OAKLAND, Calif. – Even with some of its members old enough to collect retirement pay, a party at Hells Angels headquarters is no celebration for the police.
As the club planned to mark the 50th anniversary of its founding this weekend, police put extra officers on duty Thursday, even as they downplayed the chance of trouble from a club with a long history of run-ins with the law.
“I anticipate it’s going to be one of the biggest events the club has had,” said George Christie, the group’s Ventura chapter president. “I just think everybody’s in a festive mood.”
Christie said the event, which kicks off Friday with a concert, is drawing members to Oakland from all over the world.
The motorcycle club’s Oakland chapter, best known for providing security at the 1969 Altamont Free Concert where a fan was killed by a Hells Angel, is expected to have 600 to 800 bikers at the event, police said.
The group has secured the necessary permits, but officers will patrol the events to make sure nothing gets out of hand, police said.
The Hells Angels were formed in Fontana in 1948. By the 1960s, the club had become synonymous with outlaw biker counterculture.
Today, the group organizes motorcycle runs all over the world and takes part in charitable events such as Christmas toy drives. But the group’s history includes links to methamphetamine distribution, prostitution and violence.
The Oakland chapter was founded by Ralph “Sonny” Barger, 68, who served time in federal prison for conspiring to blow up the clubhouse of a rival biker gang, the Outlaws.
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