OFF THE WIRE
Five Minneapolis cops, Lieutenant Medaria Arradondo, Lieutenant Donald Harris, Sergeant Charles Adams, Sergeant Dennis Hamilton, and Lieutenant Lee Edwards are suing the City of Minneapolis, the Minneapolis Police Department, and a cop named Timothy Dolan because Dolan and ten other Minneapolis cops belong to a motorcycle gang.
City Heat Motorcycle Club
Dolan and the unnamed cops belong to a gang called the City Heat Motorcycle Club. City Heat wears a three-piece patch. It is one of the so called “Law Enforcement Motorcycle Clubs” that have repeatedly tried to use the police powers of their patch holders to intimidate other bikers and other clubs.
For example, last August, Ron Smith, a Seattle police union official and a member of the Iron Pigs motorcycle gang shot a member of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club named Joseph McGuire in the Loud American Roadhouse in Sturgis. The shooting occurred in the course of a fist fight that followed a verbal altercation.
Outlaw Cops
Apparently McGuire had the audacity to ask Smith why the Iron Pigs were allowed to wear their colors in the Roadhouse while the Hells Angels were not. The police were carrying concealed weapons and were released by local police immediately after the incident. Charges were filed against the cops but dropped. The victim, Smith, spent months in hospital and is facing charges of trying to kill the cop who shot him.
Clubs like the Iron Pigs, the Wild Pigs, the Untouchables, the Renegades, the Blue Steel and the club central to the Minneapolis suit, the City Heat clearly intend to be outlaws with police privileges. A few cop clubs, like the Blue Knights Motorcycle Club, are clearly family clubs and so rarely have problems with patch holders.
The Suit
The Minneapolis suit has been filed in United States District Court and alleges that members of the City Heat have “systematically and continuously discriminated… against persons of color;” that the City Heat is an overtly racist club; that the city and police department of Minneapolis have tolerated membership in the club; and that all of that has created a racist and hostile work place environment for black and Hispanic cops.
