But a few belong to what the others call “outlaw clubs,” and these are the ones who–especially on weekends and holidays–are likely to turn up almost anywhere in the state, looking for action. Most of the cyclists are harmless weekend types, members of the American Motorcycle Association, and no more dangerous than skiers or skin divers. The California climate is perfect for motorcycles, as well as surfboards, swimming pools and convertibles. The film had a massive effect on thousands of young California motorcycle buffs in many ways, it was their version of The Sun Also Rises. In 1947, hundreds of them ran amok in the town of Hollister, an hour’s fast drive south of San Francisco, and got enough press to inspire a film called The Wild One, starring Marlon Brando. They usually travel in groups of ten to thirty, booming along the highways and stopping here are there to get drunk and raise hell. It also raises a question as to who are the real hell’s angels.Įver since World War II, California has been strangely plagued by wild men on motorcycles. The difference between the Hell’s Angels in the paper and the Hell’s Angels for real is enough to make a man wonder what newsprint is for. It turned out to be true, but that was another story and certainly no headliner. Several were quoted, somewhat derisively, as saying: “That rape charge against our guys is phony and it won’t stick.”
The Angels weren’t on the peninsula twenty-four hours before four of them were in jail for rape, and the rest of the troop was being escorted to the county line by a large police contingent. One of the Angels, hip enough to falsely identify himself as “Frenchy of San Bernardino,” told a reporter who came out to meet the cyclists: “We chose Monterey because we get treated good here most other places we get thrown out of town.”īut Frenchy spoke too soon. Some 300 Hell’s Angels were gathered in the Seaside-Monterey area at the time, having convened, they said, for the purpose of raising funds among themselves to send the body of a former member, killed in an accident, back to his mother in North Carolina. One was completely nude and the other had on only a torn sweater.” Then the two sobbing, near-hysterical girls staggered out of the darkness, begging for help. Two girls, aged 14 and 15, were allegedly taken from their dates by a gang of filthy, frenzied, boozed-up motorcycle hoodlums called “Hell’s Angels,” and dragged off to be “repeatedly assaulted.”Ī deputy sheriff, summoned by one of the erstwhile dates, said he “arrived at the beach and saw a huge bonfire surrounded by cyclists of both sexes. Last Labor Day weekend newspapers all over California gave front-page reports of a heinous gang rape in the moonlit sand dunes near the town of Seaside on the Monterey Peninsula.
0 kommentar(er)
