“Monster” and “Monk,” members of the Mongols motorcycle gang, were at Chuck E. Cheese’s family-friendly pizza restaurant in San Diego last year when they ran into a rival — a member of the Hells Angels.
This offense of proximity prompted the Mongols to attack their enemy and, more important, according to the criminal indictment, snatch his gang attire — the jacket with the bad-boy patches and logos that separates outlaw bikers from your average dad choking down cheese pizza in a black leather vest.
This scene, violent and ridiculous, sums up the politics of patches in outlaw motorcycle gangs. It shows the symbolic weight the emblems carry for outlaw bikers, and why the federal government’s new plan to strip the Mongols of their trademarked insignia will hit the bikers where it hurts — if it works, if it is not ultimately found to be a violation of free-speech protections.
Sixty-one Mongols in seven states were arrested Tuesday in connection with a federal racketeering indictment that alleges the motorcycle club is involved in crimes ranging from drug trafficking to murder. The most compelling detail to emerge from “Operation Black Rain” is this: Prosecutors won the right Wednesday to bar the indicted Mongols from owning anything bearing their trademarked logo.
The goal, according to Thomas O’Brien, U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, where the indictment was filed, is to empower police who spot anyone wearing a Mongols patch to “stop that gang member and literally take the jacket right off his back.” It’s an unprecedented approach that has civil liberties advocates nervous and trademark experts skeptical.
The legal logic goes something like this: The Mongols brand is a registered asset. Much as the government may seize a drug dealer’s mansion, the U.S. attorney’s office can take over the Mongols trademark, according to an O’Brien spokesman.
The logo, they realize, is the symbol of all things Mongol — taking the trademark is like capturing the other team’s flag.
Police are now being given a “protocol for how to react to displays of the Mongol trademark,” he said. It’s unclear just what that protocol will be.
All of this makes civil rights advocates furious.
“It’s a total outrage. It violates the First Amendment and it’s the most preposterous thing to happen to trademark law I’ve ever seen,” said Maggie McLetchie, staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Nevada.
“There is no authority for the government to get rid of trademarks. It’s more than a twisting of the First Amendment and trademark law. People have a right to express themselves, to say ‘I am a member of the Mongols,’ to wear symbols they feel they identify with. What this judge did is an outrage.”
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