01

  I have a little brother Kyle that passed away right before his 11th birthday in, uh, 2002. And then, um, and then because of that, my parents wanted to have another kid. So I have a sister that's 22 years old now.

• 12:21Shawn Ryan?

  How did he pass?

• 12:22Speaker 01

  He was in an ATV accident. So my, my stepfather, they moved out to the country and their family had like a hundred and 20 acres, a hundred and 40 acres outside of town. And so we grew up riding four wheelers and quads and stuff. And he, he first had the power wheel four wheeler, you know, the power wheels one. And then he had like the mini pu- pull start ones. And then he ended up having the full size ranch one. And he was out riding around with his buddies and he was riding home for dinner and he had ran out of gas. So he was on a hill. So he leaned over to put it on reserve and the ATV just rolled over on top of him and suffocated him.

• 12:51Shawn Ryan?

  Shit. Damn, I'm sorry to hear that.

• 12:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, thank you. That was a, a tough time for sure.

• 12:57Shawn Ryan?

  How old were you when that happened?

• 12:58Speaker 01

  He, uh, 20, 20, right between 20, 21.

• 13:01Shawn Ryan?

  Okay, wow, quite a difference.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. But see, I was really close with him. So I was the one that picked him up from school and, because like I said, I lived with my grandparents. So I would be the one to pick him up from school. I got him super into punk rock. Um, he actually, for a school project, he had to like write about the best day of his life. And I still have it framed where it was a day out with me where he came and watched my band practice and I got him to hit the heavy bag and I took him to a hockey game and he got to meet my friends, you know? And, um, I, I got into that, like the punk rock and the interracial skinhead culture. And so like, he would want to dress like me. And he had like his little Ben German button downs and Doc Martens. Um, so we were, we were really close, man.

• 13:35Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. Wow, damn, that's tough. You still have that framed?

• 13:40Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 13:41Shawn Ryan?

  Where is it?

• 13:42Speaker 01

  It's at my mom's house. It's like my collectible stuff that I don't want to lose because I move around.

• 13:46Shawn Ryan?

  Right on, man. Right on. So you got into wrestling?

• 13:49Speaker 01

  Yeah. Yeah, my uncle. He, my uncle wasn't a wrestling coach, but he was, he was a football and basketball coach, but he was kind of in that circle. And he would, he would teach me and my brother stuff even before we started a mat club. And he would always trying to, me and my brother fighting each other all the time. So he tried to show us the cool stuff. My biological father was into boxing. And so, you know, he was trying to get us into boxing really young, but we're, you know, two, three, four years old. Um, I was always told, and I don't have a memory of it, but I was always told that there was a time where my dad put me and my twin brother in a, in a, in a diaper box and had his boxing.

• 14:24Shawn Ryan?

  Oh shit, that's awesome. How did you, I'm just, I mean, how did you? Did, did you reconnect with your dad? Was there, your biological father, was there an absence there? I mean, obviously it was once a month, but did it just completely fall off?

• 14:38Speaker 01

  It never completely fell off, but it definitely wasn't consistent. And as, because I was towards the end of high school when he got out. And, um, you know, I'd go stay with him, but a lot of times it was like, I'd go stay with him because he wouldn't tell me what to do and I could be, you know, have my friends over and go out when I wanted. Um, so I kind of took advantage of that. And then, um,

• 14:59Speaker 01

  he, yeah, he, he'd struggle with addiction too, on and off. And so there'd be times where we just wouldn't hang out or I wouldn't talk to him. And, um, and then, you know, this kind of life happened. He was, he's the one, the first one that I ever knew that rode a motorcycle. Like I have pictures of us like four or five years old, sitting on his gas tank of his old Harley. Um, and he did some prison time with the local club, the Gypsy Jokers. And so when we, once my brother and I started the club and started hanging out, then he kind of was coming around more. In fact, the one and only time, well, we have since, but the first time I ever rode motorcycles with him side by side, I was in a club called the Vagos. And my dad was on my brother's bike and we were riding through town and we got pulled over for, um, not stopping at the line on a stop sign. We get pulled over and turns out the cop that pulled us over used to be a corrections officer who knew my dad from prison.

• 15:45Speaker 01

  And I'm like, oh, great. You know, here we go. And then my dad didn't have a motorcycle endorsement or anything and the guy didn't notice. So he let us go. We get about half a mile down the road, we get pulled over again. This time the cop there, it used to be the school resource officer of my school. So he knew me. And, uh, they impounded the bike. Um, and so then I had to have a girlfriend come pick me and my dad up. And that was like our first time riding motorcycles together.

• 16:06Shawn Ryan?

  Damn dude, damn.

• 16:11Shawn Ryan?

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• 17:52Shawn Ryan?

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• 18:21Shawn Ryan?

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• 18:25Shawn Ryan?

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• 19:02Shawn Ryan?

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• 19:32Shawn Ryan?

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• 19:44Shawn Ryan?

  All right, back to, back to childhood. So you got into wrestling. What happened? Where do we go from here?

• 19:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, so, you know, grade school was, grade school, except for those sports. Around junior high schools and my stepfather, my family moved out to the country, so outside of town. So we've switched junior high schools for a minute. And it was a different vibe than, we were in like the south side of town. It was kind of more like the working class, middle class community. And going out to this country school, it was, you know, there was a lot, that's where it was like, you know, a lot of kids were fighting. It was just that kind of country thing, you know? And this is really when that identity piece started coming play. Cause before I was just like a, the jock, right? I was like, I loved basketball and sports. And, you know, everyone was kind of getting into the skater crowd scene and those things. And I started first getting involved in, listening to punk rock and just trying to figure things out. And that's when like we started getting in trouble for fighting.

• 20:35Speaker 01

  My twin brother used to, he'd been in trouble for fighting since like the third grade or fourth grade. And, but in the junior high, he'd been, was getting suspended for fighting. We were getting in trouble for stuff like that. And then-

• 20:47Shawn Ryan?

  You both were?

• 20:48Speaker 01

  Yeah, he was getting in trouble more than I, he was fighting more than I was back then. We kind of switched roles later on.

• 20:55Shawn Ryan?

  What were you guys fighting about?

• 20:56Speaker 01

  Just high school or junior high school stuff, probably nothing, just ego or, or, you know? We were the new kids, so.

• 21:03Shawn Ryan?

  Would you consider yourself a troublemaker?

• 21:07Speaker 01

  Then, yeah.

• 21:08Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah?

• 21:08Speaker 01

  For sure. I mean, I would, yeah, yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah, we were troublemakers, but like I said, we, our family was supportive, but there was always consequences. Like when my brother got suspended in the seventh grade, my dad was gonna put in a septic tank. And he decided he wasn't gonna, he wasn't gonna order the backhoe. He was gonna make my brother dig the ditch, cause he was suspended. So my brother dug this huge hole for the septic tank and then my dad goes, ah, fill it back in, I'm gonna put it over here.

• 21:33Speaker 01

  So there was consequences for it. It wasn't like the family was turning a blind eye. I mean, they were doing what they could. They, we were probably the, the first pain, pain in the asses under that, the last name that group, you know? And so, there was this like struggle to try and keep us, you know, get us back in line, get us back on track.

• 21:50Shawn Ryan?

  What were you guys getting into?

• 21:52Speaker 01

  Well, early on, it's like, like, once I got in the punk rock stuff. And then, once I got, yeah, seventh, eighth grade, it still was just, you know, the basics, like high school, you know? Hallway fights and stuff, but when I went to, I went back to high school. So my, my parents had separated us, like I was saying, for schools. And so he was going to the country school for wrestling. And then I was at, in like back in the city. And my freshman year, I was into this punk rock band, The Dead Kennedys, and the back of my shirt said Nazi punks, fuck off. And at this time in that, that area, there was this white power skinhead group called Volk's Front that was getting very large. And most of them were either seniors or had graduated, but they would still hang around on campus. And so I got beat up my first day at school for having this, they kept calling me a sharp, which I didn't know what it meant.

• 22:35Speaker 01

  Cause it's pre-internet where you can't just type stuff in and look it up, you know? But essentially it was because I was anti-racist, you know, and I got beat up over it. And so I, I shifted, that was a big moment for me. Cause then I was like, well, I'm gonna get picked on and bullied for this. I want to know what it is. And I really started looking into that skinhead movement and the, the traditional roots of it and the anti-racism part of it. So I started slowly starting to dress that way. And so now I'm having this like conflicts with these guys. Often, and it just continued all through high school. And it, it escalated to the point where, in my mind, I was doing some social justice work, right? Like I'm anti-racist, but in reality, it was pretty much just doing gang stuff. It was us versus them. So I was getting in a lot of, you know, there was fights.

• 23:15Speaker 01

  Thankfully, at that era, there wasn't quite shootings and stuff yet. But I mean, you know, people were getting stabbed or hit with bottles. I mean, it was-

• 23:20Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 23:21Speaker 01

  Escalating pretty quickly.

• 23:22Shawn Ryan?

  How old were you?

• 23:22Speaker 01

  I was in high school, so I got my first felony at 16 for, for assault. And then I got a felony again at 18 for assault. So it was, that was just kind of like our lifestyle was fighting.

• 23:33Shawn Ryan?

  Let's back up a little bit.

• 23:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 23:35Shawn Ryan?

  So, hold on. So you, you switched schools, you're going to a city school. There's a skinhead gang, a bunch of racists. You're an anti-racist.

• 23:44Speaker 01

  Right.

• 23:45Shawn Ryan?

  So did you start a gang?

• 23:47Speaker 01

  Eventually, yeah. So there, so the term sharp stands for skinheads against racial prejudice. And it's, it was like, back in, in those days, it was like an organization or almost a gang. And I never quite aligned with that. I was anti-racist, but I never like claimed it, right? But eventually, you know, I'm dressed in a certain way. And it would attract other people that are into stuff like that. So I found this other dude that was into that stuff. And then some of the buddies on the wrestling team liked the music and the fashion of it, so they wanted. So the next thing you know, there was a few of us and, and, yeah, we banded together initially with the goal to defend ourselves and fight back against these Nazis. And then, you know, it just kind of progressed. And so then, a couple of years later, we moved to Portland, we joined the bigger gang. And then it just kind of kept progressing.

• 24:27Shawn Ryan?

  So hold on, let's, 16, you get arrested for a felony?

• 24:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 24:33Shawn Ryan?

  What was that for?

• 24:36Speaker 01

  There was a guy in our gang, the Capital City Hooligans, that was getting harassed by this other kid. That was not really coming to school often, but he would hang out at the bus stop after school. And I was, thought I was Mr. Protector, you know, I was gonna go protect my buddy. So I went up and hit the kid. And at that time, pretty young age for him to be involved in drug use, but he was involved in drug use. So when I hit him, it collapsed the sinus cavity, broke his nose and cracked his eye socket. So he had major surgery damage, so it made it a felony charge. And I was arrested and spent three years on probation and going to scared straight program, anger management. Cutting lawns for the county, those types of things. And I had to miss a, a half a season of wrestling.

• 25:17Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 25:20Shawn Ryan?

  And stabbings happening in high school? Describe the first time that happened.

• 25:27Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So it was same thing against the Nazi guys. One of the guys in our, in our group had run into those guys and they, they stabbed him with a screwdriver. But he got stabbed in the stomach and, and then twice in the stomach. And then I think twice in the leg, cause he was like kicking up at him when he fell down. So, so I mean, and then things start to escalate after that, you know? Cause then you're like, oh, hey, these guys are gonna stab me. So then you carry a knife for this.

• 25:48Shawn Ryan?

  So did anybody, I mean, did that, did the fear get to anybody? Was anybody like, fuck this, I'm out?

• 25:55Speaker 01

  That's tough to say, because just like with the club stuff we'll get into later. But when you're wrapped up in it, you know, and, and especially like at this age, you know, I'm clearly not mentally developmental to the point where I'm like being mature. I'm like all off fight or flight. I'm in this zone of, you know, I've got this image, I'm a tough guy, no one's gonna mess with me. So I, I, I don't think I really thought of consequences, or I know I didn't think of consequences. And I was so wrapped up in it that the fear really wasn't there. And, cause there, I mean, these guys would come to my house and bang on my windows, you know? And I had to go outside and fight them and, and-

• 26:31Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 26:32Speaker 01

  And it was like, if we were on a lunch break and we'd go out, you know, we'd leave campus to get lunch. Sometimes they'd be there at lunch and, and, and like I said, these guys were either seniors or older. And I wrestled at 124 pounds, man, I wasn't a big guy. And so, yeah, we were just like, felt like if we were out in the community, it's either they were gonna attack us or we attacked them. So there was this back and forth thing that started out really early.

• 26:52Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. How much of your time did this consume?

• 26:56Speaker 01

  I mean, that was my high school for the most part. I mean, I, I wasn't, I took wrestling less seriously, unfortunately. I never ended up wrestling in college because like I said, I missed that semester. I was more into, you know, had this image of the tough guy. And, and also at the same time, we were doing the political aspect of it too, right? Like my mom was, was like going to the PTA meetings, talking about that the school wasn't doing anything about this neo-Nazis. They were putting like leaflets and pamphlets all over, all over the school and on lockers and like. So there was like this community, it was a organization called Communities Against Hate, that I was like writing for a newsletter for. And we were like, you know, we'd have meetings to like educate people on who, who the Nazis were and what they're involved in.

• 27:39Speaker 01

  So it's like, if we weren't on the streets fighting, we were doing this like political piece or like, but it was, it, it was my identity by then. Like I took up my whole time, cause I remember in senior year when they're like, what are you gonna go to school for? What's everything doing? I was like, I don't know what I'm gonna do with my life. Like, you know, I was like, I'll probably play, like, by then I'd started playing guitar and, and looked like jam with some of the friends and stuff. And so shortly after high school, I joined a punk rock band. But so it was like, that was kind of, I was like, oh, well, I was in Salem, the big skinhead gang was in Portland. And I was like, yeah, when I graduate, I'm moving to Portland, I'm gonna join the big dogs, maybe be in a punk band.

• 28:10Shawn Ryan?

  Well, I mean, who, who were you living with? Were you living with your mom or your stepdad?

• 28:14Speaker 01

  I was living with my grandparents.

• 28:15Shawn Ryan?

  With your grandparents?

• 28:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. My grandpa was like the, a very, very big role model in my life. Fought in World War II, you know, he was that generation of tough guy, but he was such a kind, caring person. He taught me amazing ways, amazing thing about the way to treat women. And he was so good to my grandmother and, you know, he would sing to her, they would dance at night. Like he would comb his hair before bed, you know, cause he's going to bed with his wife. Like he taught me some amazing, just amazing things. And he was just a kind and caring person. But, you know, he was a boxing champion in the army and, you know, he, he fought in World War II. And so he was the tough guy too, even though he was, he was a real tough guy, because he never acted like a tough guy, right? He would defend himself or his family, I guess, if needed, but it never came to that. But, so I just, I mean, I hung on every word he said, like I just, he was, he was the man I looked up to.

• 28:59Shawn Ryan?

  What, I mean, what do your grandparents think when they've got a gang full of skinheads banging on the doors, trying to get you to come out?

• 29:07Speaker 01

  So that, when that had happened, that was at my mom's, when I was with my mom and stepdad. And it might've been one of the reasons we moved too.

• 29:14Speaker 01

  Didn't happen when I was my grandparents, but my grandpa knew of what was going on. Cause I remember one time my brother got jumped and my grandpa was like, all right, who are these guys, you know? But I remember more, like my grandpa memories are more like the disappointment in me when I'm getting in trouble. Like the, when I got my felony, my adult felony, I was still in high school. It was like the end of my, my high school year. And like I had went out, got in this fight, and then I went to a concert in Portland. And when I came home the next day, he said, hey, the cops were here looking for you. And, and cops came and they were trying to interview us and we waited till I got our attorney. And then we ended up going to jail. So now we're on probation and then while I'm out on probation, I get in another fight and the cops come back by. And I said, I'm out of here, I'm gonna go on the run.

• 29:58Speaker 01

  Cause I thought I was, you know, a young kid, I thought I'm gonna go to prison. And I just remember my grandpa sitting down and just crying and saying like, when's this gonna stop? Like you can't run from everything. And that, I mean, that's something I've never forgotten.

• 30:10Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. What was that fight over, the first one at the concert?

• 30:16Speaker 01

  The first, okay. So this one's a bit of a story, but I'd been kidnapped a month before that. And when I say-

• 30:22Shawn Ryan?

  Hold on.

• 30:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, so.

• 30:26Speaker 01

  We were out one night trying to buy beer, you know, a young kid, or I think we were, yeah, we're eighteen. And there was this older skinned dude in town that would buy beer for us if he was around. So we'd went to his house. He wasn't there. And one of the guys with me was one of the guys from the Portland gang, like the older guys. We were trying to be cool, impress the older guy. And the kid, there was a guy also going to this dude's house and, and he's, we said, hey, man, can you go buy us some beer? And he says, yeah, sure. And he was just, I don't know. We, we thought he was being sketchy about it. We already came back, didn't give us the correct change. And so to us, we were like, he's trying to rip us off. So we beat him up. Not to the level of like hospital or anything, but you know, we, we beat him up pretty good and took his stuff. And of course he told the guy that lived there because they're friends.

• 31:08Speaker 01

  And, uh, I, you know, I'm in this like untouchable mode in my mind, like, you know, we're, we're hot shit and, um. It's the guy that lived there had called the mutual friend and said, and it said, hey, man, I have that money. Oh, you want to come by and pick it up? So him and I went over there and we knock on the door and he's, yeah, come on in. And as soon as we walk in, man, the door shuts behind us. There's about fifteen people in there. And they pushed up against the wall. One guy's got a gun on me. The other guy had a cue ball and a sock and he's hitting my friend. And because of my affiliation with the gang in Portland, they just kept saying, don't touch him. But if, you know, if I would have done anything, they would have. And I kept denying it, denying it. And my dumb ass, they took my wallet. And this was back in the, the days of renting video. So I had a Blockbuster video card in this kid's name because, you know, I was such a gangster that I was going to go rent movies in his name and never bring them back, you know?

• 31:55Speaker 01

  And, uh, they, they, they go, you don't know him, huh? And they look at me, say his name and I just go, fuck. And one of my friends was in the car down the street and he, I was driving my grandpa's car, of course, because I was messed up with grandpa's car. I was in my grandpa's car down the street and, and some lookouts had come up the stairs and I said, hey, he's got somebody out front. This was all around right at the same time when they pulled my ID. And so my friend's in his underwear by now because they're taking his clothes off or they're hitting him. They had my wallet. As the door opened and said that, so here's our chance. So we just started swinging and running out the door. So we're running down the stairs. People are swinging bats at us going up the stairs. And I'm running to the car and I'm yelling at my friend like, start the car, start the car. And right as I get in the car, they shoot at us and they shot the window out of my grandpa's car. And mind you, I'm a senior in high school, man, like, you know?

• 32:38Speaker 01

  And, uh, my buddy that had to get hit with the pool ball, you know, he's all bloody. He's in his underwear. He's running down the street within his boxers, his wang's hanging out. He's all bloody. And a, a family in a minivan were coming home from church and they opened the door and they told them, just get in. And so they got us out of there.

• 32:53Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 32:55Speaker 01

  So there's that piece to it. Another piece is one day after school, there's this kid that she's dating some girl in my high school. I didn't know who she was, but he started dressing like a skinhead. And of course that was my territory. So I had to ask him who he was and where he's from. And I didn't like his attitude, so I hit him. And she, she turned it, obviously she had a grudge over it because I was being an asshole. Um, and so she had rounded up some friends, I guess, to try and beat me up. So they started calling me at my grandparents' house. And this was a week after that kidnapping situation. And because the, the window of my car got shot out, I don't know if they had heard about it or what, but I, because I didn't know who's calling me, right? They just kept making threats and they said, well, you're going to meet us at the park or we're going to shoot up your house like we shot up your car. Well, that's my grandparents. It's the last thing I want to happen. So me and my brother and two other guys.

• 33:41Speaker 01

  You know, I, I had a car up there early to see who was going to get there and how many people there were. Cause I mean, you know, these guys that kidnapped, there was a bunch of them. They were older, so it wasn't like super confident in it. So I had some guys that got there early to scout the spot and then me and my brother showed up. And when I walked up, it was these like nerdy kids from high school, like the, I didn't even pay attention. I knew who they were, but I like, they were never on my radar. And they started trying to act tough and I was still like trying to comprehend, like, look like, wait, what? And, um, so there was four of them and it was just me and my brother at the time. And so I, I was carrying a pistol, so I took my pistol out and I handed it. Oh, the, there was a third friend there because I took my pistol and handed it to the third guy. Cause I'm like, I'm not going to use it. And I didn't want to fall out when I'm fighting. And I just, we just start hitting these dudes.

• 34:26Speaker 01

  And one of them I'd hit with a bottle. I felt there was like a Henry Weinhard's orange cream soda. Always remember it because it was an empty one sitting there on the ground and I had picked it up and hit this kid with it. Well, they had the girl that had called and started all this. She was at top already on the phone with the cops. So as we're fighting, once they started losing, she calls. Um, and we hear sirens and we take off. And this is embarrassing, but it'll date me, but my, I had dropped my pager on the run out of there. So they're in the minivan getting ready to leave and they get stopped by the cops. But the cops didn't have enough information yet, what was going on. They let them leave. I'm on foot, so I'm like, I had to run all through neighborhoods, all this stuff. Once I got my pager. But of course they grabbed the bottle, they fingerprinted the bottle. So I

• 35:09Speaker 01

  don't know any of this. I'm going to Portland, I'm going to a concert, telling all the old guy, older guys, how cool we are. We just compete these guys up, you know? Um, and then come home to the cops at our house. Shit. And so at the time, Oregon had, um, just implemented what they called measure eleven, which was mandatory minimum sentencing, like the tough on violent crime act. And so my charge was assault in the second degree assault with a weapon. So if, it would have been if I, if I took it to trial and got found guilty, it's a minimum of five years, 10 months, no matter previous record, no matter the fact that just turned eighteen. Um, and I was guilty of it, right? Like there was circumstances. And there was four of them and three of us or whatever, but still, um, I was guilty of it. So I took a plea bargain of assault in a third degree.

• 35:50Speaker 01

  And I, so we did, I think two or three weeks in jail when we first got arrested. Then I had to go back over Christmas break, spent my whole Christmas break in jail. And then I had to go back and do a month after everyone was going on their senior vacations and graduating. I had to go to county jail, spend a month there. And then I did five years of probation off of that.

• 36:06Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit. So how many times have you been to jail before you were eighteen?

• 36:10Speaker 01

  That was those two.

• 36:11Shawn Ryan?

  Two?

• 36:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. But going, here's the other thing too, is being eighteen years old, only knowing of the jail prison system from either visiting my dad in prison or just popular culture, TV and stuff. And in my mind, these were all the racist skinheads are in there. And I'm this hundred and twenty-four pound anti-racist kid. So I was scared to death of jail when I first went in there. The first couple of days weren't bad at all. Well, it wasn't, none of it was that bad once I got there, but the first couple of days, they had me and my twin brother in the same cell. And I was like, well, hell yeah, it's like a sleepover. It's can't be bad, you know? And, uh, I'll remember because he, they gave us slippers and his slipper had a hole in it. So whenever he stepped in goes so we were always making fun of him for it. And, uh, one night they came at the guards came into our cell

• 36:56Speaker 01

  and split us up. Because they said, well, if your parents or someone's going to bail one of you out, we don't know if you guys are going to swap ID cards, like get the hell out of here. Like, well, you go ahead, bro. But so they split us up and they're like rushing me and he's like, hey, here, here's your stuff. And I put my slippers on and I step out the door and I hear and he's just laughing in the cell. He gave me his, his holy slippers on my way out.

• 37:17Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit. Wow.

• 37:19Speaker 01

  Or there was a, there was a time where someone had stole a razor, a razor blade. And so they were doing cell searches and person searches. So they called you out of your cell one at a time. You had to walk across the whole tier. And then go out and get frisked and then come back. So I'm coming back from the tier and it's quiet and I hear someone go, they checked his ass. He's walking funny. And I'm like, what? I look over and it's my brother.

• 37:39Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit. Wow. So you and your brother were, I mean, even after they split you guys up into different towns, you're still running on the same gang, doing all the same stuff?

• 37:49Speaker 01

  Pretty much. So when I got into that skinhead stuff, he listened to the music, but he was, went to this country school. He was, he thought he was going to be a roper. He was in the Cowboys and he practiced roping in the backyard. And, uh, he had a cool belt buckle with a spur on it that spun around when he flicked it, you know, he was really cool. Um, but those Nazi dudes that were always looking for me, didn't know how to twin and they jammed him up at like a circle K. And, uh, I think kind of from then he'd realize he's going to be assumed it's him, you know, I, it just, he became his beef too. And then, so he was like, well, might as well join too. So then he got kind of into it and then we started doing stuff together.

• 38:25Shawn Ryan?

  So when did you, when did you guys head to Portland?

• 38:28Speaker 01

  Right after high school, right? When I got out of jail in high school, I moved to Portland and part of it was good for me and the fact of probation. So when I'm on probation in Salem, which is a smaller town, it was a very strict probation. When I went to Portland, I'm on gang probation, but I'm a skinny white kid. And the gang probation is in the northeast part of Portland. And my PO is this bigger black guy and he's like, what, what'd you go to jail for, is he? And he's like, beating up Nazis and yeah, man, just don't get in trouble. You're gonna be good. You know, I mean, they, they would visit me at work or even have to do urine samples and stuff, but I never really did drugs back then. I didn't really drink. So it was like, it was all fine for me.

• 39:04Shawn Ryan?

  And you knew what gang you guys wanted to join?

• 39:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, there was a gang there called the Rose City Bobber Boys. Um, which I have Rose City on my knuckles and my arm and they had started in nineteen ninety-five, right in the early eras of Portland, like it was the same thing as Salem. There was a lot of neo-Nazi skinhead gangs there and they had, it would reach national news when the neo-Nazi group there, Eastside White Pride, which became Volksfront, had killed an Ethiopian immigrant, Malgus Hara, uh, beat him to death with baseball bats. And so there was a big trial with the family of the deceased had sued Tom Metzger and Lightarian Resistance. So there was this big political trial going on, you know, and so it was all over the media and stuff like that. So there was like three or four anti-racist skinhead gangs there and kind of the main ones from each one decided, well, let's just

• 39:49Speaker 01

  have one and they kind of either beat up or ran off the guys that weren't down and they go form together and they started Rose City. So by the time I was coming around, they were the only, the only like anti-racist skinhead gang in Portland. Um, so any punk rock show I went to, they were there, you know, and you go, all their different concerts that they were there because they were showing up to make sure Nazis weren't there. Plus we all liked the same music. So for me, I'm eighteen, these guys are probably twenty-two, twenty-three. So, but to me, they were the older guys, you know? Um, so when I moved up there, that, that was like my first thing is I moved in with one of them and I was like, I want to be a part of this.

• 40:18Shawn Ryan?

  Were they pretty accepting?

• 40:21Speaker 01

  No. So they were the type of gang that

• 40:25Speaker 01

  so, and I say gang in this extent too, other than we weren't, there was no monetary value, weren't like hustling drugs or anything, but they were very territorial. So even if you were an anti-racist gang and if you came to a concert or who you, who are you, where are you from? And you'd probably get beat up. And if you came back, maybe you get beat up again, maybe not, but then if you kept then you kind of had like earn your way in by seeing that you're not a pussy. Cause it was, it sounds crazy, but it was a very violent time, dude. And so it's like, if everyone's gonna be around, we want to make sure that you're not gonna run off or you're not soft. Um, so there was a lot of challenges in proving yourself coming up through that.

• 40:56Shawn Ryan?

  Would they instigate things? Or they would just, they would, I mean, they would beat you up, but would they, would there be an initiation?

• 41:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, there was a jump in. I had to get jumped in like a traditional, like they just beat your ass and

• 41:09Shawn Ryan?

  What's a jump in?

• 41:10Speaker 01

  So where everyone in the gang surrounds you and you're supposed to fight and they fight you. And they're like, I see stuff on TV where they're like, oh, you only punch your stomach or it's only ten seconds, but ours wasn't. Ours was till somebody called it. And if you hit the ground, they're calling you a pussy. And I'm like, dude, I'm getting hit by twelve tough guys. What do you mean? Um, when I got jumped in, so there was the, one of the dudes that was kind of like the shot caller for the crew.

• 41:33Speaker 01

  I think early on, once he, once, you know, I got comfortable and kind of started coming around more, I've always been like vocal about, um, my opinion and, and always been good at kind of drawing people in and always really rise to leadership positions and, and I think even there was this weird tension between him or he had some insecurities about me, I think. And so he, he had made it. My brother was already in and my friend Zach who moved up there with me was already in before they jumped me in. Like they, I had to wait like two extra years or something.

• 42:04Shawn Ryan?

  Two extra years?

• 42:05Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was a year or two extra that, that they were all in. I mean, I got to hang out and party with everyone, but I wasn't a member. So I couldn't go to the meetings and couldn't claim to be a member, you know?

• 42:14Shawn Ryan?

  And you think it was an insecurity?

• 42:16Speaker 01

  Yeah, absolutely. Especially after like when I joined and stuff too, because he had given me some talks and it was like, you know, he, he had, I had brought like a lot of the younger guys up with me and then as I was in, I was a very active dude, you know, I'm, I'm outspoken. I'm pretty sociable. So I was bringing people around. And so I think he kind of was seeing that that sphere of influence was changing.

