Searching For My Identity (Vol 2) (eBook)

The Chronological Evolution Of An Outlaw Biker On The Road To Redemption

Edward Winterhalder (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
360 Seiten
Blockhead City (Verlag)
979-8-9858817-3-8 (ISBN)

Infos

Volume 2 of Searching For My Identity is a chronological autobiography of an outlaw biker that covers his life from prominent leader of a notorious international motorcycle club in January 2001 to his redemption in December 2020. Intended for the general public and those in the academic community that find the outlaw biker aspects of anthropology, criminology, sociology, psychology, ethnography, deviant behavior, criminal justice, pop culture and humanities interesting, this is an extremely unique opportunity to learn about the lifestyle. Due to the growing recognition of motorcycle clubs and outlaw bikers in pop culture, interest in the topic has recently exploded worldwide creating an insatiable demand for information on the secretive subculture that most people find intriguing, but most people are oblivious to the truth-the majority of the world's motorcycle club members are legitimate hardworking men that rarely cause anyone problems. Contrary to the meth-addicted violence prone image regularly portrayed by the media, most of today's outlaw bikers are productive contributing members of society that love motorcycles and the lifestyle, and the only thing they're guilty of is having too much fun on the weekends.Wondering if the primary cause of his psychologically skewed mind was the result of inherited behavior or learned behavior, Winterhalder recalls his life as a founding member of the Oklahoma Bandidos; the assimilation of the Rock Machine in Canada; the Quebec Biker War; his unsuccessful deportation; and the murders, assassinations, betrayal and drug use that contributed to his disillusionment and eventual departure from the Bandidos nation.Although the book includes some of the storyline found in Out In Bad Standings and The Assimilation, the narrative incorporated from those titles has been updated, revised and rewritten in a more professional manner, and features an additional fifty-thousand words about the author's life never published. Before reading Searching For My Identity (Volume 2): The Chronological Evolution Of An Outlaw Biker On The Road To Redemption, the publisher recommends a comprehensive review of Searching For My Identity (Volume 1): The Chronological Evolution Of A Troubled Adolescent To Outlaw Biker.

Textauszug

Chapter 25

Bandidos Motorcycle Club Oklahoma

January 2001 To October 2001

When I returned to Tulsa at the end of January everyone in the Oklahoma chapter was immediately summoned to a long overdue meeting which was held on January 25th at Harry "Skip" Hansen's home in Muskogee. I had known Skip since I was a teenager and he had been an original member of the Oklahoma chapter when it was founded, but resigned six months later because of his disdain for Turtle and Joseph "Joe" Kincaid, and a minor conflict with Bandido Earthquake.

We were fairly certain that Joe, the chapter sergeant-at-arms, had been collaborating with the Oklahoma chapter of the Outlaws and his surreptitious activities could no longer be tolerated. We had also heard rumors that he had been manufacturing meth with former Bandido Buddy and was in the illicit drug business with some of the Outlaws.

Now that John “Turtle” Fisher was history and Joe was on his way out, Skip was willing to rejoin the chapter and chapter president Lee “Lee” McArdle had decided while I was in Canada that he would become a probationary member at the next meeting. As soon as it started, before Lee said a word, Joe quit the club. Satisfied that his departure was justified but not having the paperwork to prove our suspicions concerning his extracurricular activities, we voted to let him leave the club in good standings. Joe gave us all of his Bandido property, including his patch, and we said goodbye. Forty-five minutes later Skip was once again a probationary Bandido and the chapter sergeant-at-arms, which was the same position he had held in May of 1997 when the chapter was founded.

Our attention then turned to OK Rider George “George” Schuppan. On January 4th the ATF (Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) had served a search warrant at George's home where they discovered a machine gun and a small amount of meth. After a short discussion concerning the circumstances surrounding his Caddo County arrest back in September of 2000 and the January 4th federal search warrant, it was decided that George would be expelled from the OK Riders. Bandido Charles “Snake” Rush was ordered to immediately locate George, collect his OK Rider patch and property, and tell him to never associate with anyone from the red and gold world again. He avoided Snake and the rest of us like the plague for the next thirty-three days, and no one was able to get their hands on George.

A few days later OK Rider James “Cub” Oleson's shop in Jones burned to the ground in the middle of the day while no one was home. In the garage were a dozen motorcycles in various stages of repair. One of the bikes was a fairly new Harley Softail that belonged to former OK Rider Edwin “Sixpack” Collins who was residing in the Oklahoma prison system. The majority of the bikes and the building weren’t insured, so the fire had a devastating financial impact. Cub was adamant the fire was arson and the Outlaws were responsible because he had been told that Outlaw Michael “Michael” Roberts had been seen at a local station filling five-gallon cans with gasoline not long before the fire started.

Cub had a strong desire to retaliate and get even with Michael and the Outlaws in whatever way he could as soon as possible, but needed permission from us to do so. Our relationship with the Oklahoma Outlaws at this point was strained to say the least, but no one wanted to start a major war with them unless we could prove the Outlaws were behind it, and a war with the Outlaws couldn’t be started if Michael had burned the garage down for personal reasons. Our investigation ultimately determined that the Outlaws chapter had nothing to do with the fire, but never disproved the theory that Michael had intentionally set the fire as a result of a personal dispute.

