Original subtitles

♪

-America has a romance with outlaws.

They always have.

-The Hells Angels were larger than life.

They are what every other biker group aspires to be.

And the person who spearheaded the myth was Sonny Barger.

-We all got guts.

We're not afraid to fight for what we believe in.

-It's sort of a romanticized ideal --

cowboys on wheels, you know?

-He was like all Hells Angel to me, you know?

It was like a rock-star status.

-And then we get Altamont, and everything goes wrong.

Sonny says we made a transition into being gangsters.

Sonny never shied away from violence.

-I loved Sonny so much, but marriages sometimes are bad,

and sometimes, if you hang around tough people,

things happen to you.

He didn't kill me, but I should have just ran.

-Over and over, they say they are not criminals.

They're rebels, rebelling against a society

for which they have no respect.

♪

-We never gave a [bleep] about what anybody else thought.

♪

-We're mostly a bunch of happy-go-lucky guys

trying to make it in this world, you know?

-They're misfits, they're outlaws,

and they defy the laws of attraction.

-You know, I like them. I adore them.

They're my whole life.

-Angels forever, forever Angels.

Speaks for itself.

-The Hells Angels are not a criminal organization.

-Why don't you people go home?!

-It's an organization with criminals in it.

-Go home!

-The Hells Angels run a massive propaganda scheme.

And the unknowing gulped down that Hells Angels Kool-Aid.

-Everybody just cool out!

Hells Angels, everybody.

-That is all designed to hide

murder, rape, drug trafficking, gun-running, extortion,

assault, arson.

-I'm not trying to glorify my life,

but I'm certainly not gonna apologize for it.

-I'm doing extreme stuff.

For what?

-I'm telling it the way it really happened.

I never thought I'd be talking openly about this stuff.

-Ready for this? -I'm ready.

♪

-Yeah, I'm just a girl that rides motorcycles

and likes rock 'n' roll.

I guess I don't like boys with shiny shoes,

but the last thing I wanted was a boyfriend or a husband

in the Hells Angels, no.

♪

I like to ride my bike to all these places

and have a good time.

But if you're a woman by yourself,

every gas station, you're in potential danger.

One time, the entire charter of the Oakland Hells Angels

pulls up, and they're looking at my bike.

I'm like, "Wow. Check this out."

They all want to talk to me. "Why is this lock on it?"

And I told him straight up, "I was told, because I'm a girl,

you guys are gonna steal my bike."

They're like, "No. Hell no.

Nobody's gonna touch your bike."

I've been their friends ever since.

♪

[ Laughs ] Sonny was old school, man.

Old-school romantic guy.

The first time I met Sonny,

I was just too nervous to say anything,

but he was a charmer.

Very persuasive.

♪

He said, "Can you come by tonight?"

I did, and he never let me leave.

He brainwashed me. "Now we're getting married."

"Okay, well, alright."

But the bad boys and I got along.

I got swept off my feet by Sonny and the Hells Angels.

-Sonny made a big impression because he was a little guy.

He wasn't big, but by heart, he was bigger than me.

-He was absolutely bad-ass.

He would be at the front of the pack

and he'd be roaring down the road.

He was rock 'n' roll.

-He was a cool guy,

but he was very hard, hardcore guy.

♪

-Sonny didn't have the easiest of childhoods.

His mother left him as an infant,

and then dad wasn't easy.

Dad was a hard man.

Sonny got into a lot of fights

when he was young in school, so he was a bit of a rebel.

-After the Second World War,

hundreds of motorcycle clubs were formed across California.

They had access to all these surplus motorcycles

from the military

and they developed a reputation as being tough.

♪

-What you had was returning veterans

who had been completely displaced in their lives.

Probably suffering from undiagnosed PTSD

and maybe not knowing where they fit in anymore.

Myself included in this.

I think we were all kind of [bleep]ups.

-Part of the ideology that really attracted the vets

to the biker culture and the biker gang

is both groups had this mentality

that they were on the fringes of society.

So the vets and the bikers really bonded together

with this whole sort of anti-society mentality.

-Hey, Johnny, what are you rebelling against?

-What do you got?

-When I first saw the movie "The Wild One"

with Marlon Brando, I thought it was really cool.

And I think that's the way that we lived our lifestyle.

"What do you got?"

-Sonny Barger is a perfect example.