• 42:38Shawn Ryan?

  What, I mean, what are you and your brother saying about this? You guys seem well, as tired as it gets.

• 42:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 42:45Shawn Ryan?

  And you're not, couple of years later, you're still not in?

• 42:48Speaker 01

  Yeah. So him and I fought twice physically over it. When he was drinking and stuff, because he would be like, that's why you're not in or whatever. And I'll also say part of it was eat my ego. They said I wasn't ready to be in, uh, cockiness, you know, I mean, it wasn't all his fault. Um, but yeah, I think it was a year after my brother got jumped in, then I got jumped in. That dude I'm talking about, the leader guy, we had been at a concert one night and this dude was saying a bunch of racist stuff and was grabbing on some girls. So we beat him up. Well, apparently he was friends with this leader guy and he told them that we were saying racist, you know, some dumb like to get support. And it was this guy's chance to finally beat me up, right? Like now he had a reason.

• 43:31Speaker 01

  So my band was playing a concert and he'd been driving around telling all the guys when he saw me, he was gonna break my jaw. And he's, he's a big dude. He's a very tough fighter. And, uh, I'm sitting at the bar next door to where my band's playing. I was twenty years old, maybe. So, you know, probably shouldn't, oh yeah, because I don't think I do. So I'm sitting in the bar and he comes walking in and I just remember my stomach dropping. It's like, damn.

• 43:50Shawn Ryan?

  This is the leader?

• 43:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah.

• 43:52Shawn Ryan?

  Your leader.

• 43:53Speaker 01

  Yep. So he walks in and he goes, hey, man, you gotta go for a walk, which I know what that means. It means we're gonna go fight. So we go into this alley and he starts fighting me and, uh, I didn't fight back because I was like, A, I'm sure he can win. B, whether I could or not, I didn't want to like make things worse or like he already kind of had this fragile ego state and then I don't know, I just didn't want to make things worse and I just wanted to be over as quick as possible. And I remember he was slamming my head against this brick wall and I put my hand up and it broke my thumb. That's why my thumb's all nasty looking. My, the bone was sticking out of my thumb. And I had to play a concert that night. So it's like I had it all taped up and I remember when I was strumming the guitar every now and again, the strings would get up underneath it. It was gnarly, dude.

• 44:35Speaker 01

  Gnarly. But so my point is when I got jumped in was two weeks after that. So I'm in a cast. Still have black eyes from him beating me up and then I was supposed to fight twelve guys. So that didn't go well.

• 44:47Shawn Ryan?

  Did you ever make amends with this guy?

• 44:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, actually within the last few years, we've, we've gotten

• 44:52Shawn Ryan?

  Within the last few years?

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, he called and apologized about four years ago. I mean, he was always

• 44:57Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 44:58Speaker 01

  Because while I was in, I left that world when I was twenty-five. So I was only, I was only in for about five years. Um, he has stayed in it, right? So there was those years where we're like, we had to coexist, but we didn't always get along. And then when I left, he was trying to rally everyone to jump me out and, you know, which didn't happen.

• 45:16Shawn Ryan?

  What does that mean?

• 45:17Speaker 01

  So you're in the gang, you're out. So if you want to leave, you have to get jumped out, just like you get jumped in. Um, and I didn't. And the reason they, he wanted to jump me out is he said, like, once you're in, you're not allowed to be in any other gangs. And I joined a motorcycle club. Now, now, obviously taking knowledge that that's not a gang, it wasn't the same thing. But at the time, it was just him using his influence, trying, trying to get me beat up, I guess. Um, and so years later, you know, he had reached out and we had pretty deep talk and then now we stay in touch and talk pretty often.

• 45:49Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 45:53Shawn Ryan?

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• 46:35Shawn Ryan?

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• 48:25Shawn Ryan?

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• 48:44Shawn Ryan?

  Alright Justin, we're back from the break. I think we were just talking about getting jumped, getting jumped out.

• 48:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, so I was in for about five years and what was cool about that time too is I was in the band then too. So like I said, I'd played some music with people in high school. We'd meet up after school to go to this guy's house, you know, play guitar and we never like did shows or anything. In high school, my, my, or right when I moved to Portland, my first job was at the Hot Topic. That store in the mall, I know, that's embarrassing.

• 49:16Speaker 01

  But there was a guy that moved there from Connecticut that was in this other smaller punk rock band and he was trying to get a band together. And so the, the assistant manager of Hot Topic, her boyfriend played bass. So I was like, well, I play guitar and he sings. So we just kind of put this band together. Cause at first it was still the guys I was playing with in high school and then my friend from Zach that I met at Hot Topic, I'd have him come and kind of jam with us, but he was, it was like more of kind of misfit, soundy and he was like, well, I was singing about vampires and shit. So, uh, he wanted to do more like a street punk thing and so we kind of built this band. And at first, well, I feel like everything I do, I go like all in. So when we were doing the band, like next thing you know, we're touring several months that like we were, we for four of those five years, we took, we were on the road for a month, home for a month or on the road for two months.

• 50:00Shawn Ryan?

  Hold on, hold on. You were, you were touring?

• 50:03Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 50:03Shawn Ryan?

  You were that good? You were good?

• 50:05Speaker 01

  We put out three, we had, back then you had to be on a record label if you wanted your music out there, right? For distribution and all that stuff. So we, we had three, we had an EP come out. Then we did a full length on a bigger label and then the last one was another EP on a bigger, like bigger for punk rock.

• 50:18Shawn Ryan?

  What was the name of the band?

• 50:19Speaker 01

  The Escaped. I think the biggest thing we did was we were on, um, the guy from Rancid's record label, Give Him The Boot. There was like a compilation called Give Him The Boot on Hellcat Records and we were on that. So that was like the most mainstream we got, but we played like some warp tour dates. We played CBGB's in New York City. We played Gilman Street.

• 50:36Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit, you guys were playing the warp tour?

• 50:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. We did a couple of warp tour dates, Cleveland, Ohio, and then Oregon. And then, you know, like famous CBGB's in Portland were the Ramones and everybody played. And then Gilman Street, which is where like Rancid and Green Day and those bands first played. So we got to play a lot of those venues.

• 50:50Shawn Ryan?

  You meet all these guys?

• 50:52Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 50:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, I'm still friends with like, so like Dropkick Murphys or like some of those bands.

• 50:57Shawn Ryan?

  Are you serious?

• 50:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, man. Yeah. Al, Al Bar, the singer and Ken Casey, bass, were really good friends of mine.

• 51:03Shawn Ryan?

  Who's your favorite punk rock bands?

• 51:05Speaker 01

  Man, that's gonna be probably The Clash. It's always been, I think, as far as like authentic, old school punk rock, The Clash. Um, I recently saw their Misfits when they got back together and I just had a nostalgia. It was cool, you know?

• 51:15Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 51:16Speaker 01

  Um, and then more like mainstream stuff, probably Rancid because they sound like The Clash.

• 51:22Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. So, I mean, damn dude. Quite the, uh, quite the experience by the time you're what, 20, 20?

• 51:32Speaker 01

  Yeah, 25, 25, I think was around the time I left, 24, 25, when we broke, we, we stopped playing in 2005 and then we did a reunion show in 2015 and that was it. That was the last time I played guitar.

• 51:44Shawn Ryan?

  That's the last time you played guitar?

• 51:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. And I would, in between, I never really played guitar either because like at the time, I played it all through high school and then I was in this band for five years, but I just played power chords. It was punk rock. I'm not a good guitar player. Just jumped around a lot, played power chords. And so like once I wasn't playing it to like play music, I wasn't that guy who would sit in the room and play guitar or play along to the radio and so I just lost interest in it.

• 52:06Shawn Ryan?

  What's it like? I mean, as a young man going out into a warp tour, I mean, that's, how many people are there?

• 52:12Speaker 01

  It was crazy. So Warp Tour wasn't one of our bigger shows because there's so many other bands playing at the same time. So like, uh, Lars Fredriksson from Rancid, he was in a side project called Lars and the Bastards and they had played right before we did. And they were telling everyone, hey, go see The Escaped. Um, but I want to say like AFI or some other big band was playing at the same time of us. So, you know, that it wasn't our, it wasn't our biggest crowd.

• 52:33Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 52:33Speaker 01

  But, um, you know, the crazy thing I remember about tour that is funny looking back on now is this was pre, pretty pre-internet and definitely pre-navigation. So like when I was booking our tours, there was a book called Book Your Own Life.

• 52:46Shawn Ryan?

  You were managing it?

• 52:47Speaker 01

  Yeah, I wrote the songs and booked the tours and everything. And so there was this book called Book Your Own Life where it's like, look up Cleveland and say, okay, here's the venues you could play. Here's the, maybe a house, houses you could stay at and here's the promoters and had everyone's like, you know, phone number and address. And this was in that era, email was just starting. So really you'd make a press kit and I'd mail out packages and I'd mail out demo CDs and record labels and, uh, so I booked this, our very first US tour, I was 20, we booked this whole US, I booked this whole US tour off of this book. And, um, it, it was a trip and then, then now we're navigating the country. We're going to triple, we're going to AAA to get roadmaps, you know?

• 53:26Speaker 01

  I mean, this is, that's a date myself, but I remember we had a cardboard box between the driver and passenger seat full of cassette tapes, you know, mixtapes. And then we'd bring, you know, I'd have a pocket full of quarters in case you get lost, you gotta go use a payphone. And then I remember like MapQuest was kind of starting to come out. So then we could build at least an idea of where we're going. But if you got off route, you still had to have a map or it was just crazy for me to think about. Kids in their early twenties navigating the country, uh, with no navigation, no cell phones.

• 53:53Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, different world, man.

• 53:54Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:54Shawn Ryan?

  We must be about the same age.

• 53:58Shawn Ryan?

  Were, I mean, were you, I'm just, were you drinking, drugging, partying?

• 54:03Speaker 01

  No, not really. So like, uh,

• 54:05Shawn Ryan?

  What were your grades like?

• 54:07Speaker 01

  When I applied myself, they were decent, but around high schools, high school, I, I was getting like Bs and Cs. I mean, I graduated, but I wasn't like, and when I went back to college years later, I was honor roll and I've been in honor society and all that stuff for my grades.

• 54:19Shawn Ryan?

  You just put all your potential into the gangs and punk rock?

• 54:22Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 54:23Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, I mean, it's pretty fucking impressive. I mean,

• 54:29Shawn Ryan?

  organized an entire gang, got into another one, managing and playing and promoting the band. I mean, that's a lot of shit.

• 54:39Speaker 01

  Yeah, I stay active. I like to stay active.

• 54:41Shawn Ryan?

  Damn dude.

• 54:41Speaker 01

  I think I've been really blessed with networking, like I've been very good at, A, meeting people and deep maintaining relationships. Like I said, a lot of those bands we played with, I'm still friends with. I was just in Austin, Texas last week and got to see some friends I haven't seen in 20 years. So on our first US tour, our drummer was a mechanic. He's like, this band's gonna be great. It's gonna make it, it'll be golden. And we had issues all along the west coast. In fact, our van broke down right outside of Compton and you know, this is like, like I said, we're 20 years old and I'm skinheads and punk rockers, guys, mohawks and stuff. And, uh, the California, I don't know if they still do, I'm sure they probably do, but if you break down the interstate, they just tow you off the interstate. So they drop us off in Compton to find a car battery at dark, so we can get to this venue.

• 55:26Speaker 01

  And so we were just, something I'll always remember because it was crazy. And then, uh, you know, everything worked out. We got to the venue. But we were just outside of Austin, Texas and the van broke down. And when we were out of the van trying to figure out what was going on with it, it caught, the carburetor, it caught fire and then the van burned to the ground.

• 55:42Speaker 01

  So we, we had to call the bands we were supposed to be playing with. We called, say, we're not gonna make it. Well, that morning they came and picked us up. All the equipment that we could, that we had salvaged and gotten out of it and most of our, I mean, we were able to get most of the stuff out of it. Because you know, it started at the front and worked through back. So we could get most of the stuff out. But we ended up staying in Austin, Texas for, I was there for two months because we would play shows and then we had enough money. We'd send one guy home on a Greyhound and we'd have some other local bands, guy fill in and then we'd send the next guy on a Greyhound. And so, you know, I made some great friends there. And so when I was back there last week, I got to hang out with all those guys and catch up and it was really, really cool.

• 56:17Shawn Ryan?

  That's awesome, man. Wow, wow. So were you in a gang in the punk rock band at the same time or was it one of the?

• 56:23Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, I was. And it was, it was one of those things where like each, especially in the skinhead scene, but also in like the hardcore punk rocks, the hardcore music scene. A lot of the bigger cities have their own crews or gangs. And so it was actually for me a good networking piece because I met, you know, a lot of dudes from these other crews and, and kind of was just to network, get to know each other. So they'd come to our shows, we'd go to their shows. And it was cool. I mean, I met a ton of people that way. So it was cool. And, and years later, when I got into club life, some of those dudes did too. And so there was like these connections I had with other national clubs because I knew this guy from the hardcore scene or the punk rock scene.

• 56:57Shawn Ryan?

  Why did you want, why did you want jumped out of that gang? What was the name of that gang again?

• 57:02Speaker 01

  The Rose City Bobber Boys, RCBB. Yeah.

• 57:06Speaker 01

  So towards the end for me, I was dating this girl for the last five years, pretty much the whole time I was in the band. And she was, she had won some thing where she was like trying to be a VJ for, uh, Fuse TV. It's like some contest. So she was in New York City for the finalists and she said, hey, where should I go? What bar should I go to? And I said, hey, there's this, I won't say the name, but I was like, hey, there's this really cool bar down there. All the bands hang out there. So she went down there and one of my favorite bands was there at the time. And she went up, she's talking to the singer and, and he was wearing a shirt for this, um, promotional company that I really liked and he'd taken it off and gave it to her. And of course, at the end of the night, they end up hooking up and I don't, I don't hear this for months and stories vary on whatever.

• 57:49Speaker 01

  But either way, I'm, uh, someone, my brother had called me and said, hey, you know, there's this thing on the internet because this competition, like you had to vote for who you wanted to win. And these people were like, well, at least I wasn't like Kristen and slept with so and so and, um, these, I knew, we didn't like, we played warp tour together and we maybe met a few times. We weren't like friends, but we knew of each other. And like I said at the beginning, he, he knew me enough to go, hey, here's this T-shirt. And so there was some ego involved for sure, but the biggest place was I want to know, like she was that first thing that happened. So I was reaching out to this guy and he wouldn't hit me back. He wouldn't answer. So I started reaching out to mutual friends. And my thing was I just wanted man to man to talk to me. Did it happen? Why? You know, whatever.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  And, um, he's involved in a, a pretty big gang out of their crew out of New York. And so I don't, she probably would just thought he could cool guy me or tough guy me. I don't know. But he was married at the time. I don't know if he still is or not, but some of my mutual friends had called and said, hey, I was like, hey, I just want this guy to get ahold of me. And they said, yeah, you need to stop hitting people up or, or you're gonna get hurt. And I was like, well, so now I'm getting threatened after all this happened. So I said, well, hey, if he doesn't call me before he plays in Portland, it's not gonna go good for him. And, uh, never heard from him. So I had some, me and some scouts watched him in Boise, Idaho. We watched him in Seattle. And when they came to Portland, we jumped them and beat, beat the band up.

• 59:12Speaker 01

  They're a bigger band and they were a bigger crew. So all these other skinny crews rolling west coast that initially were cool with it. Had people are picking sides and there's this drama and his brother was in a even larger band and they were going to come back to play Portland. So his brother reaches out to our gang and he says, hey, this issue seems between my brother and his brother. So why don't me and then my brother Jeremy? So why doesn't him and Jeremy meet, try and squash this? And when we had planned, when we jumped them, you know, we had planned it like a full military, I mean, we had our spotters over here and the shooters in the back and cars down here. Cause we, this was a very reputable crew and we weren't sure what to expect.

• 59:54Shawn Ryan?

  Hold on. Go ahead. Finish. I want, I want, I want to ask you afterwards, you know, what all goes into, what, what, what planning goes into when you're going to jump somebody?

• 1:00:05Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 1:00:05Shawn Ryan?

  But you're talking about spotters, shooters, all kinds of shit.

• 1:00:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 1:00:08Shawn Ryan?

  It sounds pretty intricate.

• 1:00:10Speaker 01

  Um.

• 1:00:12Speaker 01

  Well, and I could lean into that because so when they were, when we were, I, I had people watch them in Boise because I wanted to get a head count on who they had with them, how many they had on the road. You know, who, who had security, did they have security with them? Where do they post up when they're leaving? Do they park in the back when they load their, you know, I wanted to get all the information. And because we watched Boise, I did the same thing in Seattle. And then we kind of lost them in Seattle because I was trying to have them tailed. And there's only one, you know, interstate five goes from Seattle to Portland. So my brother was on the side of the road with his Harley. And pretending like it was broken down until they came by and then he just got in behind them and called us. Then we knew where to expect them, which way they were going.

• 1:00:52Speaker 01

  But because they were, like I said to us, we thought they were reputable guys that we didn't know if they had guns on them. We didn't know, you know, they were on tour to other bands. So they had a good amount of people. Um, so we had people there all day, super early to see if, you know, who they had coming down there. We did have guys that were stationed to just stand in the back with firearms in case they pulled firearms. Otherwise they don't get involved. We had spotters up in the high area, which next door was the parking garage. To see who was coming and going, if law enforcement was, you know, just because you can see the ins and outs. And then we had, we all came down. So we went there the day before and dropped vehicles in to leave. And then we came in at different vehicles so we could separate and go somewhere else.

• 1:01:34Speaker 01

  Um, so I mean, we planned it pretty well, you know, and then, and it went off without hitch, um, got out of there before law enforcement. And so then they're, they want to schedule this meeting to make up with us. And I wasn't allowed to go anywhere in the area because I figured my presence there would just make it worse. And I don't know if it was leadership on my end for not impressing the importance enough, or it was just people comfortable or cocky, but we didn't do any of that the second time. We took the guy at his word that this was going to be a meeting. So there was like three or four guys with my brother. But my brother walked, they said, okay, here's, they got the call. He walks up. And as he's walking up, there's these three guys that come up to him, two of which were friends of ours, one had stayed at my house. Um, and they were both in bigger bands.

• 1:02:17Speaker 01

  And just as a caveat, one of them became a hell's angel later, but not important until later. But anyway, so the three of them there and they end up jumping my brother. And they beat him with a, a club or he, he said it was a table leg or, but he, he was beaten so bad that he almost, he was in ICU for two weeks. His, his jawbone had broken, went into his ear canal, destroyed his eardrums equilibrium. He has inner stem brain damage, like had to learn how to walk again. His ear fell off like it was in his fucking hand.

• 1:02:42Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 1:02:43Speaker 01

  So he, I'm, couldn't get ahold of anyone for like the check in, see how it went. And all of a sudden he calls me and I'm like, where are you at? And he's like, they got me, they got me. And I was like, who got you? And he, you know, he's just had all this brain damage. He doesn't know what's going on. And he said, I'm in a bush. And I was like, where? I was like trying to, and he had, he had walked up to a clothing store, the Buffalo Exchange, and they just saw him covered in blood and they locked the door. So by the time I get down there, there's ambulance, he was already in the ambulance. Um, they had brought a busload of people up from different crews from down from Seattle and up from LA and Sacramento. So they had probably 30 dudes with them. So the other guys were getting, they were fighting too, but no one got it like my brother, because he got singled out and jumped, you know?

• 1:03:23Speaker 01

  So, you know, now I'm dealing with my, my, I'd already lost a little brother, right? Now my twin brother is in the hospital with a brain bleed. Family's freaking out, you know, and, uh, things got real serious and it got to the point where he finally got out of the hospital, but he, you know, his PTSD was bad. He was because of the, the inner stem or because of the equilibrium, he had spins all, you know, he couldn't get comfortable. He was sick.

• 1:03:48Speaker 01

  And he, we had like, he had, he had this walker that had like tennis balls on it, but if it wasn't even, he'd go like this and keep him on. Now he's deaf and he's getting used to being deaf. And because everything's spinning, he'd stare at the floor, but you were supposed to take him out to practice walking. So I'd take him to like the store, you know, Fred Meyer or something. And he'd be doing this. And if it was crooked, he'd like start doing this and go off to the left. So I'd fuck with his walker. So he'd walk crooked.

• 1:04:13Speaker 01

  But he couldn't hear you or anything because you know, he's staring at the ground. So nothing would spin. He couldn't hear. But it got to the point where one time, so then we have a meeting with the gang and, and, um. So there was that guy that I talked about before, the leader guy, and then another dude I looked up to in the crew. They brought in this pillowcase and they empty out some, you know, dump out some pistols out of it. And they said, hey, you know, we need to have revenge. Like we gotta, we gotta rectify this. This is for the name of the crew. This is for retribution. And they said, so we gotta go, but we knew where a couple of those dudes, the city they lived in, they go, we gotta go down there and take care of these guys. And I said, they said, you guys take the bus down there, take these. And it was me and, and Little Zach. So the guy I went to high school with, wrestling team, then he was in the first crew with me. He joined and.

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  So yeah, he ended up being a mom with me for a while too. So he's kind of done everything with me. And so it's just me and Little Zach and, uh, and we go, okay, well, when do we leave? And, and this guy says, no, no, we're not going. You guys gotta go. And I said, I mean, I feel like it's pretty obvious if something happens to these guys, we're going to go to prison. He's like, hey, if that's what we gotta do for the reputation of the crew. And, you know, it's still pretty locked in. So I was like, I guess that's what we're doing. And I go home and I tell my brother and he lost his mind. He's like, why the F would you do that? He's like, first, first I get jumped to take me and then you guys are going to go to prison. And he's like, for what? Like, how's that going to help the gang? And so that, the tension of that, and then things, you know, retribution not happening.

• 1:05:35Speaker 01

  And also the fact that my presence in that gang was the issue at this point, right? My band couldn't tour anymore because of these guys were like more of a national gang on a bigger level. They were a bigger band. So like, uh, the guys from Rancid were, one of them's in that gang. So they dropped us, kicked us off the label. Like there was all the guys that were my mutual friends I was trying to reach out to. It was all, everything was done after that. Everything got cut off.

• 1:06:00Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 1:06:01Speaker 01

  And so, um, around this time, right before he got jumped, we grew up riding Vespas, like from the skinny scene. So we had like a, you know, two stroke, three, four speed Vespas. We were cruising. We thought we were cool as fuck on them. And, uh, one of the, one of our buddies, an older skinny duty owned a tattoo shop that I'd worked at. He, he was started right, he went from Vespas to Harleys and he let me ride his Harley and I was like, game over dude. You know, just the torque, the power, everything. So my, my twin brother went to the Harley dealership and financed us both Sportsters or co-signed on my Sportster. And within about two months, we traded him in for Big Twins. And as soon as we had bikes, you know, we were still doing the, the crew stuff, but he, he couldn't ride after getting jumped or he wasn't supposed to. Um, he couldn't even walk. He was so dizzy.

• 1:06:46Speaker 01

  And I remember being at work one day and him calling me saying, I need to come pick him up. I go, where are you? And he tried to ride to a friend's house. And he got there, but he's like, no way I'm riding back right now. Um. And so we, I started hanging out, you know, more interested in hanging out with the guys. Little Zach had bought an Harley. So like, you know, now, now there's like a group of three or four of us riding around. And anything I've done, whether it was a skinny gang or the band, I was like, if I'm going to do them, I want to do the best of it. So I already was like, cool motorcycle club, you know? And, uh, and so that was kind of my transition where I was started, you know, kind of put one thing behind me and moved on to the next.

• 1:07:23Shawn Ryan?

  When'd you get your first tattoo?

• 1:07:26Speaker 01

  I was 16.

• 1:07:27Shawn Ryan?

  What was it?

• 1:07:29Speaker 01

  I had the Laurel wreath, like the Fred Perry logo on my chest. It's covered up now, but I, I had it, my dude did it in the backyard with a guitar string homemade like prison style tattoo machine. And then at 17, like me, Jeremy, Little Zach, the guys from our old crew, got this brother's till the end tattoo. It's like a straight razor, have stuff behind it now, but. And then when I turned 18, I just started getting professional ones, thankfully.

• 1:07:52Shawn Ryan?

  Do you have a favorite?

• 1:07:55Speaker 01

  No, I don't think so, man.

• 1:07:56Shawn Ryan?

  Do you have a couple of favorites?

• 1:07:59Speaker 01

  I mean, I've got a lot of memorial tattoos. Those probably mean the most to me.

• 1:08:06Speaker 01

  But no, I don't know if I have any actual favorite. I like them all.

• 1:08:08Shawn Ryan?

  Right on, right on. What's this one?

• 1:08:11Speaker 01

  Um, Illinois, I O. So when we were, uh, I don't know if it's going to get me in shit or not, but when we, when we started going at it with another club, I'll just say that, another club in Illinois. Uh, they said we couldn't be there and they were going to come take our rockers from us and they weren't going to have stuff that said Illinois. So I tattooed it on my face.

• 1:08:29Shawn Ryan?

  That's a statement.

• 1:08:30Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:31Shawn Ryan?

  How'd that work out?

• 1:08:33Speaker 01

  Still got it?

• 1:08:34Shawn Ryan?

  Still here, huh?

• 1:08:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:08:35Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 1:08:39Shawn Ryan?

  So you're interested motorcycle gangs? That was it, riding a Harley?

• 1:08:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. So there was a, a, a club in town called the Outsiders. Which was like, they'd been there since the sixties. They, they had a chapter in Portland and Tacoma. So very old school, like chopper club, even around the time I joined. Most of them didn't even have har- newer Harleys. They all had custom choppers. And if you rode a Sportster, you had to park across the street. That's one of the reasons we, we traded them in pretty quick, but um. One of the guys had a Dyna and they'd call him Storebot Scott. Cause, cause he didn't have a chopper, you know, like that was. Before everyone was riding baggers and like it is now, you know, so they were super old school. And I didn't know, you know, I'd read all these books about it, just like it was skinhead and everything else.

• 1:09:24Speaker 01

  But I didn't, you know, I didn't know that, like being in it, I didn't know the culture. And so to me, these guys might as well have been Hell's Angels, right? Like to me, I'm like. These are some outlaw bikers, you know, they're, they're old school. They were that long haired biker look, you know? Um, so I was super enamored. So I was like spending as much time with them as I could. I was going on rides and stuff with them and hanging out the clubhouse and ended up prospecting for them for, I think, two months. Um, but there was this moment. Where I kind of looked past the shininess of it, you know, and I looked around the room and I was like, and this is a great club and great guys, but I was like. I don't have anything in common with any of these guys, like, you know, they're listening to old classic rock. They're like fifty, sixty years old. I'm twenty-four, twenty-five.

• 1:10:10Speaker 01

  Um, you know, outside of riding motorcycles. These aren't guys that I'd like go to the movies with or take to the homies barbecue and, um. And I remember just that was, I was really thinking that and like even questioning like. Club life, if that was what it's like, you know, I loved the structure of it. The militant aspect, the, the protocol, you know, having the officers and everyone has a role and, you know, and, and obviously when you're. Riding in a pack, just the feeling of that was incredible. Um, so there was a lot of aspects I liked to it. But there was just this lingering piece where I was like, I don't know if I, I fit in here. And I was the young guy trying to impress everybody and prove myself, you know, so I was trying to show that I'm tough and I could fight.

• 1:10:52Speaker 01

  And I, and the two opportunities I had failed miserably. There was a, a. I was at a, a bar with one of the members and. Some dude that was, you know, some local MMA guy that was drunk and wanted to pick a fight, you know, and. He's like, you guys think you're tough because you ride Harleys and, and you know, I was trying to pick a fight. He's like, I do this for a living and. Typical drunk bar stuff, you know, and so him and the, him and the, the member of the outsider start fighting. And I'm like, here's my chance. Hell yeah, I'm gonna impress this dude. I don't pay attention to anything. I don't do anything I'd normally do about who's he really, where are they standing? I walk right past his friends and hit him and next thing you know, I'm looking at my feet as I'm flying through, through the air. So I go back to the clubhouse and they nicknamed me Chuck for a while because I got chucked across the room. I said, well, that's not the reputation I want.

• 1:11:38Speaker 01

  And then as I was prospecting, there was out. And so a lot of prospects do the security, following around the members, paying attention to what's going on. So normally you're not sitting down, you're not drinking. Um, so I'm kind of posted up and this guy kept calling me prospect, but he wasn't in the club. And I'm still learning the rules and protocol and I knew he wasn't in the clubhouse process for, but I didn't know if he was like. In another club that they're friends with, like I was, because I couldn't figure out why he was being so blatant. Um. And he just kind of kept poking, poking at me and I had gone outside and one of the outsiders told me to go back inside. I don't know, I was grabbing him a drink or something. I was going back in and this guy stood in the doorway and he wouldn't let me pass. And I said, get out of the way dude. And he's like, so move me. So I hit him, we kind of fought a little bit and there was an older member there that was visiting from Tacoma from the outsiders.

