Jerry Langton Three-Book Bundle (62 page)

If the bikers had any support in the public, if their mystique had any currency with the people of Quebec, it died on the afternoon of August 9, 1995. At the corner of Boulevard Pie-Ix and Rue Adam in the heart of Montreal's rough Maisonneuve-Hochelaga district, two men got into a Jeep Wrangler. Six other men were watching. Just as the driver turned the ignition key, one of the six others detonated a bomb under his seat. The blast was powerful enough to send the driver's suddenly legless body flying 12 feet into the air and shower the quiet, tree-lined streets with shrapnel. But this time, there was no miracle. Across Rue Adam from the explosion, two boys were playing on the lawn in front of Saint-Nom-de-Jésus School. When the blast occurred at 12:40 p.m., Yan Villeneuve and Daniel Desrosiers fell to the ground. Desrosiers never got up again. As the wall of debris from the explosion showered them, a piece of hot metal—about the size of a roll of dimes—seared its way through the boy's skull and lodged in his brain. The 11-year-old boy went into a coma and died four days later.

When news of the incident broke, Montrealers were sick and angry. Although many just hated all bikers—even if it proved to be a Rock Machine bomb, it could have just as easily have been a Hells Angels bomb—everybody wanted to know the identity of whoever had pulled the trigger. The type of remote-control device used in such bombs has a very short range, and the detonator must see his intended victim get into the car in order to ignite the bomb at just the right moment. For the bomber to be able to see the driver, he almost certainly also had to be able to see the boys. Of course, neither side wanted to be labeled child-killers, so both denied involvement. Not wanting to see the public choose one side as the bad guys (making the other appear good by comparison), the police denied that the Jeep's driver, Marc Dubé, or passenger, Jean Côté, had any connection to either gang. Some more gullible members of the media bought a story that Dubé was just an honest citizen who happened to bear a resemblance to Alliance drug dealer Normand “Bouboule” Tremblay and coincidentally drove the same kind of car. Of course, the idea of someone as high-profile as Tremblay cruising around Maisonneuve-Hochelaga on foot and in an open-topped car, just four blocks from Boucher's headquarters, was ridiculous. And even if the cops' scenario was true, the Hells Angels would still have been responsible for the bomb and Desrosier's death.

Realizing there was little they could do to assuage the public's anger, the Hells Angels repeatedly denied any involvement with the bomb, but offered Daniel's mother an undisclosed amount of cash “in a gesture of sympathy.” Predictably, she was outraged. “It disgusts me; I'll never forgive this act,” said Josée-Anne Desrosiers, who, like the public, turned much of her anger on the police. “This has been going on for five years, and the government has done nothing.” Aware of the PR opportunity, but underestimating her defiance, the Rock Machine also extended her an offer of cash.

As images of Daniel Desrosiers, his funeral and processions of crying school children flooded the Montreal media, the police were overwhelmed by angry citizens demanding to know what their protectors could do against the obvious menace. For the moment, at least, they could do little more than sympathize. “People are asking why this is happening,” said Jacques Duchesneau, chief of the Montreal Urban Community Police Service. “It's not like they are living in Beirut.” All he could offer for the time being was a 24-hour toll-free anonymous hotline for tips.

But the police were also fudging the truth. Dubé was a small-time drug courier who worked exclusively with associates of the Hells Angels. Police later learned though informants, primarily Kane, that the Hells Angels sacrificed Dubé in an effort to make it appear as though the Alliance was endangering the public by openly striking in residential areas. Although nobody ever came forward to say that he or anyone else had knowingly exposed the Desrosiers and Villeneuve boys to danger, the identities of the men ultimately responsible for the blast became clear. Before the incident, the ever-boastful Steinert was talking nonstop, if cryptically, about a plan he and Boucher had that was
plus rock 'n' roll
(Quebecois slang for “more impressive”) than anything that either gang had done before. He was reportedly giddy and nervous when he ordered three remote control detonators from Pat Lambert on August 8. Two days earlier, an explosion in a northern suburb of St-Lin that nearly injured some innocent children (young nephews of the intended target) had drawn harsh criticism within the club from Stadnick and Carroll. Carroll reportedly even suggested that the bomber pay for such a mistake with his life. Nothing they said slowed down Steinert in his anxious bid to impress Boucher, the man he saw as the club's real power.

After the Desrosiers bombing, Steinert fell uncharacteristically silent. He stopped his barrage of self-promotion and even refused to answer questions about the detonators he had bought from Lambert. When he finally started talking, he solemnly discussed the incident with his friends in the chapter, quizzing them about what they thought of it, while never accepting a shred of responsibility. When he asked them if they thought the bomber, if he was ever tracked down, should be executed by the club for killing a child, the answer was a resounding and unanimous
yes
. Much of that information came to the RCMP through Kane, but his contacts noticed that he was reluctant to talk about the incident and gave few details. At least some wondered aloud if Kane, who had a great deal of experience as a bomber and was a close friend and associate of Steinert's, was feeling guilty because he was involved. Others countered that Kane, a father of three, may have been suffering from the same grief as the rest of the city and shame at what he assumed was his friend's horrible blunder.

When Desrosiers died on August 13, Montreal mayor Pierre Bourque asked the federal and provincial governments for stronger anti-gang laws. Ménard and Allan Rock, the federal justice minister, refused, citing how such laws would compromise the civil liberties not just of bikers, but of the entire public.

