Hells Angels are moving into my area for the first time. I have a generally negative view of them, but have some friends who feel otherwise. I would love to hear your experiences related to the Angels specifically, but “1%” clubs as well.

  • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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    1 year ago

    I have a very negative view of them.

    I’ve been the victim of violence from a HA member, for no other reason than “he decided to sit down, extremely drunk and high, at our camp at a music festival”. After offering him a beer and having a chit chat, hoping he would lose interest, he decided to start groping a 16 year old. I was the unlucky person chosen to ask him to leave. That didn’t go very well.

    Second, someone in my family unfortunately got mixed up in HA and received a prison sentence from dealing drugs. He has now escaped that environment but it left me in little doubt that there’s few “noble knights” in that group, only drug-dealing gang-members.

    Thirdly the country I come from has witnessed multiple wars between immigrant gangs and HA, as well as between HA and Bandidos. At one point they were firing stolen anti-tank rockets into a building where the rival gang was having a party. It’s hard to have a great impression of someone who chooses to fire an AT-4 in through a building.

    So yeah, HA no thanks.

    • waterbogan@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      Yes, my partner has good friends whose son got briefly entangled with the HA, they ripped him off and fucked up his life a treat, not good people. But they are far from the worst gang here

      • sunbeam60@lemmy.one
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        1 year ago

        It meant I got a couple of punches and as a scared 17-year being punched by a drunk Hells Angels member, I took it and did nothing.

        • ConstableJelly@beehaw.org
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          1 year ago

          No need to qualify that you “did nothing,” my friend. From what you described, you had the courage to stand up when drawing the short stick (because nothing made you follow through when you were “chosen”) and then you kept yourself and everyone else as safe as possible by not retaliating. Can you imagine how things might have escalated if you had?

          You have my sincere respect for what you’ve described here.