• 1:12:23Speaker 01

  So it was just me and him and the dude. Didn't know how to fight, so didn't take, he kind of like doubled over and I uppercut him and he dropped. And when he hit the ground. My sponsor, so the one that had like brought me in, he comes running out and he starts kicking the guy. And uh, it gets broken up. We go back to the clubhouse and I'm thinking, they're gonna say, yeah. Just to knock this dude out, you know, it was so cool. Well, the old timers with goes, yeah, he was messing with the prospect, so I knocked him out. It's like, I can't challenge his opinion. I'm a prospect. He's a member. So I just was like, cool, that was my shot.

• 1:12:54Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 1:12:55Speaker 01

  So yeah, and, and um, right around that time, so that was when the stuff was going on with me and my ex Kristen, um, we had broken up. I was, I was managing a porn store at the time.

• 1:13:05Shawn Ryan?

  A porn store?

• 1:13:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, one of the members owned a porn store and so I'd like. It was a good job for me on tour because I could leave for two months, come back for a month, you know, those types of things. Um, and I worked day shift, I was manager, so I did like the ordering and the hiring and. But, um, by now I'm twenty-four years old and, and I was trying to figure out. You know, what I wanted to do, so, because I'd left the band, I'm leaving the club, or the, the skinhead gang. And um, when I was. Senior in high school, right before I got my felony, me and my best friend at the time did delayed entry for the Marine Corps. Well, I got the felony, so I couldn't go in. So around twenty-four-ish. Let's see, I, I, they had relaxed the felony rule for certain branches.

• 1:13:48Speaker 01

  And the National Guard was, I tried every branch, they wouldn't take me, but the National Guard, so they could take me. So I started lasering off some tattoos on my neck. But then like the day before maps, they said, hey, we couldn't get the waiver. So then I, so that was initially, that was my goal, right? I'm gonna go in the military, but no, no branch would take me.

• 1:14:02Shawn Ryan?

  Why did you want to go in the military?

• 1:14:04Speaker 01

  I think for structure, for some sort of semblance of something to do, like I, you know, it's like. And I just left the gang and I was looking for some sort of direction. And I thought. That might be it. And I mean, I was really interested in, so in high school, when I was getting in trouble. My grandpa had called him a Navy recruiter. My grandpa was in the army, but some reason he called a Navy recruiter. And I got home from school, he goes, hey, this guy wants to talk to you. And they were trying to get me to join the Navy. So it was like. My uncle was in the army, my grandpa was in the army. And so it was like, you know, I was like, okay, it's an option. Um, and then one of my best friends said he wanted to join the Marines. I was like, hell yeah, that'd be cool. Let's do that. Um, but he got in and I didn't. And then when I was trying to do the National Guard, when the band broke up, three of my friends joined.

• 1:14:49Speaker 01

  Like we're all gonna, you know, I was talking to these guys into doing it too. And they're all still in and I didn't get in. Um. And so my cousin lived in Nevada and right outside, in Carson City in Reno. And her husband worked for this gas company and they were hiring people like to teach how to work on gas meters and. Uh, and then his buddy was also said that he could help me like get into the electrical union. So I think, okay, here's. An opportunity to go do one of these two things, maybe have more of a career. So I left the outsiders and I moved to Port, uh, to, to Carson City, Nevada. I had, and I didn't really have much. I, I think I mailed a box of UPS clothes to my cousin's house and I got on the Harley and I rode down there. And uh, went to work for the gas company and was all well and good, but I was.

• 1:15:31Speaker 01

  Still reading about motorcycle clubs. There was a lot down there. I was wanting to hang out with motorcycle clubs and. Started hanging out with clubs there and there was a local club called the Booze Fighters. That they were going to this thing called the Confederation of Clubs, so.

• 1:15:43Shawn Ryan?

  Heard of them.

• 1:15:44Speaker 01

  The Booze Fighters, yeah, yeah.

• 1:15:45Shawn Ryan?

  Have some.

• 1:15:47Speaker 01

  They've been around since like the forties. Robert Patrick's a member, like there's like a lot of, like. They're a very big national club and, but they're not like a one percent outlaw club, so. There, there, a lot of great guys in that club. So I was hanging out, I hung out with them a little bit and they were going to this thing called the Confederation of Clubs, which. Each state essentially has, and then it's where all the clubs in that region. Meet up and talk about legislation or politics, you know, helmet laws and stuff like that. So I know I'd see all the other clubs there, so I go up there. With them and at the time, you know, I'm not in a club, so it was like. It was a fashion biker, you know, had a leather jacket with a denim vest over it. Um, there was a club there called the Vagos that I don't maybe seen on the internet. This was like early. Bikers just started having websites and stuff.

• 1:16:32Speaker 01

  And uh, there was first time I ever met a Hell's Angel, like all these clubs are there. And uh, I'm standing outside of this meeting, just meeting people, you know, and I remember these Vagos kept looking at me. Because I'm wearing a jean, jean, a denim vest and that's what they wear with their patch on it. And I'm thinking, man, I hope they don't think I'm trying to be one of them or something. I didn't even know them. But there was a lot of younger ones and I was thinking, well, that's kind of cool. You know, these guys have a little different look and a lot of them are in punk rock and skateboarding, I found out later and. But this meeting ends and I was hanging, I stayed a little bit longer to try and meet some more people and the Booze Fighters. Said, hey, meet up with us after. And it was one of those like, you know, go three blocks this way, take a ride, go here in the street and you'll see us all.

• 1:17:11Speaker 01

  So I'm trying to navigate this on my own, you know, drive around town and I see a bar, a bar with a bunch of green out front, so I assume it's the Booze Fighters. And as I pull in, I pull in past two prospects, like I had it blocked. And as soon as I pull in, I realize, fuck, this is Vago Bar. But I'm already here, so I back my bike up to the curb and I put my kickstand down and I'm just kind of reading the room, looking, you know, outside, I'm looking around like how many they have, where they at and. Man, there's probably thirty of them. Everyone's looking at me and now I'm looking like I'm dressed like them, you know, I was like, well, this can't be good. So I didn't want to look like a pussy, so I said, fuck it. And I walk into the bar and I, I wasn't drinking at the time, but I'd ordered a beer, just to have a bottle and I sat in the corner. And the president came up to me and asked what I was doing there and we start talking and two hours later, we're still talking and.

• 1:17:55Speaker 01

  He gives me his business card and then asked what I was doing, you know, he'd asked what I was doing there. I said, I was there for work and the next day was my first day at work. And on my lunch break, I checked my voicemail and I had a call from him. Asking how my first day of work was going and I was like, well, that's pretty cool, you know? Um, and I'm poor, you know, I just started working out there, I'm moving with my cousin. So he invites me over for dinner. So I go over there for dinner and next, next, you know, like every week I'm going over there for dinner. Um, so I start hanging out more and more and I was like, man, he was older, but there was a lot of younger guys and like. You know, it, it was, this was Reno where nothing, bars don't close, right? So. I, I wasn't really drinking at the time, but we'd stay out late, we're riding bikes fast. I was like, this is, this is it, this is for me. And he was building a new chapter called Border Town, right there on the border of Nevada, California.

• 1:18:38Speaker 01

  And said, hey, if you join this chapter, you won't have to prospect. You can just be a full patch member because they need the members to join the chapter. And so I ended up joining. That was the first like big motorcycle club I got into.

• 1:18:49Shawn Ryan?

  Shit. Where's your brother at at this time?

• 1:18:52Speaker 01

  So my brother had chosen to start prospecting for the outsiders after I'd left and moved, moved to Nevada. So he's in Oregon. But I'm, now I'm calling him up, telling him about, hey, there's this club here and these guys are great and they're younger guys and. Um, so he came down to visit a few times and I talked him into moving down there with me. So when we joined, we joined together, actually.

• 1:19:10Shawn Ryan?

  No shit.

• 1:19:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:19:11Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 1:19:13Speaker 01

  Yeah, we had, we rode to Nevada. We had a ride to Las Vegas to a big run where they handed us our patches. And then they're like, you know, put these on, but they said, you have to make sure that they don't peel off, right? Like no one can, no, my other member can't grab it, peel it off. And you got a needle and thread and they're giving you like 20 minutes, you know, come on, come on, we're getting ready to leave. Trying to sew it and I sewed it to the ironing board. I sewed my vest to the ironing board. And it, what sucks is that was the second time that's happened because with the outsiders, when I started prospecting, they had a tradition, which they'd asked me not to share, but, but the tradition got me a little buzzed up. And then they go here, sew, sew your prospect rockers on. So it was the top rocker that said outsiders and the bottom one that said Portland.

• 1:19:54Speaker 01

  And I'm trying to sew it under the pool table and I sewed the top of it into the, the felt of the pool table. So sewing was not my thing.

• 1:20:06Shawn Ryan?

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• 1:20:47Shawn Ryan?

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• 1:21:27Shawn Ryan?

  Anything significant happen with the, the Vagos?

• 1:21:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, so this is now, this is a much bigger club. I'm starting to, you know, in Oregon, there was four major clubs there and they all got along. So there was no clubs at war. There wasn't the violence, like, you know, every, like every club, everyone thinks their club is the best, right? But they all party together. They work together. There was no, um, you know, like big war stuff going on. And when I joined the Vagos at first, it was like the, just a fun party stuff. But, um, they were starting to kind of butt heads with the Hells Angels already. And they had, there was a, some old agreement that I didn't know of, you know, obviously it was new. Where there was a club called the Renegades that the Vagos told couldn't be in Nevada anymore. And, and the Hells Angels agreed to it. Well, the Renegades came back.

• 1:22:15Speaker 01

  And now they've got support from the Hells Angels. The Vagos are mad. So it was, you know, these meetings about what's going to happen. And I'm sitting there thinking like, I was all excited to join a club, to ride bikes and party with my friends. And we're talking about fighting the Hells Angels, you know? And I didn't even know much about Hells Angels. Like, so to me, I was like crazy, like that's some next level stuff, right?

• 1:22:34Shawn Ryan?

  Like a suicide mission?

• 1:22:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, dude. And, and in fact, one of the first times we, we thought we might actually have to fight them is when I saw how structured and impressive they were is we were going to one of those confederation of clubs where there's, those are supposed to be like neutral ground. But there's still a flex there, you know, and the Vagos had some out of state guys come and we're like, hey, we're going to go here. And if those renegade guys are there, we're going to tell them they can't be here. And we think we're smart by going an hour or two early. And when we get there, the Hells Angels probably been there four hours early. And they had guys in trucks and cars that are already blocked off the exits. The guy up, you know, we're in this parking lot. There's guys up in this parking lot. Like they had guys that were roving up and down the aisles, like they had a lock. And I remember being super impressed about their security because I've always been into that.

• 1:23:17Speaker 01

  Especially from the gang stuff, like that structure and, and the security and the protocol piece of it. And, you know, they had guys at the back door and the front door. And I remember thinking, man, if something kicks off, we are screwed, you know?

• 1:23:29Speaker 01

  And so we had walkie talkies, I think at the time, if I remember correctly, or maybe it was Nextel two ways. It was the Nextel two ways, but some of the guys in our chapter were inside the meeting and we, so we don't know what's going on, but we're waiting for a call. And then we were in a spotter car and there were some other spotter cars, but it was me and my brother and two members of the Vagos. And this Hells Angel car, it kept pulling up next to us and stopping and then driving off. And one of the guys said, hey, if they pull up next to us, if they roll that window down, we're going to have to shoot. Like we don't want to shoot them before they shoot us. And I'm sitting there like, okay, this is getting crazy. And sure as shit, man, they pull up next to us and the window starts coming down and they start yelling, shoot. And I'm just like,

• 1:24:11Speaker 01

  and thank God nobody, they wouldn't, right? When the window comes down, the guy just reaches out and he like does this on the side of his car and then they drive off. But I remember that was one of those moments where I was like, that's how quick these things can happen.

• 1:24:24Speaker 01

  And so there were some situations like that, some standoffs. There was, um, a club in Northern California that called Hell Bent that I had met their chapter and they were all younger guys. And I was really impressed because they had a president that was like 27. I was like, whoa, he can be a president at 27. I mean, like, cool. And, uh, they were getting into what the Hells Angels, and so they ended up joining the Vagos. So now I'm going over to Sacramento and Reading, Shasta County. I'm partying with these guys all the time because, you know, I'm in Reno. So it's like, I think two, three hour ride. And me and my brother were so new that we wanted to, to get our name out there. So we were riding everything. We would go Reno to Vegas to LA, Sacramento. We were going back to Oregon. Like we were always on our bikes, like every weekend we had, in fact, I got fired from the gas meter job because I was taking time off to ride all the time.

• 1:25:07Speaker 01

  Started selling bikes for Harley Davidson, but you got to do that on the weekends. We got fired from that. Um, because my whole focus was just, you know, I wanted to be in this club and, and I wanted to like start earning a name for myself.

• 1:25:19Speaker 01

  Which is when I got my nickname Mooch.

• 1:25:21Shawn Ryan?

  How'd you get that?

• 1:25:23Speaker 01

  We were on a club run to, um, Hollister, California. And man, it was like 114 degrees going there. It was brutal. Like we had to pull over every 20 miles and drink water and people are passing out and we get to this campground and this is like one of those terrible biker parties. It's out in the field. There's no women. There's no, there's nothing. We're just sitting out. There's no shade even. There was no trees, no water. And everyone was just miserable. And, uh, normally like at these events, you normally stick with your chapters. Like our chapter had our own, like where our tents and campground food were. But we kind of all mill around together too. And I remember just being exhausted and asking that my chapter president, if I could go back to camp for a little bit. And he goes, yeah, yeah, we'll be back in a little bit.

• 1:26:05Speaker 01

  So I go back into camp and I'm sitting there and I'm eating a sandwich or a burger and the president walks back up and he goes, man, where'd you find a chair at? Cause there was barely even chairs. And I was like, oh, it's Glenn's chair. And he goes, and you're cooking? I was like, yeah, yeah, Barry's cooking. He's like, where'd you get that hat? So and so gave it to me. He goes, didn't I give you that shirt? I go, yeah. He goes, man, you're a fucking mooch. And I was like, all right. And he goes, he goes, well, that's your, he goes, that's your new nickname. And I was like, whatever. And he goes, I want you to go around and introduce yourself as Mooch. So, you know, I was new, so I had to go chapter to chapter. Hey, what's up? I'm Vago Mooch from Border Town. And every time I said mooch, they go mooch, huh? What, like a beer or a burger or something? And I go, well, yeah, this is going to be all right.

• 1:26:43Speaker 01

  And that was it, man. It's stuck with me ever since.

• 1:26:46Shawn Ryan?

  That's right on.

• 1:26:48Speaker 01

  It wasn't that I ever asked for things or you know what I mean? It just, things worked out, man. They came my way and I'll say, okay.

• 1:26:54Shawn Ryan?

  Right on, right on.

• 1:26:56Speaker 01

  But yeah, so we, we did that run. Um, we had a couple of other like run ins with Hells Angels that didn't turn violent. Or we got there too late, you know, those types of like, um, there was a time that the Hells Angels had raided the Vagos clubhouse in, in Reading. So like, you know, we got a call, we had to rush over the hill to get there. But of course, by the time we're there, it's over. So we're just there to help with security and support. So there was these like almost cold wars, like that we were.

• 1:27:20Shawn Ryan?

  What are the beefs over?

• 1:27:22Speaker 01

  Territory drama. And, and when I, here's when I say territory, everyone thinks it's like drug territory or money. And I, I like to say that I wish that was true because it would at least make sense, right? But it's not. It's, we were here first. This is our city. This is our state. You can't be here. And or like in that instance, first it was, they were supporting, uh, the Renegades and the Vago said we can't have Renegades here. And then in Shasta County, hey, that's a Hells Angels territory and we're not going to let Vago start a chapter here. So it's just this ego of who was there first or whose area it is.

• 1:27:58Shawn Ryan?

  So when you have a, how, I mean, how big were the Vagos compared to the Hells Angels?

• 1:28:04Speaker 01

  A lot smaller. I mean, they're, they're, they're pretty big now, but at the time the Vagos were mainly in Southern California. They just moved into Northern California. They had two small chapters in Southern Oregon and then in Nevada.

• 1:28:15Shawn Ryan?

  So I guess what I'm asking is, are these like?

• 1:28:19Shawn Ryan?

  But I don't know any other way to describe it. Were they like feeders into the the bigger clubs? Got like a minor league ball team. You know, you have the, I don't know, the St. Louis Cardinals and then the farm team.

• 1:28:29Speaker 01

  So there's, they are a lot of clubs that are like that. The Vagos, so there's like, depending on who you ask, somewhere six or eight clubs that stand on their own. And then there's a lot of these other clubs that are support or farm teams. Um, like the, like the Renegades, for example, they would have been if like a feeder club for the Angels. The Vagos are on their own. They, they didn't answer another club. They didn't support another club. Um, they were quite a bit smaller at the time, but they were their own independent club.

• 1:28:54Shawn Ryan?

  Why, why would a, I mean, why would, why would somebody in the Renegades want to be a feeder to the Hells Angels? Why wouldn't you just want to become a Hells Angel?

• 1:29:04Speaker 01

  So that's a very good question that people ask often. And to answer, I'll tell you that I had support. I'd wanted to start the support club for the Mongols, but I didn't want to have like 12 different ones. I just wanted one, right? So, and this was years later, but it, it answers the question is, we developed this club called the Raiders. But it actually already existed, but I changed the program so it could be national. And what I noticed was, there's a lot of people, especially now that motorcycle clubs are a lot more mainstream and popular culture, that look at Mongols or one percenters and go, I can never do that. That's crazy. But I want to ride and have a patch and hang out the boys and go to the parties. So I'll do this one. And they take the smaller one. And then once you get into it and you're riding, you realize, okay, I'm putting in the same amount of work. The rules are pretty much the same. Then people kind of step up.

• 1:29:48Shawn Ryan?

  It's an introduction to the lifestyle.

• 1:29:49Speaker 01

  Yeah, but a lot of people don't necessarily do it so they could say, oh, I'm going to go from here to here. A lot of people say, oh, I'm, that's a better fit for me because maybe you got a good job and a family and you're trick yourself into thinking.

• 1:30:02Shawn Ryan?

  It's the club that engineers it. They engineer it. Is that what you're saying? The club engineers it so that it's, it's like a baby step.

• 1:30:10Speaker 01

  When it comes to direct support clubs for sure, when it comes to some of those smaller clubs, there's a lot of people that want to wear a patch and be involved in a club, but don't want to be involved in a major club. They don't want the, the, the wars and the drama and the stuff that goes with it. But they still want this brotherhood and wear a patch. And in order to do that often, you have to be affiliated with whatever clubs in that state, wherever the dominant club is in that region. So if you want to, say you and eight guys wanted to start a chapter in Nevada, you're going to have to find out who the local, what, you know, who the big club was there and then have to get their permission. And to get their permission, half the time they're going to say, yeah, but you got to wear the support patch or you, you know, you got to come to our parties.

• 1:30:49Shawn Ryan?

  What about something like the Booze Fighters? Do they fall under? I mean, that's a national club. It might be an international, it's probably an international club, huh?

• 1:30:56Speaker 01

  I think so. That's a good question. I, they're definitely national. They're big. Um, so I think A, they've existed longer than most clubs. So maybe they're already in some of these regions, but what I have seen, they definitely don't answer to any other club or they don't support any other club. They stand on their own. But due to politics and because of like the levels of where club stuff goes, state by state, they're probably aligned. Like if you go to Washington, maybe they're aligned with the Angels and then over here, they're aligned with the Bandidos. And when I say aligned, I don't mean like they're following their rules, but those are their friends, like they're friendly with. Um, because it's the politics of that state and, and these major one percent clubs operate on a different level. Um, so they have to have these cordial relations. Like the Booze Fighters don't want to go with the War of the Hells Angels, right?

• 1:31:38Speaker 01

  So they want to keep things cordial. So they keep things political, have their meetings, but they're not stepping on each other's toes and taking each other's members or, you know, all those things that stir the pot.

• 1:31:50Shawn Ryan?

  All right, where do we go from here?

• 1:31:53Speaker 01

  Okay, Vago. So I'm getting ready to leave the Vagos because, um, I had just moved back to Oregon and I, I transferred to a Vago chapter there. One of the Vagos there had owned, um, a tile company. And so I was learning how to lay tile. I was thinking, okay, maybe this is still searching for this career I could do where I could be a biker, still work, right? Um, and, and popular contrary brief, people think you can join a motorcycle club and make money, but it just costs money, man. You're getting, you're paying dues, you're on the road all the time, you're going to events. Um, and at least every club I've been in discourages any sort of major illegal activity because if, if me and you were in a chapter and you're selling a bunch of drugs and you get busted, it's an effect to me, it's an effect to everyone else in the circle. Um, so there wasn't like opportunity where you join this club and you're like, cool, that's what I do for a living now, right?

• 1:32:37Speaker 01

  How we like, like it was on Sons of Anarchy and all this stuff. Um, there's individuals sometimes in different clubs that do illegal stuff. I always chose, I've known a lot of people and I networked a lot. So potentially maybe I could have gotten into drug dealing if I wanted to, but I watched my dad go to prison for it. And I always said, you know, I would, I'd rather be poor and free than be the guy with the flashing cash around and quick money and then end up going to prison over it. So it just, to me, I was always looking for a career or like a, you know, an actual paycheck. But trying to balance that where you're on the road and trying to be active and especially in a young age, with not a lot of work experience outside of being in a band and some retail stuff, it was a challenge. And so when I got offered that tile position, I was like, okay.

• 1:33:17Speaker 01

  The guy that owns it is a Vago, so he can, he makes it work. He's still active and he, and he, you know, and a lot of those trades you make good money too. So I moved up there to work for him. And as soon as I moved there, I saw that the two chapters in Oregon didn't like each other. And at first I was thinking, you know, we're all the same club, right? So it's probably just some egos or whatever. But around this time, one of the Vagos that actually met that Hollister run, Wild Bill, when I got my nickname, he got shot off his bike and killed in California, Southern California. And there was rumors that it could have been with from the club. He was a member and it could have been from another chapter. And that didn't sit right with me. Like I was, again, I joined a motorcycle club to ride bikes and party, you know? And if we have to defend ourselves, I'm down. But

• 1:34:02Speaker 01

  being in a club where you might have to worry about your own club killing you, I, I couldn't even fathom it. Like there's no brotherhood in that. And, and I'm not saying that that club does that, but what I'm saying is at that time, that is what had happened. And now here we are in Oregon, that club that had patched over in Shasta County.

• 1:34:21Speaker 01

  They had, they were having a big meeting with, with the, the state leaderships, like the, the Northern California boss or rep for the Vagos was coming to this meeting. And, um, they'd asked us to show up to like as support, to be there, hear what's talked about, maybe support them. And as I show up, I'm here, you know, in my vest and with the, the Reading guys, we're all in our patches. And then this, the state boss comes in with all these guys from Sacramento, North Sacramento chapter, and none of them are wearing anything that says Vagos. None of them are wearing anything, anything that says, anything green. They're wearing leather gloves and they're frisking everyone going into this meeting. And I was like, man, this is how we treat each other? You know, like this, A, it's some bullshit, but B, it's like, this is supposed to be about brotherhood. So it was already, those two things were already on my mind. And then

• 1:35:05Speaker 01

  the final straw was, I mean, we're in church talking about, which is our, our weekly meetings. And because of what we just saw in Shasta County, that state boss said he was coming up to try and work things out between the two chapters in Oregon that weren't getting along. And we saw how they worked things out in Shasta County, right? So my president's talking about where we're going to stash guns in the clubhouse if we have to defend ourselves. And I remember thinking like, what the hell am I doing here, man? We got to defend ourselves against the chapter that's across town. Um, and so that was kind of the beginning of the end of that club for me. When I was living in Nevada, I'd met a Mongol who turned out to be a confidential informant the whole time, which I hadn't known. But

• 1:35:50Speaker 01

  you know, he was going to church there. I remember when I moved there, my cousin goes, oh, we know a Mongol, he goes to our church. Um, and that wasn't something I'd heard of, thought before, okay. And then he would do this stuff where, uh, he, he was into martial arts and he was a fighter. And he would do those demonstrations where like he would break through ice or punch coconuts and stuff like that. And, uh, had a reputation as a tough guy, but he, I wouldn't say he was that cool even, but he was cordial. And when I told him I was moving to Oregon, he said, I think we have members up there. If you ever need anything, give them a call. So I had his business card and there wasn't any up there, but I had his card. Um, and then right when all this is going on, the Mongols had a new website. I'm just funny to say out loud, but either way, they had this website.

• 1:36:33Speaker 01

  And Doc Cavassos was the national president of Mongols at the time. And this was in a period where he was really pushing expansion across the country. Um, so they were, they were starting new chapters all over and he had put on the website, you know, Mongol Nation welcomes the Oregon chapters. Well, I know now that there was, I think, one guy. They didn't really have an Oregon chapter. But at the time, I had called him up and said, hey, you know, I'm from here. I know a bunch of people. If you guys need anything, let me know. We could ride around together. I'll introduce you, show you around places. Um, and it was kind of like my introduction to that club because now we're talking back and forth as I'm talking to their national leadership.

• 1:37:10Shawn Ryan?

  What drew you to them originally? What about that specific club?

• 1:37:15Speaker 01

  They have a rule that Mongols can't fight Mongols. There's nothing two brothers can't sit down and talk about. And that, that was the, the biggest piece for me.

• 1:37:23Shawn Ryan?

  Is that the only club that has that?

• 1:37:26Speaker 01

  The outsiders had that rule too, but as far as national clubs, I, I believe so.

• 1:37:31Shawn Ryan?

  What are the, what are maybe the top five clubs?

• 1:37:35Speaker 01

  Um, well, there's Hells Angels and Outlaws, which is the most well known. I would say the Mongols are up there now, the Pagans, Sons of Silence, and probably Vagos now. Oh, and Bandidos is a big one, probably one of the biggest actually.

• 1:37:49Shawn Ryan?

  What, what are the, what are they known for? What are the characteristics, the culture?

• 1:37:55Speaker 01

  In the early eras, I mean, even right before I joined, it was more a re, like if you went to Texas or down south, it was likely Bandidos. If you're in the Midwest, then it was Outlaws. If you're on the East Coast, it was Pagans. If you're in California, it was, you know, Northern California, it was Hells Angels. If it was Southern California, it was Mongols, Vagos, Hells Angels. Bandidos were also up in like Mon- Montana and up there. So it's kind of like, they had their own little regions and that was the big dominant club for each region.

• 1:38:22Shawn Ryan?

  Any specific characteristics?

• 1:38:25Speaker 01

  I mean, the Mongols were primarily Hispanic. Um, the Vagos, because it, both because they came from Southern California, had that more kind of gang culture, Hispanic culture, um, kind of like that car club slash street gang culture. Um,

• 1:38:40Speaker 01

  the, the Pagans, at least that era, the Pagans were like still really grungy, old school biker dudes. Um, so yeah, it just kind of depended on like what that region was like, but, but it was more the, a resolve a reflection of the culture, right? Southern California versus Texas, right? The Bandidos looked like they came from Texas. They had a handful. I mean, they had a good amount of Hispanic members too. Um, and then a lot of the clubs, the most other clubs were all pretty predominantly white.

• 1:39:05Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:39:08Shawn Ryan?

  Many, any, anything like this was the most ruthless club. This is.

• 1:39:15Speaker 01

  I think every club will say they they were, but um, you know, at the time, the Mongols were known as as the most violent motorcycle club. Because of all the public stuff that had happened, you know, Laughlin had happened in two in two thousand. Was it two thousand and two?

• 1:39:29Shawn Ryan?

  What was that?

• 1:39:30Speaker 01

  That was when the Hells Angels and Mongols got into a shootout at the casino in Laughlin, Nevada. Um, and what was it? Three? One Mongol died and two Hells Angels. Yeah, three people I think were killed. Um, but you know, it was a huge public shooting. It was all over the news.

• 1:39:45Shawn Ryan?

  Were you a part of that?

• 1:39:46Speaker 01

  No, I joined in two thousand and seven.

• 1:39:47Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:39:49Speaker 01

  Um, but that was like the first, one of the first big, like nationally known fights between the two. And so also when the Mongols started, they were very small. And they went to they the war started with the Hells Angels in the early seventies and we're talking bombings and shootings. And the Mongols didn't get wiped off the map. In fact, grew and got bigger and are still here. And so they were known as just this violent club that, you know, took care of themselves, took care of each other, supported each other. So there was this big brotherhood piece, but there was also like, they can stand up on their own because even the Hells Angels couldn't wipe them out.

• 1:40:21Shawn Ryan?

  What is the, what's the history of the Mongols? How did it start?

• 1:40:26Speaker 01

  So the Mongols started um, nineteen sixty nine, Mont Belo, California. There was a group of, I want to say there was nine guys, but it could have been six, but there was, there was a small group of guys that had come from the car culture. They wanted to get into motorcycle clubs. And they had met, you know, at their garage meeting about, you know, hey, we want to do a club. And they went out and they were hanging out with this club called the Molocs, which were big in that area at the time. And as they hung out, they, the Molocs wanted to, you know, told them what prospecting was like and hanging around and they wanted to treat them a certain way. And the Mongols thought they were above that treatment, these guys that wanted. And so they said, well, why don't we just start our own club? And so they got together and they called their club the Mongols. You know, the misconception is that we hear in the media a lot is that the Mongols, the guys that started the Mongols weren't allowed into the Hells Angels because they're Hispanic.

