OFF THE WIRE
Source:
abcnews.go.com/
A melee ensued after shots were fired as members of the Hells Angels bike club and other bikers gathered for the funeral for Jeffrey "Jethro" Allen Pettigrew, a former city of San Jose employee and Hell's Angels club member at Oak Hill Funeral Home and Memorial Park cemetery in San Jose, California Saturday, October 15, 2011. (PATRICK TEHAN/MCT/Landov)
By KATTI GRAY
A sergeant-at-arms for the motorcycling
Hells Angels was shot to death this weekend at a San Jose, Calif., graveyard where thousands were witnessing the burial of another Hells Angels member, gunned down last month at a Nevada casino.
Steve Tausan, 52, a bail bondsman, was killed Saturday.
Tausan was nicknamed "Mr. 187," the number that California penal code attaches to murder cases, The Associated Press reported.
Tausan, had been tried and acquitted in 1997's lethal beating of a Pink Poodle strip club patron.
Although California news outlets have identified Saturday's shooting victim as Tausan, San Jose Police Officer Jose Garcia said his department will not disclose a name until the coroner's autopsy is complete and the victim's family has been officially notified.
California - The identity of a shooting victim at a Hells Angels funeral in San Jose remained unconfirmed by San Jose police and the Santa Clara County coroner's office on Sunday morning. The body will be examined by medical examiners on Monday morning, according to a spokesman for the coroner's office.
But multiple sources told this newspaper that the victim of the 12:51 p.m. shooting at Oak Hill Memorial Park on Curtner Avenue was Steve Tausan, a notorious sergeant-at-arms for the Santa Cruz chapter of the club who was suspected of murder in the 1997 beating death of a man at the Pink Poodle strip club.
Despite a heavy police presence at a Hells Angels funeral in San Jose on Saturday, a top bike-club enforcer nicknamed "Mr. 187" after the state penal code number for murder was gunned down in front of stunned mourners.
The victim was pronounced dead at a hospital at 1:44 p.m., according to police.
Saturday's violence appeared to be a confrontation between fellow Hells Angels members that was set off when Tausan punched a fellow biker, and the biker retaliated by shooting him.