He came from a broken home. He ran away and joined the Army.

I think he was 16.

They discovered he was a minor and they discharged him.

But his family became the Hells Angels.

That was his real family,

and he became the patriarch of that family.

[ Indistinct conversations ]

-From 1957, when Sonny Barger joined the Hells Angels,

until the mid-'60s,

he proved that he deserved to be their leader.

He had a brain that worked that way.

They respected the way he handled all situations

and they knew he could be trusted.

And he eventually became president of the Oakland chapter

that controlled all the Hells Angels worldwide,

that determined who could become a Hells Angel,

and eventually wrote down all the rules

that the Hells Angels had to follow.

♪

-Sonny said, "Hey, listen, we need to be structured

and we need rules," because everybody was

just getting crazy and doing their own thing.

♪

So, for instance, if you lied, boom, you're out.

You steal, boom, you're gone.

No snitching, and cheating with another guy's wife was a no-no.

$100 fine if you stab another member or something.

[Bleep] you know?

Maybe it was $200 if you shot him.

But we had our rules, and that's what we stuck by.

[ Bombs whistling ]

♪

♪

-Get out of Vietnam. Get out of Vietnam.

-The Vietnam War was causing a lot of divide

within the country.

-We're talking here about a major atrocity,

a major moral crime.

-The Hells Angels were pro-war.

-Sonny was definitely a patriot always.

-Why don't you people go home?!

Get out of here, all you pacifists!

-Sonny's a scrappy guy.

He would not hesitate to scrap with somebody

if it needed to be done.

[ Indistinct yelling ]

-Sonny Barger was a military veteran who took great offense

at these draft protesters

and people that were against the war.

He thought that was un-American in the extreme.

-The Hells Angels was clashing with the protesters

because the protesters were these rich kids going to college

that were protesting the war, and the poor, working-class guys

were the ones going to war and dying.

-Our patriotic concern for what these people

are doing to our great nation may provoke violent acts by us.

Here's a letter that we sent to President Johnson.

"Dear Mr. President, on behalf of myself and my associates,

I volunteer a group of loyal Americans

for behind-the-line duty in Vietnam."

-"Mr. President, we have a group here ready for training,

ready to go."

I mean, I've been looking around at some of the other guys like,

"I don't know if I'm ready to go tramping

through the jungles of Vietnam."

They probably would have went down there being like some

Pistol Petes, just shootin' it up.

It would have been crazy.

-Do you feel especially qualified

for guerrilla activity?

-Well, I think we all got guts

and we're not afraid to fight for what we believe in.

-Do the women of the Hells Angels

agree with your decision?

-There's no women in the Hells Angels.

-Well, your girlfriends.

Do they think your decision is a wise one?

-They have no say about it. [ Laughter ]

-Maybe Sonny wasn't that sophisticated,

but Sonny was street smart

and Sonny knew the media was powerful.

-When Sonny would get press conference,

he'd see the chance to get the club's name and word out there.

"Here's just a bunch of bikers"

was what the general public thought,

scumbags or whatever, but Sonny had a vision.

He wanted the world to know the Hells Angels were here.

-What are some of the qualifications

for joining Hells Angels?

-Basically, the first one is to ride a motorcycle.

-And some others? -Just to be yourself.

-The mystique of the Hells Angels --

it wasn't instantaneous.

You know, once they got a fierce reputation,

once they could walk into a bar and everyone else cleared out

and made space for them, emptied the tables,

gave them the best table, then the mystique

started building, and that attracted women.

♪

-You walk in a room with 100 women,

you've got at least 50 of those women

that see this bad boy with a patch,

and you've got now 50 women looking at you.

♪

-Just as there were disaffected men

who wanted to belong to gangs, there were disaffected women

who didn't fit in to the suburban lifestyle.

And so they were attracted to these men.

They went together like a hand in a glove.

-I was at the bar one night with my girlfriends.

This guy in a leather vest walks up

and he pulls my hair at the bar.

I remember thinking, "What the hell are you doing touching me?"

But when you get the attention from somebody

that has certain characteristics,

it's hard not to fall into that.

-It's that bad-boy flirtation.

You know, they're flirting with the dark side,

and it can be seductive and destructive at the same time.

-It's just like groupies around rock bands.

They're like rock stars.

And they think that they can screw anything,

because sometimes, men think they can do whatever

they want to women.