• 1:41:11Speaker 01

  But the Hells Angels had a plenty of Hispanic members, especially back then. Um, I mean, not even especially, but I mean, there was plenty back then too. Um, and so, I mean, there's just some false narrative that I'm honestly not even sure it came from other than it's like Coke versus Pepsi, right? The Mexican club and the American club. Like, I, I think it's just more of an easier way to describe the two's adversity, but it, it, it was like where a lot of clubs started, it was just in that era of group of guys got together, were riding bikes and they saw like the booze fighters and the popular culture of, you know, Hells Angels on Wheels and all these different movies that were coming out and they wanted to start their own club.

• 1:41:44Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 1:41:49Shawn Ryan?

  I am, I'm, I'm a little curious to have any, you, I know you're, you're craving the brotherhood, a brotherhood. But why didn't you go with something that was not a one percent club?

• 1:42:03Speaker 01

  So at first I did with the outsiders. They weren't a one percenter club. Um, but like I said, to me, they were at the time, right? Because that's all I knew. The Vagos weren't a one percenter club when I was in at the time. They, they are, they, they are now, but they weren't considered one percenter club when I was in. Um, so to me, it was almost like a step. Like I was learning the process, learning the program and it was kind of a step up.

• 1:42:25Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:42:25Speaker 01

  Um,

• 1:42:28Speaker 01

  yeah, I mean, that would be the best way to describe it.

• 1:42:32Speaker 01

  And, and also, like, like I said, when I've always, when I get into it, I just want, I want to be, to me, like, I, it would be especially young me with ego, it'd be hard for me to be at a bike event thinking, hey, me and my club were top shit. And then the other club comes in like, you know what I mean? Like, so just my personality, uh, I, I think attracted to me to want to be in the more dominant club. That the caveat to that is when I did join the Mongols, there was no Mongols in Oregon. So I started the first chapter there. So we weren't this, they might've been really big in California, but we were unknown. No one really even knew what Mongols were at the time and we were severely outnumbered. So it was almost like starting from square one in your own club.

• 1:43:13Shawn Ryan?

  Right on. See, shit. So there was one Mongol in Oregon at the time.

• 1:43:18Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. We kicked him out pretty shortly after that. He, uh, he wasn't our type of dude. No, he was a truck driver. He didn't have a bike.

• 1:43:26Shawn Ryan?

  He didn't have a bike?

• 1:43:27Speaker 01

  No, he was from some club called the Loners and I don't know if he was between bikes or what his deal was. But he was a truck driver, so he was never around. And I think, I don't know how they brought him in for why, but when we started, they were like, oh yeah, we got this one guy up there and we went mad with him. We were like, yeah, no, this ain't gonna work, dude. Same for you. Um, but yeah, so I had, was making these calls, trying to, you know, introduce people, see if we can meet and I had talked to my, at the time, my whole chapter, which was the South Valley Vagos, were not cool with all the stuff that was going on. And again, I'm

• 1:44:02Shawn Ryan?

  Inside the Vagos?

• 1:44:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. So that like the internal fighting.

• 1:44:04Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:44:05Speaker 01

  Um, and then there was just the, you know, the politics, club politics and stuff. They weren't happy with certain things and I'm still new and naive. So I didn't really know much about it or be involved in any of that. I know it was only in the Vagos for just shy of two years. So, you know, I'm still learning. But I was telling my president, Magpie, that, hey, I know a guy in the, in the Mongols, like we had gone out to lunch and I remember him saying, he, they, he had been in a smaller club that became Vago. So he said, man, I was already in another club. The only other club I joined is the Mongols. Otherwise, like, I guess the club life's not for me. And I was like, well, hey, I know a Mongol and I've been talking to these guys. So I reached out and asked to get, I reached out to that informant and coconut Dan and had asked him, uh, hey, who's your boss? Like, who can I talk to? You know?

• 1:44:51Speaker 01

  And so someone from the, the Mongols governing body is called Mother Chapter. So someone from their mother chapter called me. And we're kind of shooting the shit. And I said, well, hey, man, you know, here's the thing, I, I, we're interested in, in patching over. And I said, you know, initially it was supposed to be my whole chapter, but um, the way politics and stuff goes, you know, people are talking behind each other's backs and these guys are deciding, okay, well, if Magpie was the president, if he goes, that means if I stay, I could be the president. And there was this stupid politics stuff. So, um, but initially I thought there was going to be, you know, six or eight of us. And so the president or the, they grew from other chapter of the Mongols. He says, well, I'll tell you what, we're going to be at Daytona Bike Week and I don't know, something like, say a month. Um, this was in

• 1:45:36Speaker 01

  March. No, it was October. It was because it was Bike Toberfest. So he goes, why don't you fly out here, spend the weekend with me and some of the Mongols and, uh, you know, we'll talk and see if it's for you. Looking back, crazy. So I fly out there by myself, don't know these guys, didn't bring anybody with me. Never even been there. I'm still wearing a Vago T-shirt for who knows why I thought that was a good idea because in club life, in theory, I was supposed to tell my chapter, hey, I'm going to be out of state. And if you're in another, there wasn't Vagos out there at the time, but still that means I should have told national leadership, I'm going to be over here. Like anytime you're going to wear your patch somewhere we're not at, you have to get clearance and all that. But I was, you know, cocky young me, I didn't care. Um,

• 1:46:17Speaker 01

  shortly before, maybe a few months before that, the Vagos had started, had tried to start a chapter in Georgia and the outlaws had shut it down. And so there won't be Vagos out here.

• 1:46:27Speaker 01

  I don't know, paying attention to any of this, right? I'm just a cool young guy. So I fly out there in my Vago shirt and, uh, meet up with these Mongols and we're going out and we go to the strip club, the Shark Tank. And as soon as I walk in, I saw two outlaws and they were sitting in the corner and I'd never seen an outlaw in my life to this time, right? They were out in the east or Midwest and south and um, there was two older guys and I had to remember thinking this, this is this badass club I hear the outlaws. These are two older guys, you know? And these bigger, all the bouncers, they were really big dudes and they were kind of, I, I, I noticed they were kind of corralling us to a certain spot and they kept going, hey, you guys got weapons? That's, if you do, we'll, we'll stash them back here. Like they were trying to take our weapons from us. And I started paying more attention and they were wearing like one percenter necklaces and rings and these guys were outlaws.

• 1:47:13Speaker 01

  Um, and what I didn't know is the outlaws and that Mongol boss that I was with were having a scheduled meeting. And that's why we were there. So, you know, I'm there as a guest, so I can't ask all these questions, you know, I'm just like, oh, there we're cool, we're going out. The Mongols had just started a chapter in Florida and the outlaws weren't real happy about it. So they were meeting to kind of discuss this unbeknownst to me. So I'm standing there and just now figuring out, hey, these, all these guys that are corralling us here, they're outlaws. And I just hear this roar of bikes. And I'd say fifteen, twenty outlaws come rolling in. And at the time, their national president was there, he's up front. He's wearing overalls, this big tall guy and he's wearing overalls, no shirt. He's covered in white power tattoos. He had like,

• 1:47:56Speaker 01

  his head was big bald, but his, he had like his sideburns were grown out and he had these swastika beads in them. I mean, like, he was a presence, you know? And, uh, I just remember feeling this real tension. And him and the Mongol boss walked down the back of this strip club. And they wouldn't let anyone else go out there. And next thing you know, it's five minutes, ten minutes, twenty, thirty minutes. And I noticed these Mongols I'm with are starting to get uncomfortable. The, the, the outlaws are posted up all around like security, you know, they got guys in the corner. And anytime that informant coconut Dan, he went to go check on the president because he was the serge of that chapter. And first they told him he couldn't go out there and then they pulled him out there and then he didn't come back.

• 1:48:35Speaker 01

  And, you know, everyone started to think, fuck dude, it's pretty sketchy. And so I got up just to take a leak and an outlaw pushes me and says, go back to your chair, go back to your table. So now it's me, there's three Mongols with me. Um, one of them, my son's passed, but it was me and Dozer and then two other guys. And, uh, I remember them thinking like, this isn't good, dude. Like, I don't know if we're gonna get out of here, you know? And I remember texting my twin brother going, yeah, I don't know if I'm coming home from this one, you know? And, uh, I remember the, the Mongols looked at me and I said, hey, listen, dude, like, you're not a, you're not a Mongol, you're a guest. You can leave. And, uh, it just wasn't in me to leave. I showed up with them. I was gonna leave with them. So I sucked it up and stayed and things looked worse than they were and we ended up leaving, but because I stuck by, I had a meeting with them and they said, hey, man,

• 1:49:20Speaker 01

  uh, you're welcome to join the club if that's what you want to do. Um, so I went home and rounded up the guys I had and then we had to go to Nevada and do like a sit like a formal interview where we met with some like old school, the leadership guys and then they do a background check and all that stuff. And then we got the okay to join.

• 1:49:38Shawn Ryan?

  A background check?

• 1:49:39Speaker 01

  Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There's, if you join the Mongols, there's like an application packet. And like, I mean, you'll go back to where you went to, where you went to grade school, who your high school friends were, where it was your first job. Cause they have private investigators that look into all this stuff to make sure you are who you say you are. And then, and another important part too is make sure that, you know, you're not a child sex offender or, you know, uh, an informant or a snitch or someone I told, you know, any of those types of things. So they do this, this detailed background check, but what's crazy about it is, um, you know, feds can figure things out. And there was, when I joined in two thousand seven, two thousand eight was Operation Black Rain, which was a, I think, five year undercover investigation with the Mongols. And they had six undercover ATF agents. Three were males that were members.

• 1:50:22Speaker 01

  The other three were their wives, their wives. Um, and they had all gone through the same background checks. In fact, passed lie detector tests. And the whole time they were undercover federal agents. So the background check couldn't really catch. I guess my argument with the background check stuff was always that, right? Like A, are you gonna find out someone's an informant? Cause a lot of times they get caught doing something while they're in the club and then they start telling on people. There's no vetting process for that, right? And B, it's the federal government, man. They have, these guys got made up secure social security numbers, background checks, everything else. And so if they really want to, they're gonna figure it out. I know, like for me, it was easier in Oregon because I grew up there. I knew, even if I didn't, someone starts coming around, if they grew up there, I can find someone I know that went to high school with his friend or, you know what I mean?

• 1:51:06Speaker 01

  Or something like that. But as the club got national and bigger, um, you know, they couldn't really do that. And so when Doc was bringing all these people into the club, that, that, you know, he was letting whoever join. And so with, for, for the idea of, hey, we're being all these new states, but it brought in those three undercover guys. There was three ATF agents that were out on the east coast that later became outlaws before they entered their investigation and they were, they were started as Mongols in Virginia and Baltimore. So like, you know, through this expansion brought in a lot of, a lot of undercover agents.

• 1:51:41Shawn Ryan?

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• 1:52:25Shawn Ryan?

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• 1:53:04Shawn Ryan?

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• 1:53:15Shawn Ryan?

  What kind of stuff were they asking you for the, the interview? Or onboarding or what, what did you call it? Initiation?

• 1:53:21Speaker 01

  Yeah, it was an interview. It was pretty much an interview. It was, uh, one of the, the most serious dudes in the club, someone I respect very much. And, uh, you know, why do you want to join? Uh, what were you doing before?

• 1:53:33Shawn Ryan?

  What'd you say?

• 1:53:35Speaker 01

  Well, I, I had told them I really liked that the brothers, you know, brothers couldn't, um, kill each other. That brothership weren't even allowed to fight each other. So the Mongols had a really good reputation for like brotherhood, like the focus was brotherhood. And I'm, I don't mean the word. I mean, like everyone stuck up for each other. Like we, instead of being like Portland chapter or Salem chapter, we were the Mongols. Like everyone, especially once Oregon grew, like we rolled as one big chapter. So it's just the support and like, you know, riding in the big groups and the packs and the big parties. But on top of that, the Mongols had a reputation. No one messed with them. I mean, the, the Hells Angels didn't even fuck with them anymore, right? So that was obviously attractive. And also the fact that if they did, we have all this support.

• 1:54:15Speaker 01

  And I think too, what helps is, you know, so when I started it, I was the president because there was no one else there, right? I mean, I was elected by the group of guys we started with, but you know, I had spearheaded it. So I became the president. And it didn't take long before I realized the Mongols have a constitution and a, and a, and a whole booklet of bylaws. But as long as you follow those, you can kind of run whatever program you want. And I remember that it was an opportunity for me. Like everyone goes, why didn't you join when the local clubs are over in Oregon?

• 1:54:43Speaker 01

  But these dudes were, back then at least too, they were that old school biker. Like these dudes, there was guys that were doing math. These guys are stealing bikes and, and and even outside of that stuff, there were just a different culture of people, you know, where the Mongols gave me this opportunity where I could come in and kind of build a chapter and then eventually a region based off more of my morals and values and still be clean cut. And, you know, and, but do all the same stuff, but I had more freedom to do that. And if any of the other clubs told me we couldn't be here and try to stop us, well, now I've got the, the backing of a national motorcycle club.

• 1:55:14Shawn Ryan?

  I, I always thought that was interesting. I actually looked into doing this. I didn't get very far, but when I was contracting, uh, for CIA, I was looking at this and I kept reading about it and watching everything I could get my hands on.

• 1:55:30Shawn Ryan?

  And I saw, I read a bunch of different times that it was one of the ways to make money was stealing other people's bikes. And I just never, I was like, why the fuck are a bunch of motorcycle enthusiasts stealing each other's fucking bikes? It just never made any damn sense to me.

• 1:55:47Speaker 01

  It makes no sense. And in my era, there's no money in it because everything's stamped. You know, like those early bikers and I think probably even through the eighties, maybe nineties. When everyone, that's why, you know, everyone has custom choppers, right? So you take pieces off this bike, put them on that bike. They had swap meets where they're selling parts. But nowadays, I mean, Harley and the government, they've all gotten, you know, every piece of that motor you got over there has a stamp on it, a serial number or anything, you know, on the outside of the cases. And then you have to get now, you know, everything has to be registered and like, so if you bought, say you steal a bike, $15,000 motorcycle off the showroom floor, it's probably two grand worth of money. And it's like, what's the point? You know? But yeah, that was a thing back then for sure. And, and it was kind of probably dying out by the time I was around, but it was, there were still

• 1:56:31Speaker 01

  clubs and dudes that were known for doing it. And, and I think to go more towards what you're getting at is there's this elitist mentality in the motorcycle club, right? Like where you guys are all, you guys are all wannabes. You're, you're the rich bikers, the, the uppies, you know, the Starbucks bikers. So you're trying to bite our culture. We're gonna

• 1:56:48Shawn Ryan?

  The doinists and the attorneys and the doctors.

• 1:56:50Speaker 01

  Exactly. You're gonna ride down to Starbucks. Well, watch this. We're gonna steal your fucking bike. So I, I, and I'm not saying that morally, that's okay at all, but I could imagine that was that mindset, you know? Like we were the ones living this life. Um, we weren't stealing each other's bikes, you know?

• 1:57:04Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 1:57:06Speaker 01

  I mean, I'm gonna be clear. I never stole anybody's bikes. When I say we, I just mean that culture, you know?

• 1:57:10Shawn Ryan?

  What other kind of questions were they asking you?

• 1:57:13Speaker 01

  Um, that was, I mean, because I'd come from the Vagos, you know, there was obviously the why would I choose one club over the other, which I had explained. Um, if was there gonna be any issue, which there was, what other clubs were in, what other clubs were in Oregon? Were they gonna have an issue, which they did? Um, but kind of seeing like, is it worth bringing these guys in? Is, are they gonna, was it gonna be a headache? Is it gonna be more trauma? Um, what I do for a living? Cause they, you know, they don't want to bring in a bunch of drug dealers and, um, you know, those types of things, like to get a sense of A, my background, but B, like what we're gonna do, like what our priority is or our goals or are we gonna come in and create a bunch of drama? Or are we gonna come in and be able to run a good program and be successful and grow, you know?

• 1:57:58Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, I, I understand why they would have put you there because of the network, but at the same time, you're new to the program, at least this one, the Mongol program.

• 1:58:06Speaker 01

  It wasn't.

• 1:58:06Shawn Ryan?

  Not immersed in their culture. Why would they have not taken? Somebody that was deep in their program to, to, to bring that exact culture to Oregon versus somebody like you.

• 1:58:19Speaker 01

  The way that it worked would never have worked other than that time period. And by, by that is exactly, so normally for like, when I moved to the Midwest, then I started helping chapters there because I already been in the club 10 years, right? You normally wouldn't start a state with guys that weren't around the club, didn't come from the area, didn't know the history. I just happened to come in under that last 10 month window of Doc of us being a president where they were just letting people join so they can plant a flag in a new state.

• 1:58:51Speaker 01

  Any other leadership wouldn't have allowed it. In fact, because I came from the Vagos, most of the time, most of the clubs and, and the Mongols had agreements later on with the Vagos, we couldn't take their ex-members. A lot of the big clubs don't take members from other bigger clubs. Um, so I probably would have been denied for that, too.

• 1:59:06Shawn Ryan?

  Why is that? Why won't they take a member? They think it's a mole or something?

• 1:59:10Speaker 01

  Potentially, but no, it's more than just the drama that comes with it, right? Like when, when I left the Vagos, there was a contract out on my life. When, I mean, I never believe in the, I never used to believe in those things, but the ATF came to my houses in front of my mom. It's intercepted some letters in prison where there's some Oregon Vagos were trying to get somebody to come kill us because we'd left, right? We was disrespecting them. We left. And not only did I leave, but I took about 12 guys with me because I had the Oregon guys. I took eventually a pet, all those guys in Reading that I was telling you about the Vagos, I brought, became, made them all Mongols. I brought two guys in from Vegas, a guy from Reno. So, you know, we, we poached out of their pond essentially. And so there's this, that again goes to ego, but it's also disrespect. Um, so it, it, especially with other national clubs, right? Like say we take

• 1:59:54Speaker 01

  um, a member of, of the Outlaws, for example, and on the east coast, we're all close friends. But now we did this, so this, this state's mad at us and the Mongols. Every club runs a little different, but the way the Mongols work is if you put hands on a Mongol in Oakland, you have beef with the Mongols everywhere. You know, it's, it's not like, oh, that's a Florida issue where that's, it's everywhere. And so taking someone from other club and then stirring up problems like that. Now the whole club is fighting another club because of you. Or because you're guys. And so it's, it's uh, usually discouraged.

• 2:00:27Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha. So you make it.

• 2:00:31Speaker 01

  I make it. Yeah.

• 2:00:32Shawn Ryan?

  Send you back up there.

• 2:00:34Speaker 01

  Um, so I was already back, you know, I was back in Oregon to this tile thing. They sent me back up there. I get the guys together.

• 2:00:41Speaker 01

  At the time, the Vagos had a rule, I don't know if it's still is or not, but there used to be this old school rule in all the old school clubs that you had to sign your title over to the club. And if you ever quit or were out and bad, they kept your bike. It was kind of an antiquated rule because this was back when people owned their motorcycles, they were choppers or something. You know, and by the time I was around, most people were financing their bikes. There isn't a title to sign over.

• 2:01:04Speaker 01

  And I also think they found out later that if you try to leave the club and me and six guys keep hounding you and trying to steal from you, we're just pushing you into the arms of law enforcement anyways, right? Like it's, it's a I don't know. I just don't think it was a good, a good rule, but either way. The Vagos were attempting to take my motorcycle because I had lived at this apartment with other tile layers that all worked for this Vagos company. Um, so I had to go get my bike back before they got it. And then we just kind of separated ties and, and started trying to build our own program and, and uh,

• 2:01:39Speaker 01

  it's crazy to think about, man, because everything worked out in, in these like right times. Otherwise it wouldn't have existed. Like the Gypsy Jokers are the biggest club in Oregon. They're a very reputable gangster ass one percenter club. And they had a rule, or still probably do, that there's no other black and white, no other clubs with the colors of black and white in Oregon. And then no other one percenter clubs in Oregon. And then here comes my 25 year old ass and her, let's see, by now I'm 27, like me and four or five other guys, and they probably got 80 in the whole state. And we're like, yeah, well, here we are. Um, we started in Eugene, Oregon, where this club, the Free Souls have been there since the 60s. They were the only one that got to claim Eugene. And here we are. So we kind of

• 2:02:21Speaker 01

  you know, put our thumb in the eye of all these disrespectfully, these clubs that were, hey, we're established. Here's the rule. We all get along fine. And then we show up and uh, no one was getting along anymore.

• 2:02:30Shawn Ryan?

  You show up with four or five other people. So are six of you?

• 2:02:34Speaker 01

  Yeah, we started with six. I did.

• 2:02:36Shawn Ryan?

  Well, what is, what is your first, when they tell you, hey, you're going to stand this up in Oregon, what, what is your first move with this, with these four or five other guys?

• 2:02:44Speaker 01

  Well, at first I thought we're going to have closer to 12. And then I come back and find out that that chapter was like, no, we're staying with the Vagos. You're on your own. And in fact, my president, when I was in the Vagos, my chapter president was this guy named Magpie. He's the one, we had the lunch together, you know, he, but I had like, I went out and put in the work, but it was, you know, we were on board with it. When he found out the whole chapter wasn't going to go, he wanted to stay and be loyal to his chapter. So he did the right thing and stayed with the Vagos. And to reward him, they made him a, took him, took his presidency away. They made him a prospect. They had him running like menial errands. This is going to start, you know, help run that chapter. Um, disrespecting him to the point that, you know, I went and picked him up and said, hey, come on, dude.

• 2:03:25Speaker 01

  Uh, they obviously, you know, they don't want you here and, and it's should come with us in the beginning.

• 2:03:30Shawn Ryan?

  So that's interesting too, because you had mentioned that uh, during the interview, they don't want you pulling from other clubs and starting all kinds of fucking drama. And here you are going right back. Going to the Vagos. Come on, boys.

• 2:03:44Speaker 01

  So at that time, there was obviously immediate issues because I don't, a handful of us already came from there, right? So I mean, like that, there was already that beef between us and our chapter now. So I, I don't even think it did anything that stoked the fires. I think it was already going. And, and on top of that, um, they were running them off, by the way, they were treating them. So I, I think they kind of assumed that was going to happen anyways.

• 2:04:06Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:04:07Speaker 01

  But our issue wasn't bad with them at the time because they were down in Southern Oregon and we were up in the valley, you know, Salem, Portland area. Um, and so they were three hours away. So like, we didn't really, we weren't bumping into each other at bars and stuff like that. So it was more of a rumor mill thing, or if we were passing through type stuff, but

• 2:04:25Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 2:04:26Speaker 01

  As far as uh, people putting hands on each other, it never escalated to that.

• 2:04:30Shawn Ryan?

  Okay.

• 2:04:31Speaker 01

  Um.

• 2:04:32Shawn Ryan?

  What else are you thinking about other than personnel?

• 2:04:35Speaker 01

  Not getting shot off our bikes. Um, well, so these other clubs are telling us we can't be there. And then at the same time, now law enforcement, they don't want a new national club in the area. So we got, now we're getting followed everywhere we go. We can't go to bars without eight cops out front. You know, um, first time I ever met an ATF agent, you know, we're standing in front of a, a, a hotel. This ATF agent comes to walk up to warn us that these other clubs are out looking for us. And so it's like things get real intense, real quick. And, and again, it's so easy to get caught in the shuffle from going, hey, I want to be in a motorcycle club to hang out with my brother's ride and party. And now it's like,

• 2:05:17Speaker 01

  if we want to be doing this, we have like, things are serious. Like it's, it's a wartime club and every club here wants to kill us. So uh, you know, we, we no longer was just party mode. It was militant mode.

• 2:05:29Shawn Ryan?

  Do you have an HQ? The headquarters?

• 2:05:32Speaker 01

  Yeah. So Mongols are different for the fact that they've been at war forever. Having a clubhouse is a, a dead giveaway of where you're going to be at. It's a target. Right? For the enemy. And so, no, uh, I mean, we ended up having clubhouse as in Oregon 10 years later, when we're now getting along with every club there. And uh, it was great to have a place to do meetings and, you know, meet for rides and throw parties. But at this time, it was better for us not to have one.

• 2:06:00Shawn Ryan?

  So where would you meet?

• 2:06:01Speaker 01

  Different people's houses, garages. I mean, we moved in around a lot. I didn't want anyone to be able to, to, I, I did this optics game where we'd have a lot of my friends from the punk rock and skinhead scene and stuff like that would support us and hang out. Um, and at that time, we were allowed to have support shirts that said the word Mongols on it. Like every club is different, how that goes, but um, like the Hells Angels, for example, they don't have any support shirt that says support Hells Angels. It'll say support red and white, support big red machine. But if you see a T-shirt that says Hells Angel, they're, they're a member.

• 2:06:32Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 2:06:32Speaker 01

  Mongols would have support Mongols or stuff like that, different logos, especially back then it wasn't as strict. So, you know, most people wouldn't be able to look at and say, oh, that's a member or a supporter. And so I was putting support shirts on all the homies. And so and, and if we went to a bar, sometimes we wouldn't wear our patch because I didn't want it to say, hey, there's three patch holders and eight friends. We would just all wear T-shirts. That said Mongols on it or support stuff. So it was always trying to make us look bigger than we were.

• 2:06:59Speaker 01

  You know, obviously for safety reasons, um, and optics. And then on top of that, I started I, I, I learned this going through it, it kind of lets it go, but it was this low risk, high reward is what I would call it, is that these clubs, say, say that the Gypsy Jokers, for example, they're definitely were a warrior club. I'm not saying that they weren't at this time, but a lot of the members either hadn't had any altercations or beef in a long time, or were newer guys that hadn't lived through it. So although they were the dominant club, their program or their structure wasn't the same as say a wartime club. And what I mean by that is like one guy would go to a bar over here, this guy hangs out over here. Like when the Mongols won't go out, we'd go out together. We'd have a chase vehicle. We'd have,

• 2:07:45Speaker 01

  I mean, we were running the program. We walk into a bar and, and someone had already scouted it before we got in there. When we're in there, there's people watching. We go to the bathroom in pairs. Uh, no one's ever, like if me and you were talking, there's someone watching our backs, like, and, and a lot of it was the optics of those guys have their shit together. I don't want to mess with them, right? Which kept people, especially when it came to like drama from frat boys and drunks.

• 2:08:05Shawn Ryan?

  Hard target.

• 2:08:06Speaker 01

  Um, yeah. And, and especially for the clubs that notice. Exactly. And so I was doing a lot of that, but also what I wanted to show these people is that if you motorcycle clubs going to war isn't just like cool, when you guys are all together at the swap meet, we're all together to swap meet, we're going to go heads up, right? It goes on, spills onto the streets. And so I wanted these guys to know, hey, if you're going to put hands on any of my guys, this is going to change the way you live your life. And, and so for example, if I knew one guy from the other club was going to the same bar every Wednesday at six, three or four of us might show up and have a drink and then leave, but he'd see us. If I knew this guy rode a certain, his bike a certain way to or from work, we might be hanging out at the stop sign when he cruised through.

• 2:08:47Speaker 01

  Never did anything to them, but they had to have that peace of mind where they go, okay, so if one of my guys attacks these guys, they know the way I ride to work. They know the bars I hang at. Now I can't go here. Now I can't go there. And it really made people rethink getting involved, right? Or, or escalating. Because they saw they were going to have to change the way they live. We were already living this way. We already went out in groups and did it. You know, we already had this program set up for it. And so I think that kept the violence at bay.

• 2:09:14Shawn Ryan?

  Right on, right on. Wow. Shit. How fast did you grow it?

• 2:09:20Speaker 01

  Pretty quick, so it pretty quick, I would say, so it was November of two thousand and seven was our first chapter.

• 2:09:30Speaker 01

  We started a second chapter about three months later up in Portland, which there were still smaller chapters, you know.

• 2:09:35Shawn Ryan?

  Holy shit.

• 2:09:36Speaker 01

  But you know, and also I'd lived here, right? So I know a lot, a lot of people, I know a lot of younger people that were just getting into Harleys that didn't want to be riding around the older groups. A lot of us were all from the same circle and punk rock. So you know, the connection piece helped quite a bit.

• 2:09:51Speaker 01

  But then in April, I got busted. And it was all over the news. Mongol leader is going to jail. Mongol leader attempts to run law enforcement off the road. Mongol leader attempted kidnapping on federal agents. It's everywhere. And, uh, man, media, media plays a lot where all of a sudden a lot of people go, oh dude, the Mongols are here. Um, and especially as I fought my case and it was on the news about me speaking out about that was BS case and I was getting targeted by law enforcement. People that supported, um, people that saw that law enforcement was targeting us or didn't like that, wanted, they made them want to support us.

• 2:10:31Speaker 01

  And so it wasn't just that our name got out there. It was the, the, the mission or the image where they were like, wow, these, these guys, because you know, a lot of the stuff that I was arguing eventually in my trial was that we're not the working, especially we weren't a criminal organization. Like we chose this club because of the support and the backup, but we're running our own program and, um, you know, we had like a no methamphetamine rule later on, years down the road, we have more influence. Everyone had to work out three days a week. Everyone had visible means of income. Like we were trying to make this a positive thing.

• 2:10:59Shawn Ryan?

  Everybody had to work out three days.

• 2:11:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. And it, once I got into regional leadership, I had rules that everyone had to work out three days a week.

• 2:11:06Shawn Ryan?

  So you implemented an entire program?

