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Monday, January 12, 2009

Thin blue line appears blurred in biker clubs

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posted by Bob at Monday, January 12, 2009

2 Comments:

Blogger Bob said...

By Rubén Rosario
rrosario@pioneerpress.com
Posted: 01/11/2009 12:01:00 AM CST

The Iron Brotherhood has an eye-catching, if ominous-looking, Web site home page:

A human skull, its mouth open and its eye sockets painted blue, faces the viewer. A German Iron Cross frames the skull. Meanwhile, lightning bolts flash across the black background while the opening guitar riffs from Black Sabbath's "I Am Iron Man'' play.

Heavy metal rock band? Biker gang? Perhaps even a neo-Nazi or white-supremacist group? Guess again. Iron Brotherhood is an off-duty law-enforcement motorcycle club formed in 2006.

"We are bikers who happen to be cops who share a common bond," states a brief overview of the male-only club. "We are dedicated to our profession and our brotherhood."

The group is just one of an increasing number of off-duty law-enforcement motorcycle clubs (LEMCs) sprouting across the country and blurring the lines, at least in appearance, between the good guys and the allegedly not-so-good guys.

In fact, given the skulls, tattoos, leather vests or poses on "hogs" that appear in photo galleries, the average bloke would be hard-pressed to distinguish, say, the Hell's Angels from the Iron Pigs, Wild Pigs, Untouchables, Renegades, Blue Steel or City Heat, a Chicago-based club that has a Twin Cities chapter.

There are "striking similarities in self-presentation," notes Mitch Librett, a retired New Rochelle, N.Y., cop, criminologist and author of "Wild Pigs and Outlaws: The Kindred Worlds of Policing and Outlaw Bikers" (Crime, Media and
Culture Journal)."

The 'colors,' slogans, and monikers adopted by the members are often indistinguishable,'' adds Librett, a motorcycle enthusiast himself and assistant professor of criminal justice at Bridgewater State College in Massachusetts.

Librett adds that both outlaws and lawmen attracted to the biker culture embrace living on the edge, though on seemingly opposite sides of the law. Indeed, quite a number of local Twin Cities cops who are members of City Heat belong to high-adrenaline, high-risk units such as SWAT, the bomb squad or street narcotics.

To be sure, there is nothing illegal about this off-duty association. Many cop-biker fraternal organizations are established and regularly conduct fundraising "runs" for worthy causes.

They include Blue Knights International, for example, which has donated more than $7 million in goods and cash to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Toys for Tots, Make-A-Wish Foundation and others.

City Heat also promotes charity runs on its Web pages.

But some of the more mainstream and family-oriented outfits such as Blue Knights express concern over a recent surge of "fringe" elements. They also point to problems such as the confrontation between Seattle members of the Iron Pigs LEMC and the Hell's Angels last summer at the annual Sturgis, S.D., motorcycle rally.

An off-duty cop shot and wounded a Hell's Angel. Investigators decided the officer acted in self-defense. The brawl that led to the shooting reportedly stemmed from a dispute over vest patch insignia.

"We have strived to be the very opposite of anything outlaw," said Mike Ripsch, the Blue Knights' outgoing president and a retired cop from Illinois.

"But the sad fact of the matter is that, if somebody does something wrong or acts questionable and it becomes known that he is a cop (LEMC or not), the brush is wide and it affects us all," Ripsch said. "Some of our own do a pretty good job of shooting ourselves in the foot at times."

Added Librett: "I really have to question why any police officer would feel that emulating the (outlaw) lifestyle is an attractive way to spend their free time. There is a danger there."

Rubén Rosario can be reached at 651-228-5454.

ON THE WEB

To visit the Iron Brotherhood Web site, go to ironbrotherhoodmc.com/page1.html.

To visit the Blue Knights International Web site, go to blueknights.org/.

1:44 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What the hell, we have renegade code inspectors, why not cops too?

5:55 PM  

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