Off the Wire
JD's Honky Tonk and Emporium is not known as a biker bar nor as a place that breeds trouble. A city officer noticed motorcycles there Saturday and a contingent of police approached. Mayhem ensued.
Were cops mistaken for rival gang?
By Eileen Kelley • ekelley@enquirer.com This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
CAMP WASHINGTON - A man stood sentry in a doorway, keeping an eye out for a rival motorcycle gang while about five of his cohorts from the Iron Horsemen motorcycle club sat outside in a small courtyard eating and drinking.
It was early Saturday evening and about eight people were inside JD's Honky Tonk and Emporium, including a Northern Kentucky teacher with his two sons, ages 10 and 12, when all hell broke loose and more than 30 rounds of gunfire exploded into the air, many of the bullets going inside after more than a dozen police officers showed up.
The man in the doorway fired first at the undercover officers after shouting out to the gang members that something was going to go down. Police fired back, one of them about a dozen times. Two others fired off a few rounds.
Two of the undercover officers were stuck and another Iron Horsemen was also hit.
The lookout man, known only thus far as Harold, a biker from the Portland, Maine, area, was killed and all the patrons at the bar, including the owner as well as the father with his two children, were taken into custody at police headquarters.
Only one person was arrested. Lew Erskine, 47, an Iron Horsemen from Bethel, had two pistols on him as he sat at the bar with his friends. He has a concealed-carry permit, though firearms are not permitted in bars. He has no local record. He was released from jail over the weekend without having to post bond.
In court Monday, he declined comment after the judge allowed him to continue to remain free without bond. After walking out of the Hamilton County Justice Center, he and friend stopped at a hot-dog vendor and picked up two Mountain Dews before making their way down the street.
For the better part of a year police have been keeping an eye on the Iron Horsemen as it appears at least some members in the group have been moving outside of the normal hangouts - across the river in Covington or in California, Ohio, and Clermont County - and hanging out in the city's West Side neighborhoods, Lt. Col. Vince Demasi said.
All the while another group, based in Detroit, has also been pushing this way, Demasi said.
The groups don't like one another, they tend to have physical confrontations and police are rarely called when that happens, Demasi said.
Demasi said an officer noticed a number of motorcycles outside the bar in the 2400 block of Spring Grove Avenue on Saturday evening and that is when police decided to go in. He would not answer a number of questions: why were so many police officers dispatched to the long-standing bar here in Camp Washington when it is not known as a biker hangout or troublesome bar, who are the injured officers, and who was the man they killed.
An attorney for the motorcycle group, Mike Schulkens of Newport, said he thinks the lookout man may have thought the masked police officers, who were holding out guns, were members of the Detroit Highwaymen.
"It just happened to be a collision of a number of bad circumstances that sadly resulted in a number of officers being inured and a Horsemen being killed," Schulkens said.
Schulkens said he met with Police Chief Tom Streicher on Monday to try to sort out what happened and defuse the situation, "so nothing like this happens again," Schulkens said.
He later joined the chief when he went on the Bill Cunningham radio show to discuss the matter. Streicher did not return a written request for an interview and for additional information.
Schulkens said it is customary for one member to guard the door or act as a lookout when the group rolls into an area.
News of the shootout has shaken many in the small Camp Washington community of 1,400 people and only two bars.
"It is a complete anomaly," said Joe Gorman, executive director of the Camp Washington Business Association.
Demasi said the Iron Horsemen have not taken over the bar but that police officers have been noticing that the group, which was formed in the 1960s, appears to be making a resurgence in the area.
Many like Gorman thought the group had faded away or that its members aged out of the club.
"I had no idea they were still around," Gorman said.
Schulkens said the last time he knew about problems between the police and the group was about 15 years ago and that was in Louisville. He said he likes to keep it that way.
Attorney Will Wilhoit has been asked to look into the matter for Dan Shearer, the teacher who was there with his children. Shearer told his attorney he was detained for an excessive amount of time and his hands were injured when he was cuffed and whisked away with the other patrons. But beyond that, Wilhoit said, more people could have been injured when the police rushed in.
"We want to know what the procedure is," Wilhoit said.
Police do have policies and procures, but there is no playbook for what happened Saturday, said Kathy Harrell, the president of the police union.
"This was a very unique, evolving situation," Harrell said. "We do not have procedures when a motorcycle gang opens up and ambushes Cincinnati police officers. We truly appreciate every citizen who cooperated with police that night and any inconvenience that occurred. I can only hope they understand the bigger picture.
"... Thankfully we are not have any funerals for any dead police officers."
On the radio Monday, Streicher summed up the shootout with the motorcycle club this way: "(Even) the best-laid plans turn to hell on you."
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