NEW YORK – Bart Darling, his hair cropped close to his skull and his motorcycle club’s colors on his back, explained the prerequisites for Hells Angels membership: Respect is earned, not given. Bad boys are welcomed, not rejected. And one last thing:
“We don’t beat up freaking women.”
The neighborhood around the Angels’ Manhattan headquarters, long a flashpoint for controversy, was buzzing again this week after a brutally beaten woman was found outside the club’s front door. But while police and local residents malign the notorious motorcycle gang, the Angels insist they’re the victims.
“They’re trying to put a bad jacket on us,” said club member Brendan Manning after New York police in riot gear stormed the Angels’ headquarters. “They’re trying to say we’re women-beaters. That’s not our trip. … They took something and made a big mountain out of an unfortunate thing.”
The unfortunate thing happened to Roberta Shalaby, 52, of the Brooklyn borough, who was found unconscious outside the motorcycle club’s E. Third Street headquarters. Police arrested and released one of the Angels, who now plans a civil rights lawsuit against the NYPD.
That may sound absurd, but the Angels have collected more than $800,000 in the last seven years from lawsuits against the city.
A 1999 settlement over the police’s failure to obey a search warrant provided the Angels with a $565,000 windfall, while a September 2001 settlement of $247,000 came after police conducted a warrantless search of the group’s headquarters.
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