• 2:11:08Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, yeah. And, and you know why? Because when I first started coming around with those one percenter clubs, even the outsiders, these old timers go, hey, you know, welcome to the nightmare. You're going to lose your old lady. You're going to lose your job. Probably going to lose your freedom. And I was thinking, well, what the fuck, man?

• 2:11:24Shawn Ryan?

  This doesn't sounded like a good deal.

• 2:11:26Speaker 01

  And then I'm bringing people in too, right? And a lot of these people I went to high school with, whatever, like, I wouldn't go, hey, what's up, man? You want to join my club? So I can ruin your fucking life. You know, I wanted people to say, and maybe it's, it's ego or maybe it's personal accountability, but I didn't want anyone to go, oh man, I started hanging out mooching. My life went downhill. So I wanted to try and make this, like, bring as much positivity to it could. Now, don't get me wrong. There's violence, there's threats of getting killed all the time. There's threats of going to prison for violence. So there's threats there. But I wanted to very least make it that, man, these guys got me on a workout program or, I mean, by, you know, I'm eventually I became a therapist, you know, I got guys sitting in church telling me how they feel. We're talking about men being able to express emotions. Like, I'm trying to make this a positive thing, you know? Um, we had a no methamphetamine rule because

• 2:12:10Shawn Ryan?

  You implemented that?

• 2:12:12Speaker 01

  The no meth rule was just in my regions.

• 2:12:14Shawn Ryan?

  How many people did that piss off?

• 2:12:17Speaker 01

  Man, it, see, my regions were different because I started a lot of those chapters. There was a lot of guys that like I resonated with or got along with. So we were on the same page. We didn't have a lot of the old timer dudes that were into that. Um, but I mean, here's the other thing. There's always going to be people fight back because we're outlaws, one percenters, and we got a shitload of rules and I have even more rules.

• 2:12:35Shawn Ryan?

  But I mean, what, what, before we go into all the rules and stuff that you implemented, what is, what is the mission? It's like, I've talked to, you know, Mel about it. I've talked to, um, George Christie about it. It kind of clicks, but it kind of doesn't. I mean, it sounds like it's, it's

• 2:12:59Shawn Ryan?

  I just don't fucking get it.

• 2:13:01Speaker 01

  The mission gets

• 2:13:01Shawn Ryan?

  It's a lifestyle, not an occupation.

• 2:13:03Speaker 01

  Absolutely. And the mission gets lost in the shuffle. You know, the, the mission for me was I went from a, a street gang to wanting to still have that, you know, sense of that, that sense of belonging and people to go to, go out with and party with and ride bikes with. And it goes from that to all of a sudden,

• 2:13:21Speaker 01

  now you're defending yourself. Now all these other clubs want to kill you and now you're kind of thrust into this other life. And now you've got these blinders on where now we're militant. Now we're running a certain way. Now we have this new program. Like it, it, it just keeps it. I don't want to even say evolving because it's not, it's escalating.

• 2:13:38Shawn Ryan?

  Well, nobody can, I mean, nothing will create a brotherhood faster than a bunch of people trying to fucking kill a group of dudes.

• 2:13:44Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 2:13:45Shawn Ryan?

  I can attest to that.

• 2:13:46Speaker 01

  Yeah. And, and I mean, that's a lot of, you know, a lot of the guys that come to motorcycle clubs come from military. And then they get out and they're seeking that, A, the brotherhood, where a lot of people miss, it's not people, that's that, that thrill, right? The, the adrenaline. And especially that shared, like a shared trauma, shared adrenaline, like we're on the road together. Man, two of us just got shot at over here. Like, we're still here. Whoa. You know, those types of things. And it's like, hey, unless you've been through it, you can't describe it, but it's one of those things that it obviously makes everyone tight. I mean, imagine a group of six guys where every other club in that state wants to kill you. We got pretty damn close, you know? And there was, you know, we're so, we were still young kids and even as adults,

• 2:14:30Speaker 01

  there's so many times where we're just fucking around at the clubhouse, laughing, telling jokes and, you know, talking shit.

• 2:14:36Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, that's the other thing that, you know, I mean,

• 2:14:40Shawn Ryan?

  you had mentioned earlier, you, you were, I mean, it was the party too, right? It was the party.

• 2:14:45Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 2:14:46Shawn Ryan?

  I'm sure there's plenty of meth at parties, plenty of women at parties, plenty of booze at parties. Is it partying every night?

• 2:14:55Speaker 01

  No, no, because you know, and I guess that's part of that too, some of that stuff I implemented. So, you know, we're an outlaw club. We can't, we're not supposed to be able to tell you we can and can't do. So telling someone they can't do drugs is crazy, right?

• 2:15:06Shawn Ryan?

  That's what I think.

• 2:15:07Speaker 01

  But, and I had initially had a, a, no hard drug policy at all, but I just found out people were doing cocaine behind my back. Uh, because it is a lot of partying, you know? The reason that I struck with no methamphetamine and thankfully, like I said, a lot of the guys that I was around weren't guys that did meth anyways, was because if, if you're doing any type of drug, say it's coke or even weed, we've sent guys to rehab. Mongols have their own rehab center. Like in Pasadena, it's owned, owned and run by Mongols. I mean, the public can go to it, but that's like, if you're a Mongol member and you're struggling, that's where we'll send you. If we have a member that's struggling with addiction, we don't kick them out. We try and help them. And, um, when we, what we say is struggling is we notice if now you're not paying your dues, you're not showing up to meetings, you're not getting your workouts, any eventually one of the workout rules.

• 2:15:50Speaker 01

  But you know, you're being a flake, all the things that come with being a drug addict, right? Then we're going to step in and we're going to get involved. I feel like recreational drugs is a personal choice. It shouldn't affect everyone else. As long as you're not, you know, there, there was always a no needle rule from like since the sixties, because you know, you can't be strung out and ride a bike. But also when it, for me, when it came to methamphetamine, I've seen the lives ruined. I'd seen that it's not something people do recreationally. Next thing you know, you know, they're stealing, they're lying, or whatever, right? And then a lot of those, I don't know if those piss people off or not, but it is what it is. A lot of people that are living that methamphetamine lifestyle become snitches, informants. Like there's, it's just not a trust, there's no trust, there's, it's a moral value, right? It becomes, it becomes a personal trait.

• 2:16:35Speaker 01

  And it brings no benefit to the group. Like if a guy is spun out on anything like that, what value does he bring to the group?

• 2:16:44Shawn Ryan?

  I agree with you.

• 2:16:45Speaker 01

  And so that, that was my thing. If we're all at a party and some dudes are doing coke so they can stay up later tonight for a night, like whatever dude, to me, it's no different than everyone drinking alcohol, right? The flip is because we were at a wartime club, we didn't get drunk at bars. We weren't allowed to be, we had a two drink limit everywhere we went. If we want to get drunk, it was at the house or at the clubhouse. But we wouldn't be drunk in public. There's no way. And in fact, I was the most sober I've ever been in my life from that, those early years, because I was in charge and I was in charge of a lot of people and a leadership. And the last thing I wanted was anything that was going to affect the way my mind thought and being slow or miss the guy standing over here or that car that passed by. Um, so we had to be on point. So I think there was that piece to it too, where

• 2:17:25Speaker 01

  you know, if we wanted to go, we, we, we went out often and it may look like we're partying all the time because a lot of going out and flying the flag means you're going to bar to bar to bar. But that's because that's where you're going to be seen. But we didn't get drunk at bars. We'd get drunk at the clubhouse. We'd get drunk at the homie's house when we got home. But outside of that, or you know, the big national runs, but even then, especially early on, I'm still learning everyone on the club. And this is a club full of killers and gangsters. Sure, we're not allowed to fight each other, but it's also not a, it's not a shield. I can't walk up to some OG and call him a bitch or punch in the face. And so I didn't want anyone getting drunk and being too comfortable either. So it's like, hey, if you went to national run, if you're going to party hard, you stay in your room. Like,

• 2:18:01Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, how, how hard was it to enforce the rules of not beating each other up, fighting each other, killing each other? I mean, you've got a a handful of degenerates, you know, all grouped in who probably don't like being fucking told what

• 2:18:14Speaker 01

  A lot of alpha male in town.

• 2:18:15Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:18:15Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 2:18:16Shawn Ryan?

  And here you come, barking all these orders, no meth, get your ass up and workout.

• 2:18:23Speaker 01

  So I think the way it worked is

• 2:18:25Shawn Ryan?

  Don't beat each other up.

• 2:18:26Speaker 01

  Other than the no fighting each other, none of that other stuff came overnight. So it wasn't like, I'm I'm coming in and just trying to change the call everybody's culture, right? The fighting thing to me.

• 2:18:39Shawn Ryan?

  But you have to change their culture because now it's Mongol culture.

• 2:18:42Speaker 01

  Exactly, but those those were rules I instituted as a Mongol. So initially, we like we worked our way up to those things, right? And like the like I said, I at one point I said, okay, no drugs, final, okay, that didn't fly, no meth. People, people resonated with that. They understood why they got behind the mission. Working out, it was a vote. I can't just say, hey, everyone's got to work out, but I could persuade and talk and have a voice. And then everyone votes. Well, if you voted, now you're into it. Everyone's doing it. So it's like I did this in steps, right? But as far as the no fighting thing, so like in the skinhead gang. If if you were late to a meeting, you got beat up. If a guy was mad at you, you went in the backyard and you fought. And there used to be, you know, they had this adage of, oh, two brothers can fight, we can share a beer after.

• 2:19:24Speaker 01

  But what I saw firsthand, especially now being a therapist, everything else is the ego and everything else that goes into this. Sure, we might shake hands, but all of a sudden the guy that beat me up calls and asks for backup. I'll show up, but I might move a little slower. Or hey, we're having a vote. You think it's going to go your way? If you know what I'm saying, there's always the the guy that got beat up. That's it wasn't fair. He put his thumb in my eye, you know, whatever, right? There's always sure brothers, but I saw how much it undermined the brotherhood. And so in order to have these rules and enforce them, you have to explain to them why we have these rules. Why we this isn't acceptable. And I think the other piece too, like in Oregon, we started as one chapter. Those two guys moved, two of the guys from our chapter moved to Portland, they start. So we were like branching off from each other. So we weren't

• 2:20:08Speaker 01

  Eugene and Portland chapter, we were Oregon Mongols. So we ran as a unit. So we didn't have this internal beef. We're in California, you know, the gang culture, neighborhood culture. Uh, this chapter is things are better than that chapter. And there's this, there still weren't fighting, but there was these internal beefs and and it would take strong leadership, you know, and when little Dave was at National P, if one chapter, if we found out that one chapter was talking shit, right? We'd make him sit down and talk about it, work it out, get involved and and, uh, you know, discipline would be instead of you can't discipline people to violence. So you can find them money, hit them at the pocketbook. They, if you really get in trouble, you have to re prospect for the club. You know, so to tell a 10 10 year member that if he does this, he has to go back to prospecting, he's probably not going to do it, right?

• 2:20:49Speaker 01

  So the it really came down to leadership. Strong leadership can enforce any of those rules.

• 2:20:55Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, strong leaders to to have strong leadership, you have to obtain a massive amount of respect. How did you do that?

• 2:21:01Speaker 01

  I think just being, um.

• 2:21:03Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, you're you're dealing with a bunch of guys that I'm sure fucking can't stand authority either.

• 2:21:08Speaker 01

  Absolutely, absolutely.

• 2:21:09Shawn Ryan?

  Orders at them. This is what 20 what year old?

• 2:21:12Speaker 01

  Yeah, 27 at the time when I first started doing it. And I think the piece with that was to get them all bought in on it, right? To understand the program and why we have leader. I didn't just start out saying, hang, I'm the boss and you're going to do this. That I would have got my ass kicked and shit down the road. So, you know, explaining what the why we have these rules. And then, like you said, the building that bond through the violence. Um, you know, now, oh, man, I saw I saw how he reacted in a situation or how he maintained his cool. Oh, I I get why he's in this leadership. Now they respect you and they're listening to you. So I was always a lead from the front guy. And in fact, to a fault where I'm the one that ended up in jail the one at first that in, you know, six months in. Um, because I would never ask a guy to do something I wouldn't do.

• 2:21:54Speaker 01

  And I wouldn't be in the guy in the back and all right, you guys got to go fight these dudes. Like I went through that net skinhead scene. That's one of the reasons I left. And so I think, you know, also got respect because I was practicing what I preached and the rules were consistent for everyone. Like I had to follow the same rules. I couldn't, you know, I wasn't doing meth and telling you, you couldn't. Um, so just, I guess the personal pieces. This is where the brotherhood comes in the most because if you love your brother, you're going to support your brother and you and you respect the program. You're going to follow the rules because it's what's not what's best for you. It's what's best for the the group, the greater good. And it really weeds out those selfish personalities or like you said, the they're super strong, like fuck rules, fuck authority. If you don't like rules and authority, you're not going to be in a motorcycle club. I promise you that. Because there's more rules there than there is anywhere else.

• 2:22:39Shawn Ryan?

  Makes sense. Makes sense.

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• 2:25:20Shawn Ryan?

  We never did finish what the mission is. I don't think.

• 2:25:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, no, well, kind of what my my mindset on it was the mission initially was the brotherhood, riding bikes, traveling, being a part of something. And then I feel like it gets lost when it turns into the violence, the defending yourself, the ego, the just getting wrapped up in that world, you know? And I think the mission gets lost to that extent. I mean, the brotherhood hopefully is there and stays there. But, um, as far as like, hey, the good times on bikes. It all, uh, I mean, we still have a lot of fun. We had talked about the parties and stuff, but you know, it kind of gets swallowed up by this, uh, constant at essentially being at war, right? Like the the Mongols have been at war since 1969 with the Hells Angels. And then as we started up in other states.

• 2:26:10Speaker 01

  Now we're, you know, Josie Joker said we can't get there. Or when I moved to the Midwest, that Galifin goose said we can't be there. And then moved to Illinois, I lost, we can't be there. So it's this constant state of somebody else telling you what you can't do. And then, you know, by then, after you start building the reputation or the name or you're in, you're like, who the hell is going to tell me what I can't do?

• 2:26:29Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:26:29Speaker 01

  And so I think we get further and further away from the initial goal of hanging out with the boys, riding bikes and having good times.

• 2:26:37Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. You did you just say the Hells Angels and the Mongols have been at war since 1969?

• 2:26:43Speaker 01

  Uh, well, yeah, so I misspoke in the date. So the Mongols started in 1969. It was the mid 70s since the Hells Angels Mongols war first started. And then it has continued on back and forth since. I mean, I

• 2:26:55Shawn Ryan?

  Still to this day?

• 2:26:56Speaker 01

  To this day, I have at least three close friends I know in the club that were murdered by Hells Angels. Um, I have a close friend that is in prison for life for killing a Hells Angel. Um, you know, it's something that that started back then and has continued. There would be lulls, there'd be times where there was a little bit of peace here and there, but then it always kicks back off.

• 2:27:17Shawn Ryan?

  How did it start?

• 2:27:18Speaker 01

  So that's a good one because I don't think publicly, not a lot of people know the story, you know? What a lot of us were told going into it is that the Hells Angels told the Mongols they couldn't wear a bottom rocker that said California. They said that they they were the only club that could claim California and we weren't allowed to. And although that did happen a little later on. Turns out that's not quite what instigated it. Um, and you know, we talked a little bit earlier about how the public perception was. Angels wouldn't let the Mongols join because they're Hispanic. But there were, we've, we already talked about how that wasn't true. And there really was no beef between the two clubs. The Mongols back then were a small, pretty small club. And the Angels were much larger and, um, from what I've been told from some of the old school dudes is their paths didn't cross a lot early on.

• 2:28:03Speaker 01

  Or occasionally they would party, you know, see each other bars and stuff. But, um, I want to say it was in the mid 70s. There was a famous Hells Angel up in Northern California, George Wagers, Wagers, Wedron, I don't know. Anyways, George from the from the Hells Angels, NorCal Hells Angels. And the story goes, he had, there was two people that were visiting the Hells Angels up there. And the Hells Angels were partying with them and then they dosed to these guys with acid, or they got, they were on LSD, they were getting crazy and the Angels ended up killing them. And they threw their bodies in at George had this big ranch and they threw the bodies in the well of this ranch. Well, this investigation comes out, George testifies, and there was another member.

• 2:28:41Speaker 01

  Um, Bud, well, I know it was Bud's brother, um, who had testified as well. So this was act active Hells Angels that had testified about this murder trial.

• 2:28:51Speaker 02

  So the guy that had testified, he moves, he leaves the Hells Angels and he moves to Southern California. And you know, this is pre-internet, right? So the information doesn't travel as fast. Can't be like, hey, here's, here's so and so's paperwork. Everyone knows. Um, you know, he moved far enough away that I don't know who knew where he was or what. Um, but he moved in with his brother Bud and then they, the two of them started Chester Green was his name. So Chester was the Hells Angel. That turned informant and moved in Southern California, moved in with his brother Bud, him and Bud had started their own club. And that club then get absorbed by the Mongols. So now Chester and Bud are Mongols. On the other side, there's Keith Ball, who was a, uh, worked for Easy Rider magazine, writer for Easy Rider magazine.

• 2:29:35Speaker 02

  Well-known Hells Angel and like that George Christie era early on.

• 2:29:40Speaker 02

  His wife and his son, his wife leaves and she starts dating Bud. So essentially the son Frank is a good friend of mine, Frank Ball. It's for lack of better terms, this is dad and stepdad, right? Dad's a Hells Angel, stepdad's a Mongol. So we all hear about, or, or people that know the history often hear about, there was a big swap meet. Where the Angels and Mongols clashed for the first time and got in a fight. But what earlier was transcribed or what used, what used to be told was that the Mongols, there was more Mongols and Angels, which I still believe is true, but that Mongols were just being cocky and arrogant. And one of the members of the Angels was mad at it and said, F this and punched him.

• 2:30:24Speaker 02

  But the more the truth comes out or more we've dug into the story. Bud recently passed away and since he passed away, a lot of these family secrets are coming out. Um, Frank's getting out, starting to tell his story, like he's been on my podcast and some other one, or just mine. And then George Christie's been talking about, about it a little bit. So people are just starting to hear this actual story. Where Bud, who is now a Mongol, right? And then Frank's dad, Keith, they see each other at this swap meet. And Keith punches Bud, they get into a fight, Mongols start fighting Angels. Everyone's hitting each other with motorcycle parts and sprockets. So it's this big fight, right? After this fight, as George Christie would say, they move back to their clubhouse and the Hells Angels who were this big dominant,

• 2:31:07Speaker 02

  you know, wild club back then are like, who, who the F are these guys? Who, we have to make an example out of these guys. They think they can just stand up and you attack us like, and essentially if you think about it from a strategic standpoint, if they let some small club get away with it, who else? Everyone else are gonna start challenging them too, right? So they thought they need to make this big statement. And so, uh, two Mongols, red beard and jingles, who actually both had their wives in the back, were riding back from Los Angeles to San Diego at another time. And they were machine gunned off their bikes and killed.

• 2:31:36Shawn Ryan?

  With their wives on the back?

• 2:31:38Speaker 02

  Yeah, I believe one of the wives died and the other one was paralyzed, if I remember correctly. But they were machine gunned off their bikes and killed by Hells Angels. Week or two later, they have their funeral. And a red and white car shows up, which is the Hells Angels cover, colors. They leave red and white roses at the funeral and the car blows up at the funeral. So they bombed the funeral of the two Hells, the two Mongols that were killed. So obviously things escalate. Then there's a motorcycle shop called, it was a motorcycle shop in, in East Los Angeles called The Frame Up. Couple Mongols worked there and the Hells Angels, George Christie had talked about this on some podcast, but the Hells Angels had brought, had a guy go in and drop off a motorcycle tire and said they needed it switched off a wheel, but there was a bomb in it.

• 2:32:22Speaker 02

  So when they took the tire off, it blew up and killed some people. So now there's this tit for tat going back and forth. And then, um, Junior, who was a member of the San Diego Mongols, shot and killed, uh, Ray Pilz, who was a Hells Angel in San Diego. And ever since then, they've just been killing each other.

• 2:32:39Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 2:32:40Speaker 02

  And you know, there's,

• 2:32:43Speaker 02

  I, I feel like when this violence and stuff happens, both sides always feel justified, right? The both sides are, they're, they're the ones that are getting, they're the victims. They're getting bullied. These people tell us we can't do. So the Mongols are feeling, hey, the Angels are trying to tell us we can and can't do this or, and the Angels are saying, oh, these guys are trying, there's too many of them. They're being cocky and you know, everyone thinks they're doing the right thing. And then once people start dying, everyone starts standing up for themselves. When that happened, that's when the Mongols said, well, why are we, why don't we wear the California bottom rocker at this point? Cause what the Hells Angels do, go to war with them? They're already at war, right? And so then they ended up switching over to the, to their bottom rocker reading California where before it was like Long Beach or, you know, whatever, San Diego or whatever the city was.

• 2:33:24Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 2:33:25Speaker 02

  And it's been going on since then, you know, I, I've had, um, little PK was a close friend of mine. He was pretty close to my age. And, um, he, he had shot a Hells Angel in Northern California and that Hells Angel survived. And I think less than a year later, he just disappeared without a trace. He was a heavyset dude. Was riding a big full dresser motorcycle, which has never been found. He left the party, told some guys he was gonna go meet up some girl. And a couple of months later, he was found in the mountains of Santa Cruz, found in the hills of the Santa Cruz Mountains and he was half burdened, had a bullet in his head.

• 2:33:56Shawn Ryan?

  Shit.

• 2:33:57Speaker 02

  Um, my brother Rambler, who was a very close friend of mine, he was, we had both been Mongol, well, I was a Mongol in San Diego when he was hanging around. He ended up joining San Diego, but I'd moved back to Oregon. He was up there visiting for work. And in Oregon, by now things were pretty chill with all the other clubs. So we wore our patches everywhere. We, I mean, we still had our program, but it was pretty relaxed. In fact, he said, this is like Disneyland up here. We can just go to the strip clubs or we can go to the bars, you know, cause in San Diego, if we wanted to go to a bar, you had to, you could only stay for about 30 minutes. Couldn't drink. You had to have a chase truck. You had to have X amount of members, like in, in Oregon. Um, I mean, we still try to run off those rules, but in general in Oregon, you could let your guard down and he was visiting. So he, he would walk to the strip club, he'd over here.

• 2:34:39Speaker 02

  And so he was getting ready to move home or he was getting ready to move Portland. So he went to San Diego. He bought a truck from one of the brothers. He drove it to San Diego. He was loading it up with stuff. The night before he was moving home, he went out to a bar with his old lady in San Diego. Um, two Hells Angels approach him. They kind of put, shove each other. Rambler decides he's gonna leave. He gets on his bike, leaves, pulls over to a taco place with his wife to get some food. The Hells Angels had followed him. Comes out of taco place, they stab him in the throat, armpit and groin and he bleeds out right there and dies.

• 2:35:09Shawn Ryan?

  Shit. Did you ever have any run ins?

• 2:35:14Speaker 02

  Yeah, but I mean, nothing, obviously not to that level, but you know, um, I had a tattoo. I've since covered it up, but after Rambler, after Rambler got killed, I got a tattoo of the Hells Angels center patch. But it was hanging from a noose with Xed out eyes and a tongue hanging out and said FTHA, blood dripping off of it. And it caused some controversy, but that's, that's where our mindset was. And that's the problem with this war is A, no one knows why it started, but B, once you're in long enough, you don't care. Because both sides, right? Both sides lose members and now they're the enemy. And you know, people are dying and going to prison and, and most people don't even know why.

• 2:35:53Speaker 02

  So it's, it's been, it's,

• 2:35:56Speaker 02

  after leaving the club and getting to know Mel and some other former Hells Angels, my co-host for Patched, Jason, he was a former Hells Angel.

• 2:36:05Speaker 02

  You know, that, that kind of initial goal we had was we wanted to show that everyone in this life and those major clubs, how much we all have in common. You know, like for me, you know, I joined the Mongols because I knew a Mongol. All my friends that were in like the Hardcore Crew FSU in Boston, they joined the Outlaws and then some of them later joined the Mongols and then the Northern California Skinhead and Hardcore Crews, they joined the Hells Angels. Cause it was, what was there in their region or who they knew? It wasn't we chose one because we hate the other, right? We all came from the same thing and we were the same people that just wore a different name. And, and then it turns into people killing each other. Um, and so, you know, getting into that, why did it really happen piece? And then trying to explain how much we have in common. And I don't even know if that'll help at this point. Cause I mean, you've got to think that's years and years of war.

• 2:36:48Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, how long did it take you to get over it and start talking to Hells Angels? I mean, you, you co-host a fucking podcast on one.

• 2:37:00Speaker 02

  Yeah. And, and you know, so little Dave, the former national president of Mongols, had introduced me to Jason, that former Hells Angel, and he had read my book and really liked, um, you know, kind of my philosophy on things and, and he was like, hey dude, let's do something where we can try and help. Let's try and the, the initial goal of that podcast was to show all the similarities. It kind of transformed into more of a mental health podcast on what it's like when you leave and refinding identity and purpose. Um, but it started as this, like trying to show peace. And so initially, it was really, mentally was really hard, man, you know? Like, uh, the first time I met Jason, which was the first time I met any Hells Angel, ex-former Hells Angel in person.

• 2:37:39Speaker 02

  We were at a motorcycle rally in North Carolina called the Smokeout. So I was riding up for Savannah. So it was, you know, a six hour ride or something. And he's given me addressed this Airbnb. He's gonna be there with two, a couple, like two or three other former Hells Angels. And then a, um, guy I met, my friend Lauren, from a company called Street Syndicate, he used to be a Hells Angel. And he was gonna meet us there. So I'm riding up there at first, happy to meet these, my new friends. We've been talking. And all of a sudden the sun's going down and I'm used, I mean, I'm riding and I next thing I know I'm in this country and I'm riding down this gravel road to this dark house. And I go, fuck, dude, you think they're playing the long game? Am I gonna walk in and there's plastic on the floor? Um, but you know, conversation was a little guarded at first and just the,

• 2:38:20Speaker 02

  the trigger of seeing, like some of them still had their club logos or tattoos and just seeing that death had even was like, it was hard, mentally was tough, man. But the more we talked, the more we saw in common, we had in common. And then hearing the other sides of stories where we were both at, you know, like there was a moment where Lauren's like, oh shit, that was you. Or you know what I mean? Things like that. Where it was like, we were both there for the same things and had different perspectives. And I think,

• 2:38:45Shawn Ryan?

  Can you go into one of those?

• 2:38:48Speaker 02

  Um, yeah, yeah. The one he was talking about is we I had helped start a chapter of Mongols in Spokane and the Hells Angels were really strong there, but at the time, most of them were in prison for a racketeering case and murder case. So there wasn't very many left. And the ones I started came from that hardcore crew FSU and a lot of these dudes in MMA and Jiu Jitsu. So they were tough dudes. Um, and I knew we'd be able to hold it down. But once we opened up there, obviously there was gonna, there was pushback and that guy junior I talked about, he, he had come back to the club and he was like, um, kind of oversaw our area at the time. And, uh, he had called and he said, hey, the, the Angels, they have a bunch of guys coming from out of town. They just had this run in with the Mongols

• 2:39:29Speaker 02

  last night. We need you to send everybody up there. And at the time I'm on, you know, I, I was on non-association probation because I just got out of jail a few months before that. And I wasn't allowed to affiliate with the club or leave the state. But again, I was been a lead from the front guy. So I said, all right. So if I'm gonna call into everyone, they gotta go up there. We're all going. So we go up there and we get, I think I left in the middle of the night. We get up there early in the day and more and more guys from, you know, Idaho is coming Oregon where, and everyone's like, what's the plan? What's the plan? I keep going, we gotta wait for junior, you know? So finally I called junior just for chain of command. And I finally called junior and he goes, I can't show up there, man. There's too many cops. And, uh, that was my first falling out with that guy. But, um, from that, so like, okay, well, then I guess, I guess we're putting this

• 2:40:11Speaker 02

  together. So we, we had developed a meetup spot and essentially the goal was we were just all gonna go out and fly the patch and make a presence. And if they wanted to come get it, they could, but we were gonna show them that A, we had support, that we can show backup with the swiftness and that we all stuck together. And, uh, we were at, one of the guys owns a tattoo shop up there and we were at this tattoo shop, just kind of killing time, waiting for more people to show up. And the FBI was outside driving around and stuff and remind you, I can't leave the state. I'm not supposed to be there. So I'm down in the basement of this tattoo shop getting ready to get tattooed. And the prospect comes running down the stairs. He goes, Mooch, Mooch, we gotta get you out of here. The FBI is in here and they know you're here. I'm like, fuck dude, I'm going back to jail. Well, my twin brother had just had a baby, so he could, he didn't come with us. And

• 2:40:55Speaker 02

  he's in the club. So I called my twin brother. I guess they said, yeah, well, we know Jeremy's down there, which is my brother's name. So I called my brother. I go, don't answer your phone. Don't go outside if anyone asks you're in Spokane. And when the sun got down, I got out of there. But there was a standoff at one point where we went to one bar and all the Angels were at the bar across the street. And there was like cops in the middle and we were all on the sidewalk and having this big stare down. And it turned out Lauren from Streets to Get, he was standing on the other side of that road. So we were like, we're telling a story. And I was like, yeah, he was like, you were there for that? I was like, yeah, I was there for that. Or there was, uh, the one that he got upset about is there's a, um, a former Hells Angel had lost, had left the club. He was the National Secretary. So he had this spreadsheet that had every Hells Angels chapter, address and members'

• 2:41:39Speaker 02

  names and phone numbers on it. And, uh, fuck it, I shouldn't say on the air, but whatever. It's nothing illegal, but, um, I had, I had this app where, you know, you can text people from other people's phone numbers. And there was a time, it was during Sturgis and we were, that was with the St. Louis chapter, the Mongols, and we were riding into St. Louis to go to some bars. We were coming from Alton, Illinois, and we're riding into St. Louis. And as we're coming down the highway, there's

• 2:42:04Shawn Ryan?