With the force of public anger aimed squarely at police and government, the gangs resumed their bombing campaign. The first attack was a dud. Someone threw a hand grenade (which was later traced to a theft from the Canadian Armed Forces) at Bob Chopper, which had formerly been owned by Hells Angels' national president Robert “Ti-Maigre” Richard and was still the club's favorite Harley repair and customization shop in the Montreal area. The grenade failed to explode, leaving just a long crack in the front window of the Longueuil shop. Three days later, a homemade bomb exploded in front of the Rowdy Crew's clubhouse in Le Gardeur. Although the explosion was large and loud, it did little damage to the heavily fortified house, other than kill the club's pit bull.

Police received an anonymous phone tip just after midnight on August 26 that a car bomb was parked in the East End. When they got there, they found a light blue Chevy Lumina—just as the caller had described—with a rather prominent wire sticking out of the engine compartment. At about 2 a.m., just as the police were beginning to realize there were no explosives in the car, across the river a bomb with almost 10 pounds of C4 tore the back wall off Bob Chopper. By the time the police arrived at the actual bombing, they were greeted by a lawyer (known to have defended Hells Angels in the past) who demanded they return with a search warrant if they wanted into what remained of the building. By the time they returned, witnesses said that some men had walked into the smoking building and rushed out carrying some cartons that they threw into cars. The next night, a tattoo parlor frequented by Rock Machine members and associates was destroyed by gasoline bombs.

Emboldened by the lack of arrests despite public outrage, the Alliance stepped up the violence even further, targeting people instead of property. On September 11, one of their men exploded a bomb on the patio of Bar Le Harley in a suburb north of the city, waiting until the waitress went inside before pulling the trigger. All nine of the injured had strong ties to the Death Riders, a North Shore Hells Angels puppet gang. Among them was Mario Lepore, reportedly Boucher's favorite accountant, who lost a leg.

Four days later, the Alliance escalated the war with a truly bold assassination—the first time a full-patch Hells Angel had been hit. A former Missile and one of the founders of the Hells Angels Trois-Rivières chapter, Richard “Crow” Émond and his girlfriend were returning to their car after shopping at an East End strip mall when somebody called out his name. When Émond turned around to see who it was, a masked man fired six times. Three of the shells hit him and, when the police arrived, they found Émond's dead body lying half in and half out of his white Pontiac Bonneville. They also found a loaded handgun under the driver's seat. Émond's death hit the underworld in much the same way that Desrosiers' affected the public.

Flags flew at half-staff at Hells Angels' clubhouses across Quebec, and the police began to get nervous. They made the natural assumption that the Hells Angels wouldn't tolerate the murder of an influential member. The days of bombs in empty bars appeared to be over; the era of murder had begun.

Finally, the government stepped in. Montreal's overwhelmed police got some help at long last. On September 23, 1995, Ménard, who had repeatedly denied the existence of a biker war, announced the creation of an anti-gang police task force. With a huge budget, 30 officers from the SQ joined 30 more from the Montreal police (ten more were later added from the RCMP and total membership would eventually top 100 officers). The task force was solely devoted to bringing down the bikers. It was a perfectly timed event and the government knew how to play to an audience starved for any effort from a government they were sure had forsaken them. They called the new group “Carcajou,” French for Wolverine, an animal with legendary status in Quebecois culture. The largest member of the weasel family, the wolverine is an animal with enormous strength and courage; they have even been known to scare grizzly bears away from a kill. The name resonated so well in Quebec that an old hunter actually pulled the stuffed carcass of a wolverine out of his attic and sent it to the Montreal police. But what the police didn't mention was that, despite all its ferocity, the wolverine was an endangered species. In fact, nobody had seen a live one in Quebec since 1978.

After the Hamilton police realized there was no way they could prove in court that Stadnick's belt buckle was a dangerous weapon, they returned it to him. He was shocked to see what condition it was in. It looked as though it had been kicked around the floor of the evidence room. Stadnick was not going to stand for it. The Hamilton police were trying to push him around based solely on his reputation. He'd never gotten in trouble there, and he'd never been convicted of anything anywhere. He called the police to complain. Eventually, he was connected to Sergeant John Harris.

Although Harris had been out of the biker business for a few years, he was supervising staff sergeant for Central Division, which made him, in effect, the boss of the officers who had arrested Stadnick. “At first I didn't believe it was him on the phone; I thought someone was playing a joke,” said Harris. “When I realized it was him, I was truly surprised about what he was calling about.” Obviously the belt buckle meant a great deal to Stadnick. Harris invited him down to talk; maybe he had a holding cell free. Unamused, Stadnick hung up. Harris later got a letter from Stadnick's lawyer, Stephan Frankel, informing him that he and the arresting officers were being sued for $500 to cover the belt buckle's repairs and Stadnick's mental anguish. Harris laughed; there was no way he was going to pay. The case actually made it to small-claims court. “We lost the case, but Walter, I think, considered it a moral victory,” said Frankel. “And I have been told that at least some parties were pleased that those three officers were obliged to spend a day in court.”

About an hour's drive away, small events were taking place that would precipitate major changes in Ontario's biker détente. Frank Lenti, the moody biker Stadnick had found wanting at his Wasaga Beach recruiting drive, was dumped as president of the Loners. Immediately, he and some Woodbridge-area friends formed a new club, the Diablos, in Lenti's house across the street from the Loners' clubhouse. Far outnumbered, the Diablos generally stayed out of the Loners' way and arrived for meetings through Lenti's backyard. Although they were familiar with Lenti's mood swings and temper tantrums, the Toronto members of Satan's Choice saw some value in the Diablos. Lenti owned a stripper/escort agency and a towing business and, with Bernie Guindon back in charge, the leadership of Satan's Choice was looking to expand, especially into an area as important to the drug trade as Woodbridge.