Vagos member, attorney condemn crackdown

MCs in the News

HEMET — A member of the Vagos Motorcycle Club and an attorney for the group, which has been the focus of intense law enforcement scrutiny following attacks on anti-gang officers, said in published reports Wednesday that the group is not a criminal organization and is not terrorizing police.

“They demonize us and start locking everyone up left and right. In their eyes, everyone's a criminal,” Harry “Doc” Hart, 61, a Hemet dentist and Vagos member, told reporters.

On March 17, the Riverside County District Attorney's Office and the Riverside County Gang Task Force in Hemet, Murrieta, Riverside, Corona and Lake Elsinore, as well as outside California, raided a location associated with the Vagos, authorities said.

At a news conference following the raid, Riverside County District Attorney Rod Pacheco said the Vagos posed “an extreme threat for law enforcement” — but he did not name its members as suspects in the attacks on police in Hemet beginning Dec. 31.

Officials in Hemet have since said the raids on the Vagos were unrelated to the attacks on police, which involved booby trapping a building, a gate and a car being driven by a Hemet Gang Task Force member, and the torching of four city vehicles last week.

The Vagos have not been named as primary suspects but they have not been ruled out, Hemet police Lt. Duane Wisehart said.

Regardless of recent attacks on police, the Vagos have been identified as a criminal gang by a judge's order confirmed through multiple court cases, Capt. Walter Meyer, director of the Riverside County Gang Task Force, told reporters.

“Unfortunately for them, they are a gang,” Meyer said. “They're just like other outlaw motorcycle gangs or any other gang. Gangs exist for the sole purpose of supporting themselves. They'll take out violence on any average citizen that gets in their way.”

Two weeks after the March 17 crackdown, two of the 33 people arrested during “Operation Everywhere” remained in custody, it was reported. Several Vagos members and their attorney said they did not believe any of the those arrested were actively involved in the group.

An attorney for the Vagos told reporters the March 17 raid was a political maneuver by the district attorney's office during an election year for Pacheco and Attorney General Jerry Brown.

Both Pacheco and Brown arrived a day after the raid to express support for law enforcement and announce a $200,000 reward for information leading to arrests in the attacks on Hemet police.

“The Vagos are an easy target because they ride motorcycles and authorities love to hate them,” said Vagos attorney Joseph Yanny according to published reports. “This is for the personal political gain of Gov. Moonbeam (Brown), who's behind in the polls and playing this game to get his name in the press at the expense of decent men.”

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