In February we hoped that 2001 was going to be a better year, and now that Joe, OK Rider George, and Earl “Buddy” Kirkwood were gone we thought there would be no more problems with the meth bullshit. Once again we grossly underestimated the power of methamphetamine, for we soon learned that George and his girlfriend Jean had been served with another search warrant, this time by an Oklahoma County drug task force. On February 27th at 5AM George had been caught in the act of manufacturing meth when the drug task force discovered a fully functioning lab in one of the bedrooms. During the raid his OK Rider patch was seized as evidence that the club was involved in the purchase, sale and manufacturing of methamphetamine—we were livid.

The most interesting aspect of the incident was that the officers called Delbert Knopp, who was an agent with the ATF, instead of taking him to jail. George told the task force that he was a confidential informant working for the ATF, and was manufacturing meth as part of a federal criminal investigation. Agent Knopp arrived on the scene shortly after daylight, took custody of George, and later that day had the charges dropped that were pending against his girlfriend while she was incarcerated in the Oklahoma County jail. It took us months to determine that George Schuppan was a big rat, and to gather the paperwork necessary to prove that he was cooperating with the federal government, which at the time was building a massive criminal case against the Oklahoma City chapter of the Outlaws.

When confronted with the mounting evidence that the former OK Rider was cooperating with law enforcement in the summer of 2001, Outlaws Michael Roberts, Thomas "Chameleon" Cain and Virgil "Arlo" Nelson assured me there was no way George could ever be a rat. At the mere suggestion George was cooperating, Michael wanted to fight to protect George's honor— this wasn’t a surprise because Michael was heavily involved in the meth business with the former OK Rider. Not long after the meeting Chameleon, the president of the Oklahoma Outlaws, invited George's girlfriend to share his home while she was cooperating with federal authorities.

In early March the entire Oklahoma Bandidos chapter took a break and made a quick trip to Mobile, Alabama, where we spent a long weekend at the Birthday Run, celebrating the birth of the club in March of 1966. I got to spend time with Diesel, Les and Armin from the national chapter in Germany, who were in the middle of a whirlwind tour of Bandido chapters in the southern half of the country. Diesel told me that in a few days he was going on a tour of an alligator farm in Louisiana with some of the Cajun brothers. I patiently explained that during the tour he would get to feed the alligators marshmallows, but to be suspicious if the brothers filled his pockets with bags of marshmallows before the excursion. If his pockets were filled with marshmallows it meant he was going to be taken to the swamps instead of the alligator farm, and that he was going to be thrown out of the boat as alligator food. I did my best to keep from laughing, but in spite of the language barrier the German Bandido realized the story was a hoax and we had a good laugh.

Caroline and I left the party early Sunday morning and headed over to New Orleans for a day. She wanted to explore the French Quarter, but this happened to be Mardi Gras weekend and it was sheer insanity to go into the downtown area. Instead we opted to visit Bandido Bradley and his wife at their home just south of New Orleans. He had been in a bad motorcycle accident a few months earlier and couldn’t travel, so Bradley had stayed home during the Birthday Run. He owned a tattoo shop in downtown New Orleans, and I had known him for many years. I felt bad that the Louisiana Bandido had missed the party in Mobile so I brought a piece of the Birthday Run to him for the few hours we spent together that day.

Three weeks after we returned home from the gulf coast, the ATF and DEA (Drug Enforcement Administration) served simultaneous search warrants at the homes of Outlaw Arlo, Outlaw Chameleon and OK Rider Cub on March 30th. We now knew for sure former OK Rider George was cooperating with federal authorities, because the location of a gun that was listed on the search warrant served at Cub’s house was only known by Cub and George. The search warrant also disclosed that Cub was suspected to be in possession of explosives, and although nothing was ever found the mere suggestion got our attention. This wasn’t long after the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, which was less than twenty miles from Cub's home.

We were also concerned that a shotgun and a small amount of meth had been discovered in the master bedroom because Cub and his wife were on probation. Possession of a firearm while under probation was a felony in Oklahoma, and possession of a firearm while using methamphetamine was a federal felony. We assumed Cub was going to be arrested in the very near future and sent off to prison, and now knew there was a connection between Cub, former OK Rider George, and the Outlaws chapter in Oklahoma City, but unsure of exactly how the pieces of the puzzle fit together.

In late spring while under a cloud of controversy in Canada I took off with Caroline on the Harley for a weekend trip to Eureka Springs, Arkansas. I wanted to attend a bike show put on by the 13 Rebels motorcycle club and had made plans to meet some OK Riders and a former member of the...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 1.5.2023
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Biografien / Erfahrungsberichte
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Themenwelt: Sachbuch/Ratgeber ► Geschichte / Politik
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
• Themenwelt: Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie
• ISBN-13: 979-8-9858817-3-8 / 9798985881738