♪

-The Monterey rape case involves two teenagers.

One's 14, one's 15.

And the Hells Angels wind up gang-raping them.

The Hells Angels, of course,

have a completely different version of this.

They report that, you know,

they had this big bonfire on the beach

and the girls approached them and it was all consensual.

So, of course, this becomes a theme that's perpetuated

throughout the Hells Angels

where, you know, they never rape anybody.

This is all consensual.

-The whole case unraveled, fell apart.

That really was in the news a lot.

And coming behind that was the Lynch report,

and it just put a big spotlight on the Hells Angels.

-We have identified over 446 of these people

with criminal records.

They seem to have a pattern of feeling

that, in numbers, they have strength.

-So, Thomas Lynch defines the Hells Angels

as threatening the social order,

and he makes a statement in his report.

He goes, "We have to stamp them out."

And so the irony is,

is that it's in every newspaper and every magazine,

and so instead of having the effect of stamping them out,

it actually gives the Hells Angels a platform.

Now they're on center stage.

He makes them notorious.

[ Engine revving ]

-Someone in Hollywood decided

that this would make a great movie.

Here's Hells Angels. They're bigger than life.

Look how big they are.

So you got a subconscious message to the little kids --

you know, it's great.

To the parents, it's like we're marauding pirates.

♪

-"Hells Angels on Wheels" was shown everywhere.

It drew a lot of interest to the club, where people reached out.

-Hi, there!

-Go! [ Screaming ]

-Sonny's out traveling with Hollywood,

promoting these movies,

and that's when the expansion started.

At that time, Hells Angels only had California.

Sonny's vision was further than that.

And that's how we got your Hells Angels

all over the United States.

-At that time, they had 10 chapters.

By 1970, they had 18 chapters,

and it was the beginning of a huge snowballing effect.

♪

-Hunter S. Thompson asked Sonny for permission

to ride along with Hells Angels in California, and they says,

"Yeah, well, it's gonna cost you a keg of beer."

So the club allowed Hunter Thompson

to ride with them and party with them.

-Typical Hells Angel party --

anything could happen and often did.

There was a lot of coke running around,

and this new drug came on the scene -- meth.

There was also what we used to call Outlaw Punch

and consisted of cheap whiskey,

cheap vodka, fruit punch, and LSD.

That caused some violence from time to time.

You know, it caused an actual double homicide once.

The party got out of control.

-Mr. Thompson, you spent a year living with them.

How do you explain them?

-It's a whole subculture of dropouts

and washouts and people who

just can't make it in this automated, you know,

technological society.

-You say they can't make it in this automated society. Is it --

-Most of them are not very smart.

-Sonny Barger hated him.

Sonny did admit he was a good author, but Sonny hated him.

The thing he hated about him was,

he felt he deceived the Hells Angels.

[ Engine revving ]

♪

-What'd you think of the book?

-That book is 60% cheap trash.

-You've read the book and you think that I wasn't --

-I want to know why we didn't get the two kegs of beer

that you promised us.

[ Laughter ]

-At one time, people would describe the Hells Angels

as being Neanderthals, but Barger was very canny.

He knew that if he got the public onside

or at least did not offend them, kept them neutral,

that the politicians wouldn't even care about them.

He was very smart.

He put those people out front,

but he was always there in the background.

-...any guts after living with all of these people...

-"Skip" Workman embraces and condones violence to your wife

or a woman, and the audience applauded him.

Imagine saying that now.

-Keep a woman in line, you got to beat them like a rug

once in a while, you know? -Well...

[ Laughter, applause ]

-The crowd goes nuts. They cheered this guy on.

They laughed. They clapped.

The audience were the suburbanites who had to work,

who had to raise their kids, who had bills to pay, had mortgages.

And they're looking at a guy who's living free

and just wishing, "Oh, man, I wish that was me."

-There are those people that will accuse the Hells Angels

of being misogynist, violent, racist.

And I think those labels are actually warranted,

because, you know,

in order to be a member of the Hells Angels --

I mean, they don't have any women that are members.

That's an absolute, you know, no-no.

-I think that the Hells Angels

felt that they were superior to women.

I mean, I'd be lying -- I'm not gonna lie here.

You know, it was a man's organization.

But what you have to understand, there were women in the club.

