Cincinnati police feared confrontation with Iron Horsemen, chief says

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The Enquirer/Michael E. Keating
Cincinnati Police Chief Tom Streicher spoke at police headquarters Thursday about the Sept. 18 shooting involving the Iron Horsemen motorcycle gang.
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By Eileen Kelley • ekelley@enquirer.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it

WEST END – The gang’s presence had been building. Their national muscle man was now in town.

And 51-year-old Harry Seavey had been on police radar for three months before he and police officers engaged in a shootout that left him dead in a beer garden and a fellow gang member and two police officers wounded Saturday in Camp Washington.

At least two fliers went out telling the police department to be wary when approaching Seavey or any members of the Iron Horsemen motorcycle gang. This in spite of the Iron Horsemen setting up its national headquarters here some 50 years earlier and having a relatively unblemished relationship with the men in blue.

“I haven’t seen them in church, but they didn’t create a problem for us,” Cincinnati Chief of Police Tom Streicher said Thursday in his first public address to the media since the Saturday night shootout.

Seavey, though, was a different animal, police intelligence reports suggest.

A police officer first noticed a disheveled and dirty man on his Harley-Davidson in downtown Cincinnati in June. The bike’s license plate was IHFFE – Iron Horsemen Forever Forever Enforcer. The officer ran the tag and it came back as Seavey’s.

Within two days, Seavey’s heavily bearded face was splayed on a flier that read “Possible Hazard to Police.” Seven days later, another flier went out about outlaw motorcycle gangs, also telling officers to use caution.

“The past few months have seen an increase in violence between two of our Outlaw Motorcycle Gangs Clubs. Both clubs are actively searching for the other at several local bars especially in the Price Hill area of District 3 and in the City of Cheviot,” the second flier states. “Expect OMG Clubs to be armed and consider them dangerous.”

As a national enforcer, Seavey served as the gang’s lookout man when the members went out. He served as the man that drew together plans when things got hot between rival gangs. He served as the man that put plans into action.

So on Saturday, police put together a plan when an officer spotted several motorcycles on one side of Spring Grove Avenue and several more motorcycles as well as Iron Horsemen in a beer garden on the other side of the street. The officer then called his supervisor and many more officers were called.

“Citizens could have been in danger,” Streicher said as the rationale for rushing the bar.

The Iron Horsemen, Streicher said, had been locking down bars and lining up patrons to check if they are members of the rival Detroit Highwaymen, a gang that has established a presence in the area.

Fourteen officers, three wearing ski masks and most of them in plain clothes, poured in JD’s Honky Tonk and Emporium parking lot just after 7 p.m. Saturday.

Within seconds bullets were flying – more than 30 rounds – after Seavey reached into his National Enforcer-emblazoned jacket and pulled out a 9 mm handgun.

“I don’t intend to pick a fight with anybody,” Streicher said.

Streicher insisted all officers, including those in plain clothes, wore clearly marked items – be it caps or bullet resistant vests – that distinguished them as police officers.

The gang says otherwise.

“It’s all bull----,” said Mike Schulkens, a Newport lawyer who represents the Iron Horseman’s national leader. “The Iron Horsemen have not had problems with the police. If Harold (Seavey) sees 14 police officers rolling up and he’s the only guy with a gun, even an idiot is not going to pick a fight.”

Schulken’s tone Thursday was a far cry from Monday, when he appeared with Streicher on the Bill Cunningham radio show and didn’t point fingers at police.
Now it appears the gloves are coming off.

“Why did they roll up like they did?” asked Schulkens. “What brought on this raid on a patio at a bar where some Iron Horsemen are eating and drinking?”

Police did not receive any calls of trouble brewing at the bar prior to the shooting. Police did not have any arrest warrants. Police didn’t even know Seavey was at the bar until he was dead.

Seavey served jail time in Maine on drug and weapons charges. There were warrants for his arrest in New England, though on minor offenses such as cruelty to animals and traffic charges.

And up until the shootout, Seavey had not been in trouble with Cincinnati police.

Officers in Maine told Cincinnati officers not to bother bringing Seavey in because they wouldn’t extradite him up the coast for minor offenses.

Following the shooting, gang members were told to lie low and to not wear their Iron Horsemen regalia publicly.

As of Thursday, that order was lifted as many of the 40-plus members of the Iron Horsemen on both sides of the Ohio River plan to head north east for Seavey's funeral in Portland, Maine, on Monday.

“On our end there is some outrage,” Schulkens said.

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