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Sunday, February 26, 2012

CA - Hells Angel arrested in killing of fellow gang member..


OFF THE WIRE
This undated photo provided by the San Jose Police Department shows Steve Ruiz. Police had been searching for Ruiz since Oct. 15 after fellow Hells Angel member Steve Tausan was killed during a funeral.

A man suspected of fatally shooting a fellow member of the Hells Angels at a funeral in San Jose has been arrested at a Fremont motel, police said Sunday.
Steve Ruiz, 38, of San Jose was taken into custody Saturday at the Days Inn on Warm Springs Road in Fremont, said San Jose police Sgt. Jason Dwyer. Homicide investigators had learned of his whereabouts, and undercover officers went to the motel to arrest him in the slaying of Steve Tausan, Dwyer said.
Ruiz allegedly shot and killed Tausan, 52, a fellow motorcycle club member and local bail bondsman, after the two got into a fight at a funeral for a slain Hells Angels member on Oct. 15, police said.
Ruiz and Tausan were among thousands of Hells Angels members who attended the funeral for Jeffrey Pettigrew, president of the San Jose chapter of the motorcycle club, at the Oak Hill Funeral Home and Memorial Park on Curtner Avenue in San Jose.
After the shooting, Ruiz disappeared and one or more people tampered with the crime scene, washing away bloodstains and removing evidence of the shooting, police said.
Police found Ruiz's motorcycle at the funeral, and Ruiz didn't claim it, police said.
Authorities initially speculated that it was possible Ruiz had been killed. Investigators even obtained a search warrant to dig up Pettigrew's grave, but Ruiz was not there, police said.
Police said Pettigrew was shot and killed Sept. 23 by Ernesto Manuel Gonzalez, an alleged member of the rival Vagos motorcycle gang, at John Ascuaga's Nugget casino in Sparks, Nev. Gonzalez, 53, of San Jose was arrested by a UCSF police officer in San Francisco six days later.
Tausan and the manager of the Pink Poodle, a strip club west of San Jose, were tried for murder in 1999 in the beating death of a club customer two years earlier. They were acquitted on grounds of self-defense.
Henry K. Lee is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Twitter: @henryklee. hlee@sfchronicle.com
Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/02/26/BAH91NCN7I.DTL#ixzz1nX0IZAaD