  Like Fast Eddie's?

• 2:42:05Speaker 02

  Hey, yeah, that's where we were coming from was that Fast Eddie's area. Yeah, absolutely. That was a bar we went to a lot. But we were heading into, we were gonna go to Shady Jackson, St. Louis. So we're actually, no, we were going up to Soulard area. But anyways, we're going down the interstate or it was the highway. And all of a sudden this Hells Angel goes flying past us by himself. And I've got nine guys with me and then I chased, you know, the, the, we had a crew called the Wrecking Crew, which is like our support club that didn't ride, the security guys. They're behind us. And I remember watching them and thinking, fuck, man. And I go, whatever. I do this, the whole pack whips a bitch. We start chasing this guy. And we're probably doing buck 10, you know, 105 miles an hour at least. And this guy, he's flying, he's looking in his mirrors and he, he pulls into this gas station and he was far enough ahead that I could see him do it, but like, we

• 2:42:47Speaker 02

  weren't right there. And I remember thinking, well, I mean, that's smart, somewhere public at least, you know? Well, we pull in the gas station, everyone's all hot, ready to roll and, and we can't find him. So everyone's kind of, they're all on bikes still. So everyone's weaving in and out, trying to look around for him. And as I call it to leave, we're pulling this U-turn. And I look in, there was like a trailer park right there. And I look down and I see this Hells Angel, he's like peeking out from behind his mobile home. It's like, all right, well, there he is. So we pull into the trailer park, but we, most of us had stopped because it's the Midwest. I ain't rolling someone's front door unless I'm gonna get ready to get shot, right? So we stopped. And one of the members that was actually from Kansas City, um, he had something to prove because he was the older guy that

• 2:43:29Speaker 02

  was just got and got in trouble at the church, at church for like not following through with shit or, you know, just kind of being soft. And so he wanted to prove something. So he comes rolling up, he jumps off his bike, he starts walking, walking up a hard and he freezes. And one of the guys goes, why is he freezing? I go, the other dude must have a gun. And then all of a sudden, the Kansas City guy starts backpedaling. And one of the Mongols goes, does he think he's the only one? I'm like, whoa, dude. It's like three in the afternoon at this trailer park. So this Hells Angel comes out and he's got a pistol in his waist, but he's holding a iPad and he kept yelling, call 911, call 911. And, uh, obviously I was like, all right, dude, this dude ain't gonna do shit. He's in the right. If we go jump him or whatever, the cops are gonna come. Um, so I said, let's wrap it up and get out of here. Well, the more I was thinking about it, kind of like

• 2:44:13Speaker 02

  I'd said before about the low risk, high reward. I was like, this situation, I kinda fuck with these dudes. So I got off that list. I got a number from a, a San Fernando Valley Hells Angel. And I started texting this Hells Angel whose house we were at, convincing him I was another Hells Angel. And I said, hey, brother, uh, we're in possession of this video of a bunch of Mongols in front of your house and you're yelling, call 911. And he's like, brother, brother, that's not how it happened. That's not quite how it happened. And I said, well, I'll tell you what, we're gonna have an officers meeting. And I'm just guessing at this point, you know, we're gonna have an officers meeting this weekend. So in the meantime, why don't you put all your club property in a box? We're gonna come out there and decide if you can still be in this club. And for two days, he's texting me and blowing me up, like trying to stay in, brother, it's not like that. Until he figured out what was, you know, eventually. So I guess they had to have like two or three officer meetings about it. Cause I was doing that. And then,

• 2:44:58Speaker 02

  um, there was a, a dude, Bo from Outlaw Archives, where he like collects old Hells Angels on the bill and like preserves the history of it. And a lot of the new members don't like them. So every now and again, he was sending text messages, messaging with, messing with them. And this national organization had to have this whole like west coast meeting about not, not answering texts unless you know for sure who it is or answering the phone. And so Lauren was like pissed that he had to keep going to these meetings. So when he told us where he goes, that was you, dude? You're the reason I had to keep going to this meeting?

• 2:45:27Shawn Ryan?

  Damn. Wild, wild.

• 2:45:30Speaker 02

  Yeah. My wife said I was a nerd because there was another time where they were hosting a fight night in St. Louis, the Angels and the Galloping Goose or the Forest Arrows, like they were doing it together. So I was texting the Angels from a Forest Arrows number and been like, you guys need to step up security. This shit's soft, you're right. And then I was doing it back to the, just trying to stir the pot. So I'm just sitting there giggling on my phone like an idiot. My wife's like, what is wrong with you?

• 2:45:51Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. How long have you been married?

• 2:45:54Speaker 02

  Uh, we've been together 10 years and been married for five.

• 2:45:57Shawn Ryan?

  How'd you meet?

• 2:45:59Speaker 02

  She was working at a bar that we had stopped in. And, um, we had rolled in there. It was really kind of funny because she's not, she's 10 years younger than me. She's not from that life at all. And, uh, someone at the bar said, a bunch of Mongols are coming in here. And she goes, Mongoloids? What? Who's coming?

• 2:46:14Shawn Ryan?

  Mongoloids.

• 2:46:15Speaker 02

  And then, uh, most of us, like I said, we were sober at the time. We're not drinking. So we walked in and we all were in Mountain Dews or something. She's like, all these tough guys that came in and ordered Mountain Dew. And then we went back there another time. And, uh, when I do drink, I like fruity drinks. I don't give a shit. Tastes good. I don't like taste alcohol. If it comes in a fruit or got an umbrella, I'm in, right? So I walk in and I order a Mai Tai. And apparently that she either didn't know how to make it at the time or didn't have the ingredients for it. So it was the worst Mai Tai I've ever had in my life. But she was still in a relationship and we didn't even talk then. But she found me on social media and sent me a friend's request. So maybe two months later, it's right after New Year's. She liked a picture and I was like, who's this chick like in my photo? So I sent her a message and of course she made me wait 24 hours to

• 2:47:00Speaker 02

  show me what time it was. And then we met up and started hanging out and, uh, that was it, man.

• 2:47:04Shawn Ryan?

  Right on.

• 2:47:05Speaker 02

  She was, not to sound cheesy, but this is the facts is, so I was engaged a year before that. And we split up over mainly because like a month before our wedding, I was in Thailand doing stuff with the club. And when I came home,

• 2:47:18Shawn Ryan?

  Wait, what?

• 2:47:19Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I had helped start the Australian Mongols and the Mongols in Australia can't come here and I can't go there. So we would meet in Thailand for meetings. So it's like,

• 2:47:28Shawn Ryan?

  Why can't you go there and they can't come here?

• 2:47:30Speaker 02

  Well, I couldn't go there at time because my criminal record, I was a felon. But also if you're a known member of motorcycle club, Australia has crazy motorcycle club laws. A lot of the states, you can't even wear a patch or have club tattoos. Um, so immigration on both sides, they won't let you in.

• 2:47:43Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 2:47:44Speaker 02

  And so Thailand, we could, because you don't need visas to visit, you know? Um, and it's also was like Mongols had just started in Thailand. So was our chance, like from leadership to go out there and meet the Thai guys. And, um, so I spent 10 days in Thailand and the club had paid for me to go because I was doing this meeting. And where they paid for the flight, but still it's Thailand. Everything else is pretty cheap. And they'd offered to bring her. So I was like, babe, you know, we're gonna go to Thailand. And she was all against it. Which should have been a pretty big red flag because when I came, the minute I landed in Thailand, I got this Dear John text about how things weren't working out. And I was spending, we're supposed to be saving for a wedding and I'm spending money on motorcycle parts. But it really came down to, uh, she wanted to have a kid and I don't. Um, so I come back to an empty house and, uh, I spent a

• 2:48:28Speaker 02

  full year just being single. I mean, I was doing a Tinder thing and meeting chicks, but it, it's something I talk to my clients about a lot too, is I don't feel like you can be happy in a good relationship until you can be happy alone. Because so many people get codependent with others and they'll put up with bullshit or bad relationships because they're just afraid of being alone, right? And so I spent alone time, like I was dating, I was going out and hanging out with girls and stuff. But if there was any sort of red flag, I just moved on. Like, why get serious? I was to the point where I, I was cool with what I was doing. Um, so I really wasn't looking for anything serious when I met her and she'd just gotten out of a relationship. But when her and I started getting close, it was like, this like, I was like, this makes sense on why my other relationships didn't work out. Like everything just fit into place so well, like the way we thought

• 2:49:12Speaker 02

  and morals and values. There are so many things that were so similar. There was no jealousy or possessiveness or arguing and fighting. And I was just like, this is how it lays, like, this is how it's supposed to be. And I wouldn't have known until I had it. Um, but I wasn't gonna let that go. So I put a ring on it.

• 2:49:26Shawn Ryan?

  Do you still not want kids?

• 2:49:27Speaker 02

  Yeah, correct.

• 2:49:28Shawn Ryan?

  Why not?

• 2:49:29Speaker 02

  Just, I'm honest with myself, man. I'm selfish with my time. I like to be able to pack up and go when I want. You know, I work with kids. I have amazing niece and nephew. I've got a sister that's 22. Um, but as far as like the responsibility of children and the financial burden of children at this point, um, you know, I, we rescue, uh, dogs. I used to foster English Bulldogs. So I've just always kind of been more of a dog guy. And I love kids and you know, people, people say all the time, oh, you'd be a great dad or oh, your life would change or you'll see it. And I don't doubt that, but I also am very honest with myself that it's not something I want. And so, um, you know, I'm 45 now, so I definitely don't want to start doing it now. And, and so that was something when her and I were getting serious and I wanted to make sure we were on the same page with.

• 2:50:09Shawn Ryan?

  Right on, right on.

• 2:50:14Shawn Ryan?

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• 2:50:57Shawn Ryan?

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• 2:51:29Shawn Ryan?

  How the hell did you wind up in the Midwest?

• 2:51:32Speaker 02

  So, I had-

• 2:51:34Shawn Ryan?

  Were we missing anything in Oregon before we go to the Midwest?

• 2:51:38Speaker 02

  Me going to jail, my trial, my case.

• 2:51:41Shawn Ryan?

  Well, that would be a pretty big-

• 2:51:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah. So, been in the club for about six months. There was this party in Eugene for the Club of the Free Souls and there was like their, every chapter of the state was there and then all the outsiders, Gypsy Jokers, Brothers Speed, all the clubs were there together and they were gonna make this big presence to like essentially show them all as we couldn't be here. And I didn't want to do this. I wanted to show them that we were serious and we weren't gonna cower down. So, we took all six of us plus we had some guys come up from Nevada and stuff. I think there was maybe 10 or 12 of us. And we just started going to all the bars they go to. Like, I knew where they were at. I had eyes on their clubhouse. I knew who was out and about. So, we weren't putting ourselves in too bad of a spot. But we made sure to go make a presence in all of their bars around town. Not to necessarily stir the pot. I mean, to some extent,

• 2:52:26Speaker 02

  but mainly to show like, hey, we're still gonna do what we're gonna do. And we had just checked back in at the hotel and three of the guys that were in this group of 12 turned out to be informants. So, it made sense. We were getting followed by the ATF and this ATF agent was the first time I'd ever, that's the first time I ever saw an ATF. In my mind, from TV, you know, these guys are all military looking, in shape and this dude was, looked like Grimace from McDonald's. He's wearing New Balances. They're all flattened out on the sides. And he came walking up and he had let me know or informed us that there had been a car that had gotten pulled over that had a president of the Gypsy Jokers, president of the Free Souls, or president of Brothers Speed and the president of the outsiders in it and they had a trunk with guns in it. And they said they're out muggle hunting. That's what they told us. So, they had a duty to warn. So, they asked us to stay

• 2:53:10Speaker 02

  at the hotel. Just don't go out. And the informants were dead set on not going out. They were scared. I mean, obviously, we didn't know they're informants, but now it made sense. But we said, fuck it, dude. Plus, this may sound silly, but the fact of it is too is, A, we were already gonna go do it, but now we have, there's cops following us, federal agent. Like, the risk is, goes down pretty, pretty much after that, right? I'm not saying that someone wouldn't still do something. It wasn't a shield, but it wasn't as threatening as if, you know, we were out there by ourselves in the middle of nowhere and these guys were coming to get us. So, I didn't want to cower down. So, we went out there and, and nothing really came of it. And a couple of weeks later, this front page, back when the newspaper was a thing, the front page of the Sunday newspaper was,

• 2:53:54Speaker 02

  biker war comes to Oregon. Police fear violence as motorcycle moguls roll into town. And it's this huge, like it was a multiple-page article about how the Gypsy Jokers were gonna go to war with moguls and how the Gypsy Jokers have a rule that there can be no clubs with black and white colors in their state. And then they started talking about some of the different violences that happened with it, not between the two clubs, you know, what they had done over the years. So, we're all on high alert, right? We're, I mean, especially now it's in the paper.

• 2:54:22Speaker 02

  And my parents, like I said before, they, they own like 100 and, I always forget. I think it's 120 acres, but they live in this big, big property and they have a big house at the top of the hill and then there's a little house at the bottom where we used to live before they built a big one. And my brother lived there, so I was staying with my brother. And I'm getting ready to leave. I was going up to Portland and I was in my brother's pickup truck. And mind you, I'm a felon and I'm on probation, so I can't carry a weapon, you know, I can't have a firearm or anything. And I'm coming down their driveway. It's a quarter-mile driveway and there's four no trespassing signs coming up, but every now and again, sometimes someone gets lost and turns around. So, I'm coming down the driveway and here comes an all-blackout SUV with Washington plates, Ford Explorer, started coming towards me and when it sees me, it stops. I mean, it stops at a distance where I could see

• 2:55:05Speaker 02

  the outline of two people but couldn't see like who they were, what they looked like. And so, A, you know, I stopped too and I'm sitting here thinking, okay, I don't have a weapon, so I don't want to run up on them, but I do want to know who they are. So, I'm just kinda waiting, thinking, trying to tell myself, okay, maybe it's someone that's lost. And they kinda do this weird turn, you know, they had to do like 12-point turn to turn around and, but as they're going down the road, they keep looking back at me and I remember thinking, maybe I scared them if they're lost. And so we come to the end of the driveway and I was gonna go north, which would have been left. And they turned right. And I remember I had this internal dialogue that I'll never forget. I decided to turn right and I remember saying, is this one of those moments you're gonna look back on and say, I wish you would turn left? And I turned right and I followed them for about 10 miles

• 2:55:47Speaker 02

  through like country road, but every time I followed them, they wouldn't let me get close to them. So, it was more alarm flags were going off. And then we come back to the interstate and now we're at the interstate. Now, they go north. So, now my, like, now I'm definitely thinking something's off because they would have gone north from the driveway, right? So, they're kind of doing a circle. So, now we're on the interstate and as soon as they get on the interstate, they gun it. They're going in and out of traffic. So, I'm like, fuck, it's on. So, I'm chasing them. We get to north, the north part of Salem and they take the exit and they drive to the Gypsy Jokers clubhouse. And in order to do that, you have to go through a couple of neighborhoods and a cul-de-sac. So, it's not by chance that they go there, right?

• 2:56:23Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 2:56:25Speaker 02

  I didn't want to follow them down these neighborhood roads, so I park at a gas station across the street that had eyes on them. So, they pull in front of the Gypsy Joker clubhouse, but they wouldn't get out of the car. And I'm thinking, okay, this is all sketchy, right? The passenger-sized window rolls down and a finger comes out and does this to me from across the street. So, now I say, okay, this is the enemy, right? So, I call my brother and, and the guy, Little Zach, that I talked about earlier from high school. And I say, hey, here's what's going on. Where are you guys at? You want to meet me somewhere in this area? So, at least maybe you got, they don't know what you guys driving. Maybe you guys can get next to him. At least we just want to see who they are. So, as I'm talking to him, they get back on the interstate, but now they're going back south again. So, I'm worried. Maybe they're going back to my house. They

• 2:57:07Speaker 02

  know that I'm not there. So, I get back behind them and for a while, I don't think they realized I was still following them. But when they did, they start speeding up. I followed them for 60 miles after this. So, this is like, now we're already an hour and a half into this. And as we're going into the city of Eugene, we had a chapter there. So, I call some of the Eugene guys and I said, hey, told them what's going on. I said, why don't, there was two different groups I called. I said, why don't you guys each get in a separate car, meet me off the freeway and I'll call you when we come close. And I want you to jump on, like merge in, but they don't know who your guys' cars are. So, get a good look at them or at least be with me if they pull over for gas. So, we're following them and it gets to the point where I just said, fuck it, dude. Let's just kind of slow them. Let's box them in. So, I get up behind them. Someone gets next to them. I get in

• 2:57:51Speaker 02

  front of them. And as soon as we do that, they slam on their brakes. So, the guy in this car swerved slightly and it was enough where they went from the center lane to the fast lane. And as soon as they did that, they hit a siren. I was so locked in the moment that I started looking around when I heard the siren because I was, these are enemies, you know? And then they went from the fast lane, they jumped over three lanes of traffic, took the exit. And as they were doing that, one of the other guys got in front of him and slammed on his brakes, which scared them. So, when he did that, they hit their lights. And I go, fuck, these are cops. They've been following a cop for an hour and a half. I got leather gloves on, two cell phones next to me and, but I started thinking, I'm like, well, I haven't done, what have I done that was illegal? You know, like,

• 2:58:34Speaker 02

  all I did was follow somebody. I wasn't on their cars that swerved at them, you know? So, now they're following me because like they had pulled over and so I started using my turn signal so they could see where I'm going because I know at this point I'm gonna get pulled over. And I pull into the nearest parking lot and they pull in and they pull around and they face me, but they wouldn't get out of their car. I'm already thinking, it looked, you know, now it's, I'm like, damn, I'm stupid. I think that's the car that that ATF agent had when they came up to us in Eugene. I wonder if this is that ATF agent. But I was also thinking that when he came up to us in Eugene, he even said, I have your number. So, in my head, I was like, well, he could have called. You know what I mean? Like, so I was like, I don't, I don't see I did anything wrong. And I look in my mirror and there's like 30 cops around me, guns out. Get out of the car, get out of the car. And I'm like,

• 2:59:17Speaker 02

  fuck, dude. Thought for sure I'm gonna get shot or beat up. So, they pull me out of the car, handcuff me. I'm standing next to the car and I only know this now from trial, from the discovery. But, you know, the car has, is recording and the cop tells that ATF agent. So, he gets out. He starts walking up to me and the cop says, hey, we're recording. So, he turns the radio up. And when he walks up to me, he was like telling me they were playing a game of cat and mouse. It was funny. They were gonna see how long, see how long it would take till I ran out of gas. He even said, I don't, you didn't do anything wrong. We're gonna cut you loose. My, I had called my aunt and, because she lived in town and my brother and Zach who had been following me, they were across the street and the cops never knew that they were following them. So, they were recording it with camcorder. And I was looking over at Quiznos thinking, hell, yeah, dude, I'm gonna go get some

• 3:00:00Speaker 02

  lunch. I'm hungry when I get out of here. Next thing you know, I'm in the back of a cop car. I got police motorcycles in front and behind this cop car like some presidential thing and they take me to jail. So, I sit in holding while they round up the other two guys and because now again, there was an informant that was involved. So, he had told everyone who was involved. And normally in this case, you're supposed to lawyer up, right? Like, I mean, even cops lawyer up at this point. But because I didn't think it was a risk, I didn't think I was risking any serious charges. I wanted them to be on tape admitting that it was a game of cat and mouse. What were they doing? And I had questions too. Like, why don't you identify yourself? What were you doing? So, I, I said, yeah, I'll do the interrogation. And in the interrogation, they said, this was a game of cat and mouse. We were just out there to see if we can find out where you lived and you caught us.

• 3:00:44Speaker 02

  Ha, ha, ha. So, why'd you go to the Gypsy Joker clubhouse? They're like, oh, it was convenience or it was, it was a mistake. And they were making these jokes. They were like, I had it all on tape. So, we're getting ready to, they, now they say, okay, we're gonna go book you. And I said, for what? And they said, we haven't figured it out yet, but I think attempted assault. And at this time, the jails were overcrowded. There was no funding due to this timber law budget, that federal timber thing budget that was going on. So, they were, they weren't holding people. So, I was like, whatever, dude. I'll be out in the morning. So, I go to jail. In the morning, I go down to my, my arraignment. And instead of bringing me in with everyone else, I'm sitting in a single cell by myself and I see my co-defendants walk by and they're like pale white, looking at a piece of paper. I'm like, fuck, this can't be good. And then slide my indictment over the door and they

• 3:01:25Speaker 02

  indicted me on conspiracy to commit kidnapping, attempted kidnapping, unlawful use of a weapon, conspiracy to commit awful use. There was like eight felonies. And the kidnapping was because they moved in a direct, they moved from the center lane to the fast lane in a direction they didn't

• 3:01:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, right. Fourteen million dollar bail. And then I had a bail reduction where I went down to one point four million. So I Fourteen million dollar bail. Front page of every paper, Mongol leader tries to run cops off the road. Um, one of the jail guards would let me out and watch myself on a, on a TV that night in the nightly news. And I was, uh, because I was a high profile inmate, I was in the twenty-three and a half hour day, single cell lockdown for the two months I was there. Um, and every time I violated, went back, it was the same. So I take it to trial. It's like a week and a half trial. This ATF agent, I always knew that everyone knows that cops will lie, but I never thought they would blatantly lie, right? I couldn't, it didn't make sense. This ATF agent's on the stand and, and he says, he's talking about when he came up to talk to me.

• 3:02:26Speaker 02

  And he goes, I was screaming at him because I was in fear for my life. I, what were you doing? We had our guns out and like try to make it like this whole thing that wasn't, you know? And my whole, I was like, oh, when the interrogation tape comes, I'll, I have them saying this and this. They fought and somehow got the interrogation tape out. They weren't allowed to introduce it as evidence. Holy shit. The judge was against me. Like, I don't want to sound like I'm a victim because I did chase these dudes, but the system was fucked. Thankfully, uh, my family helped me with a, a very expensive attorney and I won. Um, you know, cost us twenty-five thousand dollars and, and a lot of time. But what I did get found guilty is reckless driving, misdemeanor and a misdemeanor charge called menacing.

• 3:03:08Speaker 02

  The maximum for that is a year, a year in jail and then five years probation. They gave me the max, a year in jail, five years probation. And it was essentially felony gang probation because I had a non-association, so I wasn't allowed to affiliate with anyone from the Mongols, including my twin brother. Um, nightly curfews, couldn't go to bars, everything. I tried to appeal the part about not hanging with my brother, but they didn't. And, um, so now I go to jail, go back to jail. And I get released after a day of being sentenced. So I was there for like two months and a day or something because they have the sentencing guidelines, the matrix, and they're like, okay, no longer my risk, like when I'm there for conspiracy to commit kidnapping, I'm high enough risk, right? If I'm there for reckless driving and they need to make room.

• 3:03:52Speaker 02

  So who's going to get kicked out? So I only knew I'm getting kicked out because I look out my cell and there's this

• 3:03:58Speaker 02

  media crew everywhere, reporters, and someone goes, this is probably for you. And I'm, yeah, right. It was. And thankfully I asked it, one of the cops let me go out the back door after I was processed out instead of, instead of the media exit. So I avoided that stuff. But dude, even in trial, they did just so many crazy things. Like at one point, they put the whole jail on lockdown. And someone goes, watch, they're gonna, they're gonna say this is you tomorrow at trial. And I'm like, yeah, right. How? And sure as shit, they said that a motorcycle, Mongol had ridden by and left a suspicious, suspicious package up front. So they had to call a bomb squad and put the jail on lockdown. They had credible information. The Mongols were trying to bust me out. Like this was some Wild West movie, dude, like. And because they, they convinced the judge that the Mongols were trying to break me out, they allowed

• 3:04:40Speaker 02

  extra cops in my trial. So there are times where there'd be twelve armed, uniformed officers in my, in my court, in my hearing. You imagine what, how that influences the jury, right? Um, so it was an uphill battle, but I, but I won. And so I get out after road crew, everything else, I get out and now I'm, you know, I've been a Mongol for seven months, eight months now. And I mean, yeah, and I'm being, and I think it was eight months in and I'm being told I can't hang out at the club for five years. Um, and so I was like, I can't do that, man. Fuck this. I said, I'm, I'm gonna move to San Diego. And that guy that interviewed me, he was the president of that chapter. I said, I'm gonna move down there to the heart of where the Mongols are. I'm gonna learn to be the best Mongol I can. I go, they're not gonna come, I mean, I'm gonna have a probation violation. I'm gonna have a warrant.

• 3:05:26Speaker 02

  But you think they're gonna extradite me on a misdemeanor warrant, you know, so. Um, and I moved to San Diego and joined the Mongols there. And then in October of two thousand and eight is when that Operation Black Rain that I talked about concluded and everybody got raided. Every, like every house in Oregon got raided. Like I, I woke up to a text, twenty texts. Are you okay? I was like, what? Was there an earthquake or something? And just like out of the movies, man, I turned on the TV and it's like Mongols Motorcycle Club, national raids and a show and SWAT teams going in houses and all these Mongols in handcuffs. And I'm thinking, well, fuck, I have a warrant peeking out the window. Um, and I stayed up in the Yucca Valley Mountains with my aunt for another month or so, and then I drove home and turned myself in. And, uh, did two months and then for about

• 3:06:11Speaker 02

  that whole year, man, I'd be out for a couple of months and get caught hanging out, go back for a couple of months. And every time I went back was a twenty-three and a half hour day lockdown. And that kind of life-changing moment for me was the last time I got, went in there, one of the guards said, hey, man, I lost the bet. And I go, what do you mean? You know? And he goes, I bet the other guys, you wouldn't be back here because he goes, you're not like these guys. And I remember just looking around the jail and nothing against the people that are there, but I was like, I didn't feel like I was a criminal. I was there for violating probation, but I wasn't, I wasn't a drug dealer. You know what I mean? I was like, I, you're right. I don't belong here. And I was getting really tired and burnt out of this. That was my life, been in and out of jail, in and out of jail. And I was trying to think, what is something I can do

• 3:06:52Speaker 02

  as a career, you know, what can I do to, to break this cycle of going in and out of jail? And there was a Mongol out of Hollywood chapter named Richie Rich, who had his PhD in clinical psychology. He looks like he just walked off the prison yard. He's a big dude, blasted neck tattoo and great shape. And he was involved in an incident with the Hells Angels and Mongols in Sturgis where Hells Angel got stabbed. He, he wasn't, he didn't do it, but he was around there. So he got fired for being involved. And this dude's a clinical psychologist, right? And this is two thousand and eight, two, yeah, two thousand eight, two thousand nine. And he goes, man, I'm having a hard time finding a job after that. He goes, I can't find anything that pays more than a hundred. He goes, everything they're offering me only pays a hundred a year. And to me, especially back then, I was like, that's your problem? I want to have that problem.

• 3:07:36Speaker 02

  And you know, by now I've got Mongols tattooed huge on the back of my head. I got felony. Now I'm on probation, you know, probation. And I was like, what's, what's a field that I can get into? Where I could help others, give back? Because I always wanted to be a teacher, but I couldn't once I got my felony. And I said, I'm gonna start in drug and alcohol counseling. So I went to school, I got my associate's degree in drug and alcohol counseling. Then I stayed because I fell in love with psychology. I went to Whittier College in Los Angeles for a while and then went, came back to Oregon and I completed my bachelor's degree in social behavioral studies. And then in two thousand and seventeen, I got my master's degree in social work.

• 3:08:09Speaker 02

  And at my last, last semester of graduate school, I had to do an internship. And the internship I really wanted, and the internship I interviewed for and got was to be a counselor at the Oregon Youth Authority for the kids that were in, in jail. I was really excited about it and I was getting ready to start. And they gave me, I did the interview and they said I was hired and they gave me this like information and I had to go, go to this address for training on these four days or whatever it was. So I wake up in the morning, I'm dressed up, I'm excited, I follow the GPS. I pull into the parking lot and it's the fucking Oregon State Police Academy. It's where everyone from the youth authority gets trained, even the counselors.

• 3:08:48Speaker 02

  So I end up calling my wife, her girlfriend at the time, but it's my wife and, and I said, man, I know I have a little bit of ego, but maybe no one here knows who I am, right? I get out of the car and the cop stops dead in his tracks and stares at me. And now, looking back, I know it was the Oregon State Chief of Police. Saw me walking in. I was even told, and I don't know if it's true or not, that they were teaching a class about me somewhere, you know, about the Mongols in Oregon, somewhere in those halls. So when I would get out of the class to take a leak, it was like someone farted, you know, like everyone just stopped and stared at me. So I got pulled out of class really quick. I got, uh, accused of infiltrating and they, they thought that the, the government's perspective was that I was, I went to school for eight years and spent a hundred fifty thousand dollars at school so that I could go recruit kids for my gang of the youth authority.

