OFF THE WIRE
agingrebel.com
The next biker civil rights case has been brewing for a little over a month in Rochester, Minnesota where the local police and a city attorney named Terry Adkins have pooled their experience and training and declared the Sons of Silence and the Med City Crew Motorcycle Clubs to be “criminal gangs.”
The declaration violates a Minnesota State Law which specifically forbids discrimination against club members who are flying colors. The law is Minnesota Statute 604.12 which states that access to public establishments cannot be denied to “a person who operates a motorcycle or is wearing clothing that displays the name of an organization or association,” unless that person’s behavior is endangering other people or property, or his clothing “is obscene or includes the name or symbol of a criminal gang.”
The legal dispute may eventually determine whether it is reasonable to call the two clubs “criminal gangs.”
Gangs
Social Scientists have been trying to accurately define the vague term “gang” since the juvenile delinquency panic in the 1950s. Most sociologists agree that “gangs” are social organizations that exist to serve the social needs of individuals who feel marginalized by society.
California, which was a pioneer in formalized name calling, uses the even vaguer term “criminal street gang” to create separate laws for people the police don’t like. “Criminal Street Gang” is defined under California law as “any organization, association or group of three or more persons, whether formal or informal, which (1) has continuity of purpose, (2) seeks a group identity, and (3) has members who individually or collectively engage in or have engaged in a pattern of criminal activity.”
Most rational and educated persons understand that the California definition is logically circular. It also uses the same logic that is applied in the federal judiciary to define the equally vague idea of a “racketeering enterprise.” The federal notion is that if some members of a social group are criminals then all members of that group must also be criminal. In the federal Central District of California, the premise of a case called USA v. Mongol Nation, an Unincorporated Association, is that since, as recently as five years ago, some members of the Mongols Motorcycle Club were criminals that entire social organization must be a criminal racket. It is a naked accusation against which all members of the Mongols must now defend themselves.
The Minnesota law that defines “criminal gangs” closely follows the current interpretation of the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act which defines a “pattern of racketeering activity” as two or more criminal acts committed by three or more persons during the previous decade.
In Rochester
The current dispute in Rochester began when Michael Bader, an attorney representing the Confederation of Clubs of Minnesota, accused Rochester police of telling bar and restaurant owners to deny service to members of the two clubs. Bader wrote City Attorney Adkins a letter telling him that the two local chapters do not have a history of violence and asked him to enforce Minnesota Statute 604.12.
Adkins wrote Bader back three weeks later and told him “The Rochester Police Department tells me that the Sons of Silence is a motorcycle criminal gang with a common name whose members wear clothing containing an identifying sign/symbol.” He quoted a Department of Justice memo which defines the Sons of Silence as “an organization whose members use their motorcycle club as a conduit for criminal enterprises.” And he cited five
Adkins wrote, “As such, I have concluded that the Sons of Silence is a ‘criminal gang’ as that term is defined by Minnesota Statute 609.229, subdivision 1.”
Members of the Med City Crew will also
The next
comment
Three good, fair and sensible, logical comments. Unfortunately fairness and sensibility and logic are completely foreign to Rochester City Attorney Terry Adkins and his friends at the Midwest Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Investigators Association (“MOMGIA” is “Scummbag Steve” Cook’s personal program of self-aggrandizement and money-making that allows him to tap into the seemingly endless federal and state “police-educational” funds).
*Minnesota is divided into “multi-jurisdictional anti-gang task force areas” which are funded (in 2011-2012) to the tune of more than NINE MILLION DOLLARS by State and Federal sources, primarily grant #2010-DJ-BX-0438.
See, https://dps.mn.gov/divisions/ojp/forms-documents/Documents/Gang%20Criteria/2012%20task%20force%20report%20Final.pdf
Let us look at Uber-Fuhrer Adkins’ definition of a criminal gang (included in some of the past newspaper articles and TV News):
“There’s quite a bit of resources as to the fact that sounds [sic] of silence is a criminal gang. They have quite a pattern of criminal activity,” said Adkins.
Adkins says the “Sons of Silence” have been charged* with things like drug trafficking and unlawful weapons possession throughout various parts of the country.”– TV6 ABC News
See, http://rochester.kaaltv.com/news/news/139222-rochester-city-attorney-back-bars-gang-concern
So, by his own admission, the Uber-Fuhrer Adkins is using a “guilt by association” or “bill of attainder” standard for deciding that the Sons of Silence is a “criminal gang”. Somehow, in his warped little brain, charging someone (in a different part of the country, NOTE: not necessarily conviction, he specifically mentions a “charge” — which in non-NAZI areas of the US also includes a presumption of innocence) with a crime somehow magically transforms membership in the Minnesota Sons of Silence motorcycle club into membership of a criminal gang). Adkins conveniently ignores the fact that the majority of SOS members are good citizens, not drug-trafficking gun-sellers.
Let us utilize Mr. Adkins’ novel theories of legal jurisprudence. How many Catholic priests have been convicted of crimes such as rape, pedophilia and embezzlement in that same period of time? Does Mr. Adkins then justify discrimination against those wearing monks’ robes or Roman collars? No, he does not, because the vast majority of members of the clergy are good citizens, not pedophilic rapists and embezzlers.
It would make exactly as much sense to ban the Roman collars and monks’ robes as it does to ban the motorcycle vests of the Sons or the Med City Crew.
Is Terry Adkins relying on his VAST personal knowledge of motorcycle clubs, perhaps derived from watching late-night Fox-TV programs like “Sons of Anarchy”? Or is Terry Adkins just honestly mistaking the fictional TV club for a real club with a similar-sounding name? Or does Terry Adkins’ (mis)understanding come from the taxpayer-funded boondoggle called “Midwest Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Investigators Association”?
Who knows? This is a self-described attorney who obviously does not understand the Anglo-Saxon principle of a presumption of innocence, or the legal prohibition against a bill of attainder.
So what is really going on here? City Attorney/incipient Uber-Fuhrer Adkins is trying to give cover to a group of bars and restaurants in Rochester, which have, at the behest of the local police department, banned certain styles of dress by patrons, in violation of Minnesota’s human rights laws.
The Sons of Silence and their attorney have been fighting this type of obvious discrimination at least since 2005, when they filed suit against the North Star Bar for discrimination. Such discrimination has been illegal in Minnesota since 1998, and the law provides for fines and re-payment of legal fees.
Terry Adkins, as Rochester City Attorney, is trying to protect discrimination against individual citizens of Minnesota and he is deliberately flouting ancient Common Law, the Constitutions of the United States and the State of Minnesota, and the Minnesota statutes against discrimination. He should be ashamed. Upon reflection, I think I do the NAZIs a disservice by comparison. I apologize!