You know, Mother Ruthe, well, she was a Berdoo Hells Angel.

There was another woman, Garbage Head.

She actually had the tattoo on her back.

But, you know, there's no way to deny that Sonny took the power.

The girls got pushed out.

They went to property patches,

and you can see "Property of the Hells Angels."

-If you're property of your old man,

you exist and have a life because of him

and you serve at the whim of him.

There's that commonality between a lot of the brotherhood.

They kind of come from these broken, dysfunctional families.

You know, I mean, Sonny Barger himself was left by his mom.

His mom ran off with a bus driver and left him

when he was 4 months old, never to be heard from again.

[ Baby crying ]

-You don't want to be with a man that had a bad mother,

because what happens?

You know, a lot of them end up hating women.

A lot of people in that situation

and in those types of cliques have bad mothers.

It's kind of what draws you together.

His sister and father raised him,

and I think, pretty much, he raised himself from there.

He's feral.

I don't think he put too much stock

in my daughter, my children.

I don't think he respected that enough.

I think he always put the club first.

Always.

♪

-Hippie means someone who's hip, who's turned on.

We have our own way of dressing.

We even have our own police force.

The Hells Angels operate for us

the way the FBI operates for you.

[ Laughs ]

♪

And among the Hells Angels, you'll find as many beautiful,

holy people as you will in any police force.

-Okay, it's definitely on.

The Rolling Stones -- they're going to hold

the concert with the Grateful Dead,

the Jefferson Airplane, Santana.

It's at Altamont Speedway.

-The Hells Angels -- they got hired

by The Rolling Stones and their managers

to help provide security for the stage.

-I don't think the Altamont Speedway

had ever sponsored a concert.

I don't think that the guy knew what he was getting into.

-We thought maybe 75,000, 80,000, 100,000 people

would be quite sufficient.

We ended up with 300,000, and the Hells Angels

were secured with a truckload of beer that cost $500.

-When we got there, I pulled up and parked and we were, like,

supposed to sit on the edge of the stage and keep people off.

People were packed right up and onto the stage.

And at one time when some hassling was going on,

the people were getting up on the stage

and, like, nobody had backed up.

-There was some tussles and stuff because,

you know, a lot of people, they're doing a lot of drugs.

They're free to do the drugs.

This is the place to do them.

So you end up with people that are not thinking logically.

-They were handing out LSD that was laced

with speed and mescaline that was bad medicine.

And people were drinking orange juice

that had been laced with LSD without knowing it.

-There's this cat running around on the stage,

like, pretty frantic, you know.

-Very early on, somebody climbs up on stage

and one of the Hells Angels takes him out.

Just beats the kid to a pulp right on stage

where everybody can see it.

-You know what? Some people got hit.

They got thumped. You know? They got hurt.

-Having been Angelized,

the whole vibe had changed completely.

♪

-They lost control of the stage and they knew it.

And that was when the fear filled the backstage.

This is out of hand.

-The Angels had decided that the best weapon would be a pool cue.

The larger end would be sliced open and drilled,

and it would be filled with lead

just to give it a little more whammy.

-With the splintered pool cue,

started jabbing this guy in the face with it.

-It was really bad.

-The whole concert is chaos now.

-There's a long wait before the Stones come on.

Temperature drops 15 degrees.

It's cold as hell.

-The whole timbre of the evening became more sour,

more desperate.

-It's just chaotic.

And then you have Meredith Hunter,

this young black guy that looks to me

like he's wired out of his mind.

-Meredith Hunter and his girlfriend, Patti,

showed up early that morning,

and as they walked through the crowd

to make their way toward the front of the stage,

the Hells Angels noted this flamboyant black guy

in a lime green suit with

a beautiful blonde, white girlfriend.

And Patti remembers seeing the looks

they got just walking past Hells Angels.

So right from the start, Meredith was an affront

to the values of the Hells Angels

who were racist [bleep]

And that's part of their credo.

-No blacks in the club and everybody thought,

"Oh, because they were racist."

But what you have to understand is it says no blacks

because when we go to the prison systems,

as soon as you get to the penal system,

when you go in, you see all the white guys,

you see all the black guys, you see all the Mexican guys.

That's how it works. Trust me, it's all segregated.

So I walk in with a black guy and I go, "This is my brother."

Ain't never gonna fly, dude.

Either the white guys are gonna get us

or the black guys are gonna get us.