• 3:09:32Speaker 02

  You know, fifteen and sixteen year olds that don't ride motorcycles, I'm gonna waste all my time to do that. So they fired me. Well, I found that to be unconstitutional. I think it was just, I explained to them, like I would explain to anyone that my history in the club and my background is what I thought would make me a good therapist for kids. And, um, so I filed the lawsuit against the state of Oregon for, for, against the youth authority for wrongful discrimination and I won. But when I won, again, it's all, I won a thousand and one dollars, you know? That one dollar, so everyone always remembers. But, um, you know, it wasn't a paid internship. There was no monetary value. They paid the attorney fees and the thousand bucks. But it was all over the paper. And at the same time, I just fell in love with jujitsu and found jujitsu.

• 3:10:15Speaker 02

  I was ten years into the club by now. I was, I was overseeing all of the Northwest and all of that estate, out of, out of country chapters. I'd helped start Australia. Like I was, I had a lot on my plate. Um, you know, my, two years ago, my fiance had left and now I'm dating Ashley. Like, you know, it's just, my life had changed a lot. And when I really, really got, right before I fell in love with jujitsu, my, all my buddies were doing jujitsu. And so I was like, sure, I want to do something everyone else is doing. So I started doing Kramagah, my first night class. And I walk in and, you know, it's pretty law enforcement heavy activity. And so there's a lot of cops in there. And all I could think is, hey, listen, if I'm good at martial arts and, and I don't like you and you come to my gym, I'm probably just gonna beat you up. So I was like, yeah, worst case, they're gonna kick my ass or maybe they're gonna get, try and get to know me.

• 3:10:57Speaker 02

  But instead they went to the police union and made this big deal since I had the victims of my crime or law enforcement. Um, and I got kicked out of the gym until I couldn't train there. So then I started training at jujitsu and I fell in love with jujitsu and was traveling for jujitsu and I was down in Los Angeles training with, um, Orlando Sanchez, rest in peace, he passed away recently, but he, he was a friend of the Mongols. And he was an ADCC medalist and a big, big name in jujitsu. And because I was in the club, I was getting free lessons with him and training with him all the time. And at that gym, I met these guys from a, a team called Pedago submission fighting, a small team out of Illinois. And at the time, they were a very unknown, small team, but they were pumping out world champions. These guys were living at, living on the mats. Most of them came from nothing. They were each other's family. And it reminded me of everything

• 3:11:43Speaker 02

  of punk rock and being in the bands and traveling, being on tour. So every, you know, it just, I was like, this is, this is awesome. I can resonate with this. Like these dudes, they weren't like the high-end gym that had the money and the rich kids there. These were all kids that were, you know, they were training for free, but they were living on the mat, but they were winning tournaments and they were kicking ass. And I was like, man, as much as I love jujitsu, I want to get into it. I'm gonna train, I want to train with the best. And at Orlando's gym, you know, I was beating a lot of these guys, you know, obviously at my like age group and stuff, but it was still a new, new blue belt or new white belt, but I'd grown up wrestling and so I had to kind of advantage. Everyone on the Pedago submission fighting team had beat my ass, dude. And I'm talking like submitted me six times in one round. And so I was like, hell yeah, that's where I want to be, you know? So I went home, I'm trying to find a job and I can't because of all this stuff that's going on the paper.

• 3:12:29Speaker 02

  So I started talking to my wife about maybe moving out there, trying to start fresh. I'd also considered kind of stepping away from the club because there was no Mongols in the Midwest. There was two members in Kansas City chapter and one chapter in Indiana. So essentially there was no Mongols in the Midwest. There definitely wasn't any in Oregon, I mean, in Illinois. So I could go out there and I would still be somewhat involved in that club, but I wouldn't have to be as active, you know, kind of take a break. I could really focus on jujitsu and then getting into my field of work. So you, you.

• 3:12:55Shawn Ryan?

  You haven't done much social work or therapy sessions up to this point.

• 3:13:00Speaker 01

  No, I was.

• 3:13:01Shawn Ryan?

  Just a little bit with the kids and then.

• 3:13:03Speaker 01

  I'd I'd done some internships working like advocating for the homeless community and stuff like that.

• 3:13:07Shawn Ryan?

  Did you like doing it?

• 3:13:08Speaker 01

  Social work, the advocate for homeless community was difficult. Um, I'd done some drug and alcohol counseling, which I ended up down the road, not caring for, because a lot of my guys were court ordered and didn't want change. But it wasn't until I got to Illinois that I really just started doing like traditional mental health therapy, come sit on my couch and talk. And then I was doing um perpetrators, domestic violence, counsel counseling, which I fell in love with. That was really cool. But my wife was about to start Oregon State University for her master's degree in dietetics and nutrition. And as it turned out, SIU had a dietetics nutrition program. And it's right by where I wanted to move. So we decided to, we were together two years. I can't believe I talked to her and picking up and moving across the car. One year and we picked up and moved across the country.

• 3:13:51Speaker 01

  Um, packed the dogs and stuff in two cars and drove out there sight unseen and rented a house and I started training and she finished, she went to school and I started doing therapy. And um.

• 3:14:01Shawn Ryan?

  Going to therapy or.

• 3:14:03Speaker 01

  No, I was, I started, um, I was started working in social work and being a therapist. And I was really heavily focused on jujitsu and and I had talked to our national P little Dave about retiring and from the club and he said, no, just. Just go out there and you can show up to what you want. You can be as active as you want. Um, but you don't, you know, you don't have to be along you. I was in the club's mother chapter by then, national governing, so I didn't have to, I didn't have to have a chapter near me.

• 3:14:30Speaker 01

  Um, but man, it didn't take long. I was out there and and Heath Pedego from Pedego submission fighting, the coach. His brother Randy Pedego had grown up doing MMA and he's the one got Heath into it, but he had just bought a bike. And he was this local legend in that area, this tough guy and and a little crazy. And me and him lifted weights at the same gym. And so he introduced himself and he goes, yeah, you know, I know, you know, you train with my brother. And he goes, if you ever want to start a chapter out here, a little prospect. And he walked off. I was like, well, shit. And I still wasn't, I still wasn't necessarily in my mind, but there was a group of guys from this hardcore crew called BDC that were in Alton and St. Louis area. And they were friends with the Spokane Mongols. So the Spokane Mongols were calling me, hey, since you're out there, we got this great group of guys. They want to hang out.

• 3:15:12Speaker 01

  Well, I didn't have friends really outside of jujitsu. So now I'm hanging out with these guys and one was tattooed or something, getting tattooed and they were awesome. It's so much fun to hang out with. And then they approached me and said, hey, we want to be Mongols. And I had this kind of conflicting moment where just because I didn't want to be in anymore, should I stop other people from being in? And I mean, looking back, the answer might have been yes, but at the, at the moment, you know, the blinder is on, I'm in the club. Um, and so I said, let's go. And uh, like I said, when I started there, there was two guys in Kansas City. So it was only guys in Missouri. No one in Illinois, one chapter in Indiana and none in Tennessee. When I left that area, we had four chapters in Missouri, two in Illinois, five in Indiana and one in Tennessee.

• 3:15:54Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 3:15:55Speaker 01

  I spent some time growing the chapter out there, which created a lot of conflict with a lot of other clubs.

• 3:16:01Speaker 01

  And then, um, yeah, I spent my time out there before I ended up leaving the club.

• 3:16:06Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 3:16:09Speaker 01

  Well, and in two thousand.

• 3:16:10Shawn Ryan?

  Ever in a million fucking years that I think, oh, you one percent biker gang dude would become a therapist. Inside the fucking club.

• 3:16:19Speaker 01

  Yeah. And like I said, I wasn't the only one, you know, Richie Richie, I think still an active member as far as I know. And he's got a PhD in clinical psychology. I mean, that was one of the main reasons.

• 3:16:28Shawn Ryan?

  Did you ever do, do therapy for the club member?

• 3:16:31Speaker 01

  I mean, not traditional therapy, but like I said, uh, have said before is that I got to this point. So, you know, now that I'm in this leadership position, this is when I got to the point where we, I, I was able to institute like these guys working every, you know, the workout rules and um, I mean, we had that in the Northwest too, but it was later on when I had this authority. So in the Midwest, as I'm, I'm creating all these chapters. So as I get, you know, it's following the club's bylaws and stuff, but I also was able to kind of institute my own program, right? And so this was my opportunity to start doing these more positive things than I wanted to do. And one of the big things that I did do was in opening up man to man communication, man, sit in a church and how do you feel about that? Or you know what I mean? Those types of things and seems counterintuitive to a bunch of alpha males, but man, I'm telling you, the guys loved it.

• 3:17:16Speaker 01

  And now instead of just going to the bars, we're hanging out at the gym, we're lifting weights together, we're doing jujitsu together. I know before I left Oregon, man, we bought wrestling match and we had them down on the clubhouse and we'd have our meetings and then we'd all fight and do jujitsu. And so it's like, we weren't just drinking at the bar, we were like creating these bonds, doing other activities that were positive and had a positive influence. On top of that, now the members, instead of that uh, adage of these beer bellied, out of shape bikers, man, everyone's in good shape. You know, we're training, most of the guys at least know how some basic fight experience. Um, I got in a stick and knife fighting and was teaching some of the guys that. So it was like, especially in the Midwest, when I told her, like, we all voted, the, the, the whole region, I had them all vote on everyone had to work out and there would always be, you know, that the old timer that goes, oh, I need to work out my trigger finger or whatever. And I go, cool.

• 3:18:01Speaker 01

  Show me you're going to the range three days a week. Show me what you're training that three days a week. Or the, the old guy that's not in great shape. Cool. Go walk at the park three days a week, but do something active. And I really saw that the changed it. I mean, if you go like the Mongols ever will, we have to have meetings, our church once a week. If you run out of things to talk about once a week, what do people do? They start talking about other people and then there's drama. But if, if we had church and we had nothing to talk about, we'd all go lift together or we do jujitsu together. So we're still getting that weekly face to face time, but we're doing positive things. And I noticed the more people are lifting and training, the less people are partying. And the less people are partying, the less drama there was. And so there was all this cool, positive things coming out of it, you know, positive outcomes. And it was, it was really, really cool for a while.

• 3:18:46Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. Man, that's interesting.

• 3:18:50Shawn Ryan?

  Very interesting. Why did you wind up leaving the club?

• 3:18:54Speaker 01

  So there's a few factors to it. Our national P little Dave had just gotten thrown out of the club over allegations of being a, a federal informant, which he wasn't. And he later went to trial and was proven that he wasn't. Not a shred of paperwork, but he had had infidelity and um, his wife called him when he was drinking and and kind of set him up for some statements that made him look bad.

• 3:19:18Speaker 01

  And, you know, was used against him as a political move. By now I'd been in 15 years. I had, when I first joined, there wasn't a lot of out of state chapters. By now, and I didn't start all the out of state chapters, I'm not saying that, but by now the Mongols had grown all over. And when I first came in, like that guy junior I was telling you about from California was supposed to be in charge of Oregon. But he didn't know the politics of the other clubs there, you know, the history of other clubs. He didn't even know half the members. So I was like, that doesn't make sense. So as the club grew and I got into positions of leadership, I developed this program called the regional rep program where like, for example, someone like me, someone that started in that area, been there the whole time, gets elected to oversee the region to make sure everyone's following the same rules, the protocol. And then they're the ones that answer to mother chapter. So essentially you're like a liaison from other chapter, you're a part of mother chapter.

• 3:20:03Speaker 01

  You're not the national boss, but you're kind of the in between, right? Because now say you got to sit down with other clubs in that area. It's not some guy from LA coming up and sitting down with some club from Oregon. It's some local that knows the history, knows the people. And so I developed that program and we kind of rolled it, well, we rolled it off around the world eventually, but it rolled across the country. And then when I was telling you about that support club, the Raiders,

• 3:20:27Speaker 01

  I developed a pro, a program. So they weren't, they weren't their own independent club. And each one of them had to, was tied to a Mongol chapter. So it was really, it turned out to be like you said before, more of a farm team where a lot of these guys joined the Raiders thinking they didn't, they didn't want to be one percenter, didn't have the time. And the more time they were doing it, they're like, this is all the same shit. I might as well be a Mongol. So by now there's a lot of Mongols that came from this program that I had started too. So politics are involved. There's a new national P, but they have elections are coming up. And a lot of people start saying, well, moot should run. And I'd said a hundred times I wasn't interested. And, and what I used to tell people is at the next all members meeting, stand up and say, raise your hand if you've ever been a national P. And I go, not one hand's going to be raised because you either get kicked out of the club or you go to prison. That's, that's not how I want to leave this club.

• 3:21:13Speaker 01

  And, and at a president's meeting before that, someone had asked, can you be a president if you live? Because there was always this idea that you had to live in Southern California to be a president, because at the, for the most part, at back then at least, most of the club was California centric, the majority of the club was in California. And at that time, they said, no, you can be a president from anywhere. Then they took a inventory of how many members were in the country and they realized that there was more out of state than there was in state of California. And then little Dave goes on this national podcast to, you know, defend his, clear his name. And it was just about him and, and his career, his name. But the, the host had asked him like, what would, what do you think should be done um, that would help the Mongols? And he said, they should have a new president, someone from like Oregon and Missouri.

• 3:21:56Shawn Ryan?

  So you can imagine. Singling you out?

• 3:21:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, I know. He says it wasn't intentional. Um, but you can imagine the target that put on my back. So our next national run was Miami, which ended up being the very last national run I went to before I left. And I'm there and I have everyone there telling me, you know, you can't be president, you know, you can't run. I know, I know. They come up at the national meeting with a rule, hey, does everyone know there's a rule? You have to live in LA. Like I was, even as much as I expressed, I didn't want to be it. That was a threat. So I go back to the Midwest and here I, you know, I'm overseeing these five states and all of a sudden I get a text message or a text message that goes out to the regional representatives that says, you know, so and so from California is in charge of Tennessee now. And I go, wait, what? And they go, oh, no, no, it's both of you are doing it. And then oh, so and so from California are in charge of Indiana now. So they were trying to take away, take away my influence, right?

• 3:22:44Speaker 01

  So I saw the writing on the walls to that. But the big piece was, you know, when I started up there in, in Missouri, it was the galloping goose, might as well. They were like the gypsy jokes of Oregon. They said, we couldn't be there, there's going to be issues. And then when it started in Illinois, it was the outlaws. And um, at this time, two people close to me were murdered, you know, um, one of them, he was the president of the Southern Illinois outlaws at the time. And when, when I first lived out there and him and I developed a really good relationship and we got really close. And he'd been thrown out of the outlaws and he kept hitting me up, wanting to be a Mongol. And we were still had pretty good relationships, the outlaws then. And we had an agreement, we wouldn't take each other's members. And so I told him, hey, dude, I'd love to have you, but unfortunately we have this rule. And on top of that,

• 3:23:27Speaker 01

  they say he was thrown out for drug use and I don't like excessive drug use.

• 3:23:33Speaker 01

  And so if that was the case, I wouldn't have wanted him anyways. But at this time, the only other club in the country that was accepting ex outlaws was the pagans. And I knew a guy from jujitsu that I did trained with that was starting pagans chapters around the country and I put the two of them together. And he is showing the P joins the pagans. He starts doing a chapter in Marion of the pagans. And some of them are other were ex outlaw guys or out bad outlaw guys. And we had this run coming up on a Saturday to like, because by now things the outlaws are getting pretty tense. And so we figured, well, us and the pagans will ride around together to show that we're united, you know, kind of show this united front. And he calls me Friday night that he's outside working on his bike. He hangs up the phone. Someone pulls up and shoots him like 14 times.

• 3:24:17Speaker 01

  And he gets killed the day before our ride.

• 3:24:20Shawn Ryan?

  Damn.

• 3:24:21Speaker 01

  At this, shortly thereafter that I get visited by the FBI. They say they have credible information from an informant that there's a threat on my life. And apparently some member of the outlaws was saying things like, oh, we got tug. We're getting mooch next. And, and I'm going to be very clear that I don't believe the outlaws killed tug. But at the time that was what it looked like or the speculation. And, um.

• 3:24:43Shawn Ryan?

  Do you know who killed him?

• 3:24:44Speaker 01

  No, but he was involved. No one's been busted for it, but he was involved in this like stolen bike raid thing and, um.

• 3:24:53Speaker 01

  I don't want to say anything that would look bad about him, but there was things outside of club life that he was involved in that I think likely played a role.

• 3:25:03Speaker 01

  But at the same time, so I, you know, the allies had, had told us we can never have a chapter in Chicago or in Illinois. And I was very cordial with the allies for a long time. I sat down with them and did all the major meetings with them. I would go to their, I went to Taco Bowman's funeral. I was going to their, I was like sitting down with their national Ps for several years, national presidents. We were very close and I partied with all the ones in Illinois and so much so in fact that they had four chapters down there that didn't really do anything together or get along. And I was meeting with them like once every two months, helping them be more structured.

• 3:25:34Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 3:25:34Speaker 01

  Um, and so we were friends and so I had started telling them, I go, listen, a lot of the guys here in Illinois are St. Louis Mongols out of respect for them. I, but the more of us there is, I go, you know, we're partying with you guys all the time. We're all friends. We hang out. Why can't we just call it Southern Illinois Mongols? The only thing different is what says on a rocket, right? We all lived in the same place, same city. But when tug left or got thrown out, someone else took over that chapter that didn't like us. And tension started it to flare and they started saying, well, if you're a Mongol and you're in Illinois, you need to call and check in before you ride anywhere. If you're going to go to a bike night, you gotta let us know. If you're going to go to Harley, you gotta let us know. And we sure as shit weren't going to do that. We'd already been there for years.

• 3:26:15Speaker 01

  And my thing is when I was trying to talk to them about starting Southern Illinois, I still always said the same thing from the minute I moved there is I have no intention of ever starting in Chicago. Dave had told me we wouldn't. We had a lot of members that lived in Chicago, but they were running out of like Gary, Indiana. Or, you know, chapters around Chicago.

• 3:26:31Shawn Ryan?

  It's a rough town.

• 3:26:32Speaker 01

  Very rough. And they have a big chapter there, um, which the allies asked us to start because they said.

• 3:26:37Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, it's a fucking horrible.

• 3:26:38Speaker 01

  I went there twice and was like, no, I'm good. We can meet somewhere else, but these, some of these.

• 3:26:43Shawn Ryan?

  Worse than East St. Louis?

• 3:26:45Speaker 01

  That's a, that's a tough call, but it, it could be, man, it could be.

• 3:26:49Shawn Ryan?

  Did you spend a lot of time in East St. Louis?

• 3:26:50Speaker 01

  I rode through there once and said, never again.

• 3:26:52Shawn Ryan?

  Damn, I used to spend a lot of time in East St. Louis.

• 3:26:54Speaker 01

  Yeah. No, you know what?

• 3:26:55Shawn Ryan?

  It's where all the strip clubs are.

• 3:26:56Speaker 01

  There is, but the Hells Angels owned a lot of them. So I sure as shit wasn't going to get caught going to those.

• 3:27:01Shawn Ryan?

  They own those?

• 3:27:02Speaker 01

  They did, yeah.

• 3:27:04Shawn Ryan?

  Are you serious?

• 3:27:05Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 3:27:05Shawn Ryan?

  What year?

• 3:27:06Speaker 01

  I was there 2017 and left in 2024 and up until at least 23, they owned, um.

• 3:27:13Shawn Ryan?

  I didn't know there was 23 fucking strip clubs over there. I thought I'd been to all of them.

• 3:27:17Speaker 01

  No, no, I meant in twen- in twen- up until 2023. Um, but there was a bunch in that area. That's where they all are, right? Right there. Um.

• 3:27:27Speaker 01

  Shit, where was I? Strip clubs. You got me distracted.

• 3:27:33Speaker 01

  Um, anyway, so yeah, so that I had said how we wouldn't start in Chicago. We had members there. Our national P was still Little Dave at the time.

• 3:27:39Shawn Ryan?

  Gary, Indiana.

• 3:27:40Speaker 01

  Yeah. So we had that Gary chapter and a lot of the Gary guys lived in Chicago. And again, out of respect for the outlaws, we, we, they could live there, but they, their patch said Gary and they would go to their meetings in Gary and they would, if they were in Barhop, they generally do it in Gary. Same thing with Illinois guys. We went out in Mount Vernon a lot, but if we were going to go out, otherwise we either go to the outlaws clubhouse or we'd go out in St. Louis. So there's already some tension building now because this dude in Marion outlaws is talking a bunch of shit and making threats. And then there was issues between the Mongols and outlaws in Florida that were, and then Mongols and outlaws in Pennsylvania. There was like, we went from supposed to being friends to like these friction. And a member in Utah was getting in Little Dave's ear about how many members he had in Chicago that would join if we start a Chicago chapter.

• 3:28:25Speaker 01

  And he just, they kept getting on Dave about it and they kind of gave him a sales pitch that wasn't true. And Dave knew I was trying to start Southern Illinois. So Dave calls me and goes, hey, cool. Green light on Illinois. We're going to start Southern Illinois, Chicago. And I go, fuck, you know, I just told all these guys we're not, I never said we wouldn't do it, but I definitely said, I have no interest in it. We don't have any interest in it, which is pretty much saying it, right? Just in a box myself in the corner.

• 3:28:49Speaker 01

  So when we started Chicago, they started, they tried to attack a pack in them in Chicago and a couple of them got shot and ran over. And then they tried to walk into a bar and shoot at some Mongols, but they got shot. So things started going pretty heavy up there. And I was getting the blame for it because I had told these guys we weren't going to do it or, you know, at least we had no intention. And now we did it, which I understand, but also the way club works is when the boss says that you're doing it, you're doing it. And so when Dave says, hey, we're doing it, um, I was in charge of it, but it wasn't my decision. So anyways, now Dave's out. I get this threat on my life from, you know, allegedly from the outlaws. Tug gets, gets killed. And the new leaders call the outlaws and say, yeah, we didn't, we didn't authorize Chicago. That was mooch and Dave.

• 3:29:34Speaker 01

  So my own club against this club that supposedly trying to kill me, throws me under the bus.

• 3:29:40Shawn Ryan?

  Why the fuck would they do that?

• 3:29:42Speaker 01

  He's, at this point they were politicking. I mean, well, A, this new leadership, he, this dude is not very intelligent. Um, I mean, definitely not leadership material. He doesn't even like riding motorcycles, even straight up said like, he goes, yeah, I don't, I don't go, I don't go above 55 miles an hour. I'll just meet you there. I'm like, why the hell are you in a club, let alone in that? Why wouldn't you just join a gang at that point? But, I mean, I don't want to sit here in bad mouth. So I'll digress, but in Texas, I think two, 2019 or so, the national club, their big club there is the Bandidos. They've always been the only one percenter club there. I was very tight with them. I used to go to meetings and party with them often. And a bunch of their Hispanic members in leadership had defected and ended up wanting to join the Mongols.

• 3:30:24Speaker 01

  And we put it up for a vote and I had argued and voted against it, but I lost the vote and they ended up joining the, so now Bandidos and Mongols are going after it. The same guys in leadership tell the Bandidos that was mooch and Dave. So I.

• 3:30:38Shawn Ryan?

  What's it like when you're partying with these guys and you have good friends in another club, but then it comes down, there's a mandated war?

• 3:30:44Speaker 01

  It's awful, man.

• 3:30:45Shawn Ryan?

  Talk to them at all after that? Are you like, hey, like?

• 3:30:47Speaker 01

  The hard part is they stopped talking to me because all the blame got put on me.

• 3:30:53Speaker 01

  Right? So these dudes that I was tight with.

• 3:30:55Shawn Ryan?

  They feel they've been wronged by you.

• 3:30:56Speaker 01

  Yeah. And then they took it personal because I was, I was at their funerals and their, their clubhouses and we partied together, you know?

• 3:31:04Shawn Ryan?

  Gotcha.

• 3:31:04Speaker 01

  And so I went from a year before that, being able to party with almost every club in the country other than the Hells Angels, to all of them wanting to kill me. So we got that going on, but the final nail in the coffin is, and this is, this is a tough one. But when I moved it, when I first moved to Illinois, um, there was a member Dealer Dan, he'd been in a long time. He used to live in Illinois. Now he's in Oklahoma. So he knew a lot of people in that area. So when I started St. Louis, he kept going, this is his chance, right? Hey, I got guys here. I got guys here. But everyone he sent to me were, were not people that I would bring into the club. They weren't the type of people I was bringing to the club. So whenever he would suggest, I would start blowing it off after a while. And he kept going, I got these guys at Lake Ozarks. I got these guys at Lake Ozarks.

• 3:31:45Speaker 01

  And two of them were relatives of his. And I just had this picture in my mind. So I was like, no, no, no. Well, we went to this event called the Boogie, this big motorcycle rally in Indiana and the Ozark guys were going to come out and meet me. And I figured, okay, at least give them a chance to meet us. And they show up and majority of them are just awesome guys. And there was a father, son that was in it. They were the ones related to Dealer Dan. And the son was 25, 24, 25. He was in the army. I'd left the army. He was, had done MMA before most people knew what it was. He was doing jujitsu. Like we had so much in common, man, but this kid,

• 3:32:20Speaker 01

  he was like a young, bright faced, like good kid. You know what I mean? He had a lot going for him. And, uh, dude, they had so much fun that they ended up staying the night and they had nowhere to stay. So they slept on the dirt. And like, I'm in a motor, I'm in a camper and I come out and these guys are sleeping in the dirt. And, uh, I started spending time with them. I'm like, these, these are good people, man, you know? And so eventually they kept calling me and I called me and we, we did some meetings at Shady Jackson, St. Louis. And finally I said, I'll tell you what, there was no chapter for them to prospect out of. And I know that the Forest Arrow scalping goose didn't want them there. So I said, well, let's start you guys as Raiders. This, you know, the smaller club. I go, if you could sustain that chapter of the Raiders for a year, be active, support the other functions in the area and grow without getting in trouble, I'll consider making you guys all Mongols in a year.

• 3:33:08Speaker 02

  So we start the Raiders there. Things are going well. There's a lot of rumor mill with the Galloping Goose. There's some shit talking. Couple of little fistfights, but nothing major. And the Galloping Goose say, there's never going to be Mongols in this area. And so I made a bunch of phone calls and we ended up going to, uh, Lake of those arcs Bike Fest one year. One hundred and eighty motorcycles and over two hundred and ten Mongols. And keep, I had my brother came out with me and me and him are leading the pack. So remember when I said I used to ride with six guys? I had a hundred and eighty motorcycles behind me, man. There's video footage of it. It's insane.

• 3:33:39Shawn Ryan?

  There's video of it?

• 3:33:40Speaker 02

  Yeah, yeah, I'll send you some dude. It was

• 3:33:42Shawn Ryan?

  Please do.

• 3:33:43Speaker 02

  Wild. Um,

• 3:33:45Shawn Ryan?

  We'll put it up right now.

• 3:33:46Speaker 02

  That was probably the peak of my career, you know? And, uh, we made this present. It's like, hey, you say we can't be here. Look at this. And so there were still some threats made back and forth, but it finally had chilled out. And at one point, some of their leadership guys called and I talked to the, the leader there and we just kind of agreed to ignore each other. There's gonna be no beef. And, uh, I was out to eat with my chapter one night and they were at a bike night. They were, these guys were at a bike night. Like at the Bagdol Dam during the day. And the Galloping Goose showed up to try and fight him. And I didn't, normally they would have to tell me they were going to something like this. And I, I don't know if he knew I would have said no. But they went and the Goose were outside. They were going bar to bar looking for him.

• 3:34:31Speaker 02

  And they come in to the bar where the Mongols are and they all buy beer. So they have bottles and they stand outside and wait for him. So Blaine decides, you know what? This isn't the time or place, like essentially like a what would Mooch do? Let's leave and deal with it another time. So they all walk out and he's all the way up to his bike and had turned his bike on when they attacked someone in the back.

• 3:34:52Speaker 02

  So he runs up there, starts fighting. He starts hitting us with his helmet. Gunshots start going off. And he gets shot. Killed on the spot. So I'm, I'm out to lunch or I'm out to dinner with my chapter and I get a call from his dad and he says, Blaine's been shot. Blaine's been shot. And it was one of those moments in my head. It was just, it didn't make sense yet. You know what I mean? Sorry.

• 3:35:15Speaker 02

  But it didn't make sense. I was like, what do you mean? You know, he's okay, right? He's, he's okay. And he goes, I don't know. No one will tell us. We don't know. So I called my wife to pack me a bag. Me and my chapter grab our bags. We get in the car. We're rushing over there to see what's going on. No one's telling us anything. And we start seeing pictures on the news. And there's a body there under a tarp and his arms hanging out. And the, the wristband from the boogie is on his arm and it was Blaine. And he was, he was killed. And, uh, you know, because of decisions I made, because of a chapter I agreed to start, because I fought against my intu- intuition of letting him join. And he did. And, and that hit me heavy enough that that was it for me, man. I left shortly thereafter that.

• 3:35:56Shawn Ryan?

  I'm sorry, man.

• 3:35:57Speaker 02

  Yeah, I'm sorry. Give me a second.

• 3:36:03Speaker 02

  Sorry, man.

• 3:36:05Shawn Ryan?

  It's all good, brother.

