BY: JOHN KOZIOL
citizen.com
Police are investigating an altercation Thursday night in The Weirs between members of rival outlaw motorcycle clubs.
Laconia Police were called at 8:30 p.m. to Heat pizzeria on Route 3, across from Funspot, for a reported fight involving two members each of the Devils Diciples and the Hells Angels.
Police Chief Chris Adams on Friday said witnesses told police that the Devils Diciples, one of whom was a "patched" full member, the other a "prospect" - the club's name is deliberately misspelled, according to Wikipedia - were eating at the restaurant when two Hells Angels entered and asked that they step outside.
Once outside, one of the Hells Angels allegedly struck the Devils Diciples member with a club or a small baseball bat, said Adams, causing a facial injury. When police arrived at the scene, the Hells Angels were gone. The Laconia Fire Department responded but the victim declined medical treatment, Adams said.
The Hells Angels, who have a clubhouse on Fillmore Avenue not far from where the incident took place, just last month hosted the annual worldwide gathering of Hells Angels known as World Run. Authorities have said the club considers the Lakes Region to be its "turf" which it protects from rivals, including the Outlaws Motorcycle Club.
Although Adams wasn't sure of the current relationship between the Hells Angels and the Devils Diciples, the 2001 U.S. Department of Justice's National Drug Threat Survey said the latter, under the conditions of a 1999 national truce, must allow the Outlaws Motorcycle Club to set up a chapter in New Hampshire without retaliation. The Hells Angels opened a chapter in Manchester in March 2000.
The DOJ said that in setting up its own chapter in the Granite State, the Outlaws is converting members of the New Hampshire chapter of the Devils Disciples OMG into Outlaws.