-Well, there are people in the club

that don't like blacks, that don't like Mexicans,

but I know black clubs that don't like whites.

You know, it goes both ways.

-There aren't any blacks that are members.

In fact, many members of the Hells Angels are,

you know, white supremacists.

-I got tons of Nazi tattoos on me,

but it wasn't all about, like,

wanting to be a Nazi or the white power movement

or any of that stuff.

It was a symbol of being the bad guys.

-The Hells Angels are racist by their own rules

and regulations.

It's in print -- no "N-words" in the organization.

So that's what they think of black people.

-Come on now.

That means everybody just cool out!

Hells Angels, everybody.

Let's just keep ourselves together.

-Meredith had already managed to assault the stage

at one time or another

and was thrown back by one or two of the Angels.

-This cat comes along and loaded on some drugs

and kept trying to climb up on the stage,

and he's blown it, you know?

And, you know, he's hysterical, I would say.

-Then they find him again,

waving a gun on the stage left side.

-Meredith points a gun at the stage.

Now, I've never got a straight answer.

Did he shoot at the stage or just point the gun at the stage?

I don't know.

♪

-How many bullets has he got?

It could hit Mick Jagger. It could hit a Hells Angel.

Al Passaro took him out right then and there.

-Alan Passaro, San Jose Hells Angel,

pulls a knife out of his boot,

jumps on his back, puts the knife in his neck.

They fall to the ground.

He stabs him three or four more times.

-All of a sudden somebody down in front is yelling.

You know, some other Angels that were sitting on the stage,

like, finally caught the action of what was happening,

and they started coming off of the stage.

-They pile on, they're kicking this guy,

standing on him, throwing garbage cans at him.

-There was six or seven Angels on one guy.

They're upset and they're yelling and carrying on,

and one guy took care of it and a little bit more violence,

you know? And there was no more problem.

-The younger folk came in and just kicked him to death.

♪

-He stabbed the dude, you know,

and he killed him, and that was, like, a huge --

Everybody -- "Whoa! God.

You know, is this what these guys do?"

-There's always been

overtures that the Hells Angels are racist.

You know, you get all these social justice warriors

nowadays with this and that. "I saw a Nazi insignia."

You know what? Meredith Hunter pointed a gun at the stage.

What the hell did he expect?

Yeah, the Hells Angels got blamed.

Of course the Hells Angels got blamed.

You know, the Hells Angels are America's boogeyman

at that particular point in time.

♪

-We continue now with the latest developments

in the biggest story of the weekend,

that free concert given by The Rolling Stones

over at Altamont.

-Mick Jagger's response to the Altamont murder

of Meredith Hunter

was to completely denounce the Hells Angels as thugs,

as killers, as whatever.

And the Hells Angels did not take kindly to this.

-Hello, KSAN, and you're on the air, brother.

And they got one of the angels on the line, Sonny Barger.

Have I got it right, Sonny? -Yeah.

-Okay. What's up?

-Sonny Barger snorts up a massive amount of cocaine

and gets on the phone.

-You know what? You can say anything you want

and you can call us all kind of lousy dogs.

And, like, we shouldn't be at these places and this and that.

But we were doing what one of them managers asked us to do.

Mick Jagger again put it all on the Angels, man.

-It caused a big rift, you know.

It caused a rift with the Rolling Stones.

You know, they had made a commitment

that any legal fees they would pay for,

and it came time to ante up and they didn't want to pay.

-You know what? I want to be his friend.

If he don't want to be my friend, then out of sight.

Don't even talk to me.

I'm a violent cat when I got to be.

But if somebody wants trouble with us,

they're gonna get it.

-Sonny's coming out there saying he wants to whack Mick Jagger.

I mean, Sonny was out there, man.

He was, you know, telling it like it was.

-They actually put out a hit on Mick Jagger.

They got a raft and they put a bomb on the raft,

and they were gonna go out to Mick Jagger's boat

that was his yacht that was docked on Martha's Vineyard,

and they were gonna blow up the yacht.

-Rock star Mick Jagger is marked for death

by the Hells Angels motorcycle gang.

Well, that was just part of the frightening testimony today

before the Senate Judiciary Committee.

-Some of the most startling testimony came from

an ex-Hells Angel identified only as Butch.

Butch says there have already

been two attempts to kill the group.