• 3:36:08Speaker 02

  But so between that, the politics that were going on. Threats on my life. Um, I saw the writing on the walls and I saw that I was likely going to get kicked out or pushed out. So I had retired in good standings initially, which means I can keep my patch. I can keep my t-shirts, running my club stuff. I can still have contact with the club. Cause you know, I've been in fifteen years by then.

• 3:36:30Speaker 02

  And one of our members, after Blaine got killed, you can imagine that tempered, people were pretty pissed off. And one of our members was at a bar and some outlaws came in and, and they got in a fight and he beat them up. And it was,

• 3:36:44Speaker 02

  he smacked him around. He punched him a few times, but it was nothing serious. Well, the outlaw press charges. I mean, I have the paperwork to it, which that's not something we do in one percent world, but this outlaw press charges. And, uh, so this member, Mike, he's, he's facing this court case and he ends up taking a plea bargain of a three year suspended sentence. So if he gets caught hanging out the Mongols, he goes to prison for three years. So he wants to step away from the club for obvious reasons. Well, I had retired. He was supposed to be the president. The other members in that club were his brother, his coworker and best friend. And then the other guy from our gym. And then a homie that just moved in with him. That's how tight knit our chapter was. And the Mongols have a rule after black rain and everything, they had a rule that you can't leave, you can't retire unless you've been in for ten years.

• 3:37:30Speaker 02

  So these guys only been, some of them, one year, two, three years for these guys. And so they'd ask for permission to leave in good standings and then they were going to come back when Mike come, come back.

• 3:37:40Speaker 02

  I think leadership saw this as their opportunity to get rid of me. So they kept saying they're advocating for them to be in good standings. They're advocating. But then I get this phone call and they said, hey, you know, we're sorry, but the club decided those guys are out in bad standings. The rules are rules. We gotta follow the rules. They're out bad. Which means no contact, which means you can't have contact with them. And you know, uh, our homeboy just died. We went through this shit together. We started this chapter together. We were doing jujitsu together. We were working out together. And, uh, I said, well, hey, I'm not gonna lie to you guys. I'm gonna keep hanging out with these guys too. And a lot of the brothers I was tight with around the country saw it as I was taking, picking them over the club. But I, it was the principle for me, right? Like those dudes that, that I

• 3:38:24Speaker 02

  fell on my sword for and went with, I wasn't like, they're gonna be my best friends forever. I didn't know, but it was the, the principle, right? Like they're gonna throw these dudes out when this dude just damn near ruined his, could, went to prison for years over this and they're being loyal to their brother and we're gonna kick them out? So I said, well, I'm gonna keep hanging out with them. And they said, well, you know what that means? That means you're out in bad standings then. And I said, well, then so be it. And a message went out to everyone in the nation that, uh, Mooches chose to move on with his life. Um, there's no ill will, but he's on no contact.

• 3:38:55Speaker 02

  And that was it. That was the end of my club career.

• 3:38:57Shawn Ryan?

  Fuck, man.

• 3:39:00Speaker 02

  But you know what, man? Um, so it, it turned into

• 3:39:02Shawn Ryan?

  How long ago was that?

• 3:39:04Speaker 02

  That was the very beginning of twenty twenty-two.

• 3:39:07Speaker 02

  So the blessing in disguise was if I was still retired, I would have to answer to them still, follow the rules. I wouldn't be able to be on podcasts. I couldn't have wrote my book. I couldn't have been doing, definitely couldn't have been going on podcasts with Excel's Angels and trying to push this peace message and, um, I needed that shove out the door to move on. I really needed it. So it, it ended up, it ended up being a positive.

• 3:39:33Shawn Ryan?

  Do you spend a lot of time looking over your shoulder?

• 3:39:36Speaker 02

  No. Um, there's people in other clubs that still don't care for me. And that just is what it is, man. That's life. But I, I mean, you know, I, I pay attention and on the people that don't like me and, and I know where they're at, but I don't let it affect what I'm gonna do with my life.

• 3:39:54Speaker 02

  And I'm not saying that like I'm sort of badass or anything like that, but it's just, to me, it's not, I don't have beef, right? So if they want to, that's on them. But I'm not gonna let it interfere with where I go and what I do.

• 3:40:08Shawn Ryan?

  Have you processed your friend's death?

• 3:40:11Speaker 02

  Not as much as I should apparently. I mean, so I have stayed since then. I became best friends with his mom and dad. I talk to them every week. We, we talk, we hang out on vacation together. I've gotten really, really close with them. Um, his mom just is having a very tough battle with cancer right now, which is terrible. Their family's already been through enough, but, um, it brought us very, very close together. I mean, they're some of my best friends to this day.

• 3:40:38Shawn Ryan?

  Good.

• 3:40:40Shawn Ryan?

  Are you a Christian?

• 3:40:42Speaker 02

  I'm not.

• 3:40:43Shawn Ryan?

  Why? You're from an Italian family?

• 3:40:47Speaker 02

  My family is like I grew up, I was baptized Episcopalian. My fam- well, my grandpa was Christian. I suppose we're Episcopalian. We would go to church.

• 3:40:56Speaker 02

  I never found religion to an extent. I do believe

• 3:41:00Speaker 02

  I have my morals and values aligned with, with Christianity and religion for the most part. I believe in, uh, higher power, but I just am in this fundamentals of do good, be good, do unto others. And, and I really value that. And what I do like about religion, and I've seen it as a strong role is especially in this age, a lot of my friends

• 3:41:21Speaker 02

  have found religion and it's put them on a positive path. It's helped improve their lives. It's helped them become better people. Because it gave us something to believe in that aligned with their morals and values, if that makes sense.

• 3:41:30Shawn Ryan?

  What do you think happens when you die?

• 3:41:35Speaker 02

  I don't know, man. I, I, I mean, I grew up saying nothing, you know? I thought that's it.

• 3:41:40Shawn Ryan?

  You think it's just lights out and that's it?

• 3:41:42Speaker 02

  Yeah, I mean, that's, that was my thought for years. I don't know where I'm at with it at this point.

• 3:41:49Shawn Ryan?

  You don't know where you're at?

• 3:41:51Speaker 02

  Yeah. I mean, I mean, like I said, I've always just been a, that's it. And, uh,

• 3:41:54Shawn Ryan?

  So are you exploring?

• 3:41:57Speaker 02

  Not necessarily. Like, so more and more of my friends have gotten into religion and I've seen it be a huge positive impact on their life. But the things that are positive are things that I already feel that are part of my life. As far as that, um, the feeling of the greater good and not yourself and giving yourself to others and giving back and helping and those types of things, you know? But as far as afterlife, it's not something I really consider. Or haven't considered.

• 3:42:25Shawn Ryan?

  You haven't considered what happens after you die? Being around that much fucking death?

• 3:42:30Speaker 02

  Probably because that's why I haven't probably considered, man. I was just always in the moment.

• 3:42:35Speaker 02

  There wasn't a lot of time for reflection when you're in there, you know?

• 3:42:38Shawn Ryan?

  I do know. Cause I've been a part of shit like this. It was just legal.

• 3:42:42Speaker 02

  Yep. But yeah, I mean, I've only been out a couple of years and, uh, you know, I, I've been on this mental health mission and this mental health journey and it's exposing me to more of it. Um,

• 3:42:54Shawn Ryan?

  Are you shutting it out?

• 3:42:56Speaker 02

  No, I'm not opposed to it. You know, Mel sends his devotionals and, and some of my homies talk to me. I'm like, I'm not against it. I don't, I love what it's done for my friends, my friends that found it and it's, I've seen the positive. I love it. I'm all about it. I just don't know if it's for me only. And, and I couldn't even tell you why. I'm not sure. Cause I, maybe it's just the structure I don't like, which is funny since I'm a guy of structure, right? Um,

• 3:43:22Speaker 02

  I don't know.

• 3:43:23Shawn Ryan?

  Structure, huh? What's structure?

• 3:43:25Speaker 02

  Well, I just mean like the going to church and, uh, I guess that's it, going to church. Cause I, like I said, I feel like I already have a lot of those values and, um,

• 3:43:35Speaker 02

  I don't know. I just have a lot to consider, I guess, when it comes to that. I haven't really done a lot of reflection on it.

• 3:43:41Shawn Ryan?

  How many friends do you think you have that are dead now?

• 3:43:45Speaker 02

  Let me show you something.

• 3:43:49Speaker 02

  Beginning of my book

• 3:43:52Speaker 02

  is in memory of

• 3:43:56Speaker 02

  two full pages.

• 3:43:57Shawn Ryan?

  Friends.

• 3:43:58Speaker 02

  And this was three years ago. There's more.

• 3:44:02Shawn Ryan?

  So a lot.

• 3:44:08Shawn Ryan?

  You don't think any of those guys have visited you?

• 3:44:11Speaker 01

  I do, I do as far as the lessons they taught me and the, and the feelings. Those types of things, absolutely. Like the, the presence of the lessons I learned from them, the, the kindness that they shared or the connections that we have. I definitely feel that a hundred percent. I don't know. And you know, same like my little brother that passed a long time ago, you know, there's. I just don't know if I've equated it to like their presence is here or it's something I carry with me and in me because I learned it from them or that's something they, that impression they left on me.

• 3:44:49Shawn Ryan?

  You gotta dive in, man.

• 3:44:51Speaker 01

  What's that?

• 3:44:51Shawn Ryan?

  You gotta dive in.

• 3:44:53Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:44:54Shawn Ryan?

  I'm sure there's a ton of shit that you're not telling me.

• 3:44:59Speaker 01

  In relation to what?

• 3:45:00Shawn Ryan?

  All the shit you've done.

• 3:45:01Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. There's only so much time, right? And that, yeah.

• 3:45:05Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, I get it. I know you can't go into everything.

• 3:45:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:45:08Shawn Ryan?

  Especially since it was only, what, four years ago?

• 3:45:11Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:45:12Shawn Ryan?

  But.

• 3:45:19Shawn Ryan?

  If there was, if you do believe, if you think there's even an inkling of Jesus or God or heaven or hell, where do you think you're going?

• 3:45:32Speaker 01

  Good question. Good question. I, I, I don't have a necessary inkling of heaven and hell and I.

• 3:45:43Speaker 01

  For me, I see it as more of a way to enforce morality, social control, but more the enforcement of reality, of morality. If you don't do these things, here's the bad things that can happen. And the, the thing I like about my friends that have found it in the good stuff is that they're being forgiven and moving on and, and a lot of people have to unload those things to feel better. And I I don't mean that to be disrespectful. I'm just trying to like process this out loud, but I've seen it be good for people. I just

• 3:46:13Speaker 01

  have a hard time believing in hell.

• 3:46:18Speaker 01

  Especially with shit I've gone through here.

• 3:46:29Shawn Ryan?

  So then you, you got your masters?

• 3:46:31Speaker 01

  I do, from Christian college.

• 3:46:33Shawn Ryan?

  From Christian college.

• 3:46:37Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, the irony.

• 3:46:39Speaker 01

  I figured you'd like that.

• 3:46:40Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. Where at?

• 3:46:42Speaker 01

  George Fox University.

• 3:46:46Speaker 01

  It's actually where I got my, finished my undergrad too.

• 3:46:52Shawn Ryan?

  Have you ever looked at psychedelic therapy?

• 3:46:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, and I'm a strong proponent. I've never done it. I'd love to, but I'm a strong proponent of it. Uh, one of my friends was a, was actually a forced recon Marine as well and then became a Mongol. And got into addiction from the club and went through a lot, got out. And, um, now advocates for for that type of therapy. Uh, well, he, he's doing psilocybin mainly because he's doing stuff in the United States, but he's really advocating it for vets. And treatment like that. And I've, I've, you know, as a therapist, I've read the studies and I, and I know people have done it and that the outcomes have been amazing. I mean, one of my close friends that's, was also Marine and was, uh, a Mongol. He was probably one of the grouchiest, meanest people I met, man. And it actually took him to meet Mel back in March.

• 3:47:36Speaker 01

  And I was like, dude, what has changed? Like he was peppy and happy. And he went to Mexico and did one of those treatments and said it, it helped him put his life into focus and, uh, some was more confident with himself and he was, I mean, it changed him in the most positive of way, the amazing way.

• 3:47:52Shawn Ryan?

  You talked to Cody about it? Cody Alfred?

• 3:47:55Speaker 01

  And I've seen him posting stuff about it, but I would never like sat down and talked about it. But I'm all for it. I think it's great.

• 3:48:01Shawn Ryan?

  I've done it.

• 3:48:02Speaker 01

  I'd love to do it.

• 3:48:03Shawn Ryan?

  Changed my whole fucking life, man.

• 3:48:07Speaker 01

  Yeah, I bet. I mean, I bet it's awesome. And I feel like, uh, the stuff I have to process would be great, but you know, there's always barriers to treatment like that when it's expensive. You gotta go to the country and there's things like that where it's like. It's that, that's social services in a nutshell, right? Like there's a lot of people that can benefit from great services, but it's getting them connected to the services. That's the challenge.

• 3:48:26Shawn Ryan?

  Do you want to do it?

• 3:48:27Speaker 01

  I'd love to do it.

• 3:48:28Shawn Ryan?

  It's a financial thing?

• 3:48:29Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 3:48:32Speaker 01

  I'm a social worker, bro. I don't.

• 3:48:34Shawn Ryan?

  What if I get you a slot?

• 3:48:36Speaker 01

  Let's go. I love it, man.

• 3:48:41Shawn Ryan?

  All right. I think I can probably get that done.

• 3:48:44Speaker 01

  That'd be amazing, man. That'd be, that would be amazing.

• 3:48:47Shawn Ryan?

  You can go to the same place I went. MBO.

• 3:48:50Speaker 01

  Okay. That'd be awesome, man.

• 3:48:52Shawn Ryan?

  I begain.

• 3:48:53Speaker 01

  That's why, that's what, uh, a lot of the new stuff, the studies are coming out that I've read about.

• 3:49:00Shawn Ryan?

  I think if you do that, you'll realize there's a lot more after that.

• 3:49:03Speaker 01

  Yeah. They said I'm open.

• 3:49:08Shawn Ryan?

  Can I give you something?

• 3:49:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 3:49:28Shawn Ryan?

  It's easy.

• 3:49:28Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:49:29Shawn Ryan?

  It's called the Jesus Calling. One thing a day, takes about sixty seconds.

• 3:49:36Speaker 01

  Okay. I give you my word, I'll read it.

• 3:49:39Shawn Ryan?

  Just give it a shot.

• 3:49:41Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:49:41Shawn Ryan?

  See if it, see if it speaks to you.

• 3:49:43Speaker 01

  Absolutely. I'll let you know. I appreciate it. Thank you very much.

• 3:49:45Shawn Ryan?

  You're welcome, man. And I'm serious. I'll talk to Trevor at MBO and I will see if I can get you a slot.

• 3:49:52Speaker 01

  That'd be amazing, man. Thank you so much.

• 3:49:54Shawn Ryan?

  You'll go?

• 3:49:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, so a hundred percent. I'm all in.

• 3:49:59Shawn Ryan?

  Fucking A, man.

• 3:50:00Speaker 01

  It'd be great.

• 3:50:02Shawn Ryan?

  So tell me about being a therapist.

• 3:50:05Speaker 01

  It's been incredible, man. And, and, um, like I said, so initially I'd started, one of the things I really resonated with that first was I was doing, um, uh, their group therapy for perpetrators, domestic violence. And a moment I will never forget is it was me and a woman co-facilitator. And you know, essentially we're breaking these generational habits and that learned behaviors and all sorts of cultural stuff, right? And we're sitting in this room with all these guys, they're court ordered. And the topic is of possessiveness or control over how a woman dresses. And this guy was like, yeah, I would never let my woman go out and dress that short. And he looks at me, he's like, right, brother? Cause he thought I was in the class. And I was like, nah, man, you know? And then class went on, whatever. Six months later, he's getting ready to go out and a new guy comes in.

• 3:50:50Speaker 01

  The new guy says damn near the same thing. And this guy goes, that's not cool, bro. Yes. And I remember being at Walmart and a guy from class going, babe, babe, this is the guy I was telling you about. And then I was at the other grocery store. Dude was with his homies, like, bro, bro, this is the dude I was telling you about. And like, so seeing

• 3:51:07Speaker 01

  the positive outcomes and the change, like not only did it change his life, but obviously the women that come into contact with him really, really motivated me. And then I got into doing, uh, therapy I do now with, with at-risk youth and, um, I do multi-systemic therapy. So I work with kids from eleven to seventeen that are at risk of being, being placed outside the home. And so either correctional settings or foster care, with the goal of keeping the youth in the home. And although it's called therapy, I'm not really sitting down with the youth and asking about how he feels or even addressing his trauma. What we look into is what are all the fact systematic factors that are driving this behavior? So for example, say the youth smoking weed, which is this easy example.

• 3:51:47Speaker 01

  We'll find out where's his access? What's his supervision like at home? Like where's he smoke? Is he being supervised? Does he go to his friend's house? Does his mom know that, does the caregiver know where the, who the peers are, how he's paying for it? And then we meet with the parents and we develop these interventions such as rewards and consequences, increased supervision, support. So if mom's at work, who's watching the youth? If youth is going to friend's house, does mom know who friends are? They talk to the parents. So we, we teach these parenting skills, so to speak, to parents so that when we're no longer in the home, they can continue this. And we've seen amazing, amazing results. Um, it's, it's you know, it's a scientific approach to it. So the evidence is, is, is supporting as long as we adhere to the model. Um, and it, it's really,

• 3:52:27Speaker 01

  I mean, it's powerful, man. You know, seeing these kids are, cause I know firsthand, right? What it's like to be on paper and be involved in the system and having a hard time getting out. Um, and so teaching these positive skills to both parents and, and kids, because a lot of these parents are, are in this day and age, especially in the area I live, that's a lot of single parent households. And the single parent is working a ton and you know, maybe didn't have, um, good role models growing up in their lives. So not knowing how to parent. So these, all of these different things where we're going in and we're, because it's, it's an intensive service where we meet them in the home. They don't come to us. And we go two, three times, sometimes four times a week. We only see five or six clients at a time. So it's a very intense and it's for a hundred and twenty days.

• 3:53:07Shawn Ryan?

  A hundred and twenty days?

• 3:53:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. So anywhere between the highs, we can go up to a hundred and fifty, but it's generally the average is a hundred and twenty days of us in the home.

• 3:53:16Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 3:53:17Speaker 01

  And seeing, cause that way, you know, when we say, okay, here, let's develop say a bedtime nighttime routine. So, cause the youth is not sleeping or you know, not waking up in the morning. So, okay, well, what's access to? They have the computer or their phone or you know, whatever, all the stuff. We look at it. We'll do it in the home. Like if they say, you know, Johnny won't wake up at seven AM to go to school. I've tried this, this and this. So I cool. Next session's at seven AM and I'll be there with you when you try and wake him up, see what happens. And now if we're there and we see it, we can see what's driving that behavior, right? And then we could systematically attack which driver we want to do, what interventions we're going to do. And essentially a lot of those interventions will generalize to the other behavior. So once those things increase, sometimes, you know, leaving without permission might get better or the, the back talk or verbal aggression, all of these things. And so, um,

• 3:54:00Speaker 01

  that's been really cool. So I'm a clinical supervisor of that now. Um, so I don't normally see clients anymore, but I oversee two teams. So anywhere from three to six therapists when I do that. And I help them develop the treatment plans. And then I also shadow, go to the home and make sure they're adhering to the model. And then, um, another thing I started about a year ago.

• 3:54:18Shawn Ryan?

  You see yourself in a lot of these kids when you were?

• 3:54:22Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah, for sure. I mean, yes and no. So like, you know, there's that adage that people would join gangs wherever because of poor family life. And I never, I had an amazing family, you know? And a lot of what I see is, is single family households, um, and different generations, different cultures. You know, I'm on the East Coast versus back in Oregon. But a lot of things are the same. And what I see a lot is that the role of pro-social activities, sports, clubs. The role that plays in keeping the youth out of trouble and teaching them positive lessons where there's so many budget cuts, funding or these rural areas that don't even have, you know, to have the, the, the means to do this. So there's, there isn't a lot of sports or after school programs or all these things that I had as a kid, right?

• 3:55:04Speaker 01

  It's like schools out and kid goes home until eight o'clock when mom gets home and who knows what's happening in between. And they're not getting this pro-social activities. They're not having these positive peers in the same environment. You know what I mean? Um, and so they're often left unsupervised with, and what do you think teenagers do when they're left unsupervised, man? Usually not good shit, right? Um, so there's those similarities that I think you see with a lot of youth.

• 3:55:27Speaker 01

  But what I do see is what it's like to be of a system, to be on probation and, uh, the pushback against authority. Once you get there, you know, all those things that come with it.

• 3:55:36Shawn Ryan?

  I bet they can relate with you a lot.

• 3:55:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. I mean, that was my argument from the very first day with that Oregon Youth Authority is that, you know, part of therapy is we don't self disclose, but I don't have to tell them my story for them to look at me and go, this guy gets it. You know, and that's been a big strong suit. I mean, it's been awesome. Um, and then I started this thing called Devil's Abbott Kid, which is a right now it's just a one, one day a week men's group. It's Monday nights. But a lot of the men that come to us, they're either former motorcycle club members, military members, some of them have been in prison. And we really address this piece, which we I could talk to about, we also do on the patch podcast of when someone devote devotes the majority of their adult life to something. And they leave it, whether it's a club or a gang or the military, even law enforcement.

• 3:56:23Speaker 01

  The struggle of finding your identity again, who are you? What's your purpose? Right? What's your goals? And helping people align with that by hearing the stories of others that have been through similar situations, by hearing what worked for other people or what didn't work. So it's like this group collective of, you know, helping each other and then another big, you know, we do, we have, we'll do anger management stuff to some extent through that way, emotional regulation and, you know, the parts of not letting other people control your emotions, right? Like uh, being confident with who you are as a person, knowing who you are. So you don't care what other people think, like all these topics we we discuss on. Um, and that's been really, really powerful and the bonds that I've built in there and the changes I've seen in people there has been something where I definitely want to grow that program and see what I can do about getting

• 3:57:07Speaker 01

  getting to getting through to more people with that.

• 3:57:12Shawn Ryan?

  It's fucking awesome, dude.

• 3:57:14Speaker 01

  Thanks, man. Yeah, it's been, uh, it's been very rewarding, but it's just been really cool. You know, the connections I made, the, the, the people I've met, especially when we're going through these journeys together, like the men's group and stuff like

• 3:57:26Speaker 01

  far outweighs the brotherhood that I thought I missed leaving the club.

• 3:57:31Shawn Ryan?

  Do you miss it?

• 3:57:33Speaker 01

  I don't, man. People ask me often, you miss it or would you go back? And I would be a strong note to both of those. Not in a negative way. I majority of it I enjoyed and I learned a lot of great lessons. But my, my life, my morals, my values, my life is no longer aligned with that life. I feel like I'm on a different path. And, um, like when people ask me a lot, hey, I want to join, people hit me up on social media all the time and ask questions and I try and respond to everybody when I can. And I always say, well, if you're thinking, they say, I want to join a club, you think it's good. I said, well, write down all the positives it could potentially bring to your life. How could it make your life better? And how can it make your life worse? What are the risks? And then you tell yourself if it's going to be good for you or not, because I don't want to talk anyone out of it, you know? Um, but you know, the, the risks, a lot of the times,

• 3:58:18Speaker 01

  these are guys that are in there like where I was in my mid twenties, early thirties, trying to figure out what am I going to be doing? What am I supposed to be doing? And they're like, well, you know, I'd love to be a part of something and have these brothers and it's, it's an attractive lifestyle. But if you start thinking of the risk of death, prison, you know, all the stuff that comes with it. Um, especially if you're married and you have a family, I'm not saying there's a lot of members that are good members and good husbands and have good jobs. So I'm not saying that you can't do it, but I'm saying it makes things challenging and it's an extra stress in your life and it's not for everybody.

• 3:58:52Shawn Ryan?

  Uh huh.

• 3:58:55Shawn Ryan?

  Is your wife a Christian?

• 3:58:57Speaker 01

  No.

• 3:58:58Shawn Ryan?

  No?

• 3:58:59Speaker 01

  I don't think her, I don't know. Her family's not very religious in general.

• 3:59:08Shawn Ryan?

  What's next for you?

• 3:59:11Speaker 01

  Man, so you know, I'm doing the patch podcast where, like I said, we initially were pushing the peace between motorcycle clubs, which we're still really working on. But also just helping guys that are now leaving that life. You know, I see a lot of these podcasts about motorcycle clubs. And it's ex members that get on there and they want to air their grievances and talk bad about the life and talk bad about the club. And I don't see a therapeutic process in that, right? I think it's just like validation of why they're no longer in. I want to help the guys that are ready to put it behind them and move on. And there's a member from the Hells Angels named Peewee that started this Facebook group called Brothers for Life. And it's a lot of ex members of the major clubs around there. And, you know, it's just a Facebook group, but they meet up once a year and I went to their meetup last year,

• 3:59:53Speaker 01

  which was wild. One of them asked me, so would you still got that tattoo?

• 4:00:00Speaker 01

  But, um, there was a guy on there that posted not that long ago. He was a member from Cleveland and his, I don't know if it was his blood brother or if he said brother because it was the club, but his, his brother from the Hells Angels was murdered by a Mongol. And he wrote on there, he said that his brother was murdered by cowards. And normally I think that might've triggered me because if you think, like I said before, both sides feel vindicated, right? So I, so I wrote him back and I said, well, first of all, did you just, you know, I mean, sorry for your loss, but I said, this group is for guys to put that life behind them. And it sounds like you might still have some strong feelings towards that club. I said, second only, it's terrible what happened to your brother, but we could go back and forth. I could say the same thing. I've had members murdered by cowards, right? I go,

• 4:00:45Speaker 01

  what you really need to do is take a step back and you're going to be mad at the soldiers, be mad at the war. What caused that to happen?

• 4:00:53Speaker 01

  And they sent me the longest, nicest message and now we're friends and we talk a lot because it really changed the way he thought, you know? Instead of blaming someone else or calling someone a coward or anything else, it was the situation. It was this ongoing war or people are fighting over a piece of cloth.

• 4:01:09Speaker 01

  And, and I think the more people that start to recognize that, hopefully maybe that'll help it stop, but I'm not arrogant enough to think that I'm going to be the change to make it happen. But if I can help a couple of people, man, then it'd be great.

• 4:01:20Shawn Ryan?

  I think you've already helped a lot of people, man.

• 4:01:22Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 4:01:23Shawn Ryan?

  You're welcome. You're welcome. How's your brother doing?

• 4:01:28Speaker 01

  My brother's doing good, man. My brother's doing good.

• 4:01:30Shawn Ryan?

  Is he still in?

• 4:01:32Speaker 01

  Uh, no, he retired in good standings right before me. Um, but he is in good standings. So he's in, we're not supposed to hang out together or like post pictures together because he still follows the rules of the club since he's in good standings. Um, but you know, he's on the other side of the coast. He, uh, he's got two awesome kids, his, his wife who he's been with since we were in Navajo. So 20 years now.

• 4:01:55Shawn Ryan?

  He's, he's, wow.

• 4:01:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 4:01:57Shawn Ryan?

  It worked.

• 4:01:57Speaker 01

  Yeah, yeah. She's awesome. Their kids are amazing. He, uh, he owns a house for adults with developmental disabilities. So he works with,

• 4:02:06Speaker 01

  well, I said adults with development, but yeah, he owns a group home for adults with developmental disabilities. So he works kind of in the field too, and he's helping others and yeah, he's been doing really well.

• 4:02:16Shawn Ryan?

  Good, man. Good.

• 4:02:19Speaker 01

  Life's gotten good, man. Life's been good.

• 4:02:20Shawn Ryan?

  I'm happy for you, dude.

• 4:02:22Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 4:02:22Shawn Ryan?

  You're a good person.

• 4:02:24Speaker 01

  I appreciate that.

• 4:02:26Shawn Ryan?

  My pleasure.

• 4:02:27Speaker 01

  Thanks so much for having me on, man. This has been great.

• 4:02:29Shawn Ryan?

  It was an honor.

• 4:02:32Shawn Ryan?

  I'll be praying for you, man.

• 4:02:33Speaker 01

  I appreciate it. I'll definitely read the book and let you know how I feel for sure.

• 4:02:37Shawn Ryan?

  You don't have to.

• 4:02:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, I like to follow up. It'll give me a accountability.

• 4:02:42Shawn Ryan?

  Cool. You know Mel's going to be on your ass after he sees this.

• 4:02:47Speaker 01

  I'm sure he will. I'm sure he will. He talked to me a little bit about it before I came on, so.

• 4:02:51Shawn Ryan?

  Cool. Well, Booch, it was an honor, man.

• 4:02:55Speaker 01

  Thank you so much.

• 4:02:55Shawn Ryan?

  I love the story and I know there's a lot more, but.

• 4:02:59Speaker 01

  I want to start focusing on the second half more.

• 4:03:02Shawn Ryan?

  Good for you.

• 4:03:02Speaker 01

  So I appreciate it.

• 4:03:04Shawn Ryan?

  My pleasure.

• 4:03:21Shawn Ryan?

  No matter where you're watching the Sean Ryan Show from, if you get anything out of this at all, anything, please like, comment and subscribe. And most importantly, share this everywhere you possibly can. And if you're feeling extra generous, head to Apple Podcasts and Spotify and leave us a review.