-Had a pontoon boat, a little rubber raft thing,

with plastic explosives in it, and they lost it in the water.

-The boat flooded, it capsized.

They swam back to shore.

Once that was stated before the Senate subcommittee,

Jagger coughed up with the dough.

Well, you know, somebody coughed up with the dough

because the debt was satisfied.

And I think the ironic thing was, you know,

they gave us $50,000,

and then we wound up fighting over the money.

Who was gonna get it?

Which, you know, I don't even know

if I've ever said that publicly before,

but it's the honest to God truth.

♪

-After Altamont, the love affair of the media

with the Angels ended.

The love affair of the hippies with the Hells Angels ended.

As they entered the decade of the '70s,

Sonny Barger said, "Screw society.

We're getting into the drug business."

Barger realized that they could make drugs

and make a lot of money,

but to do so, they had to fly under the radar.

He said, "We need to clean up our act"

because he didn't want to attract unwarranted attention

from law enforcement.

The Angels seriously got into drugs in 1970.

They lucked out in 1974 when they ran into a retired chemist

from the Shell Oil Company.

One of their members was taught how to cook methamphetamine.

And that's when they started making heavy-duty money.

-They were involved in the drug trade.

And so the more territories they had,

the more they would, you know, seize that drug trade.

♪

-Sonny got hassled constantly by the police and federal agents

and, you know, all that kind of [bleep]

Constant phone tappings for landlines.

-Sonny was absolutely the head of the snake,

and that's what law enforcement was attempting to do

this whole time is to cut the head off the snake.

-The police would have loved to arrest Sonny.

They have such a boner for Sonny.

♪

-We're seen by the public.

And when the police say "these guys are killers,

these guys are dope fiends,

these guys are dope dealers," this and that,

it's probably not too hard for the public to believe

because they see us standing out from the rest of the population.

But as far as any truth to it, I say there's no truth to it.

-Sonny is like Teflon. Nothing sticks to him.

He's always selling the fact that they're not criminals.

You know, they're not up to any type of,

you know, criminal exploits. They're just good old boys.

Part of the challenge that law enforcement

has is that he's a likable person,

and people don't want to throw the book at him.

They don't want to come back and convict him.

In June of 1970, the feds organized

this raid of Sonny Barger's house.

They are absolutely certain they're gonna find drugs there.

-We managed to enter without any difficulties whatsoever.

They've been under surveillance, the Hells Angels

and particularly their leader, Mr. Barger, for some time.

And this was the end result,

culminating in the investigation.

-Here you have at least $300,000 worth of narcotics

that was out on the street.

We also find arms and ammunition.

We find these outlaw groups like the Hells Angels,

particularly in this case where we have the president

of the organization with literally an arsenal.

He has enough ammunition and guns here

to destroy a lot of people.

They're not hunting weapons.

-Sonny gets the best lawyers, he's got sympathetic jurors,

and Sonny himself is very charming,

and, not surprisingly, gets off.

♪

♪

♪

♪

-Criminals are always ahead of law enforcement,

and Sonny Barger even forbade anyone

from talking about business,

drugs, murder, prostitution inside the clubhouse

because they could be wired.

♪

But the problem they ran into in the '80s

was that the FBI had an informant

within the Hells Angels.

They used a top-echelon snitch

to bring down a top-echelon criminal.

And that's what it takes.

♪

♪

-Why is the government going after you?

-Well, they claim that I am the leader of the Hells Angels,

and as such, I think everybody that's been following this case

from the beginning knows that it's a harassment.

-Sonny came back from prison, and he realized

that he didn't have the power base that he once had.

He came home to turmoil in the Hells Angels.

The club, Oakland, had split in half.

He got in a bitter battle

and "Cisco" Valderrama became president.

So what does he do?

Packs up, goes to Arizona and starts fresh.

-Me and Sonny moved to another state,

so I didn't feel like I had my extended family

like I did in Oakland and California.

[ Indistinct conversations ]

I didn't know any of these guys.

I felt disliked,

and I think that's probably why our marriage started to fail.

And I know that he would get...aggressive with it.

After the first ass-kicking, I should have left.

♪

-Phew!

♪

My ex-husband was a sergeant of arms of the Hells Angels.

Not all of them are abusive,

but me, as a wife, was absolutely abused.

The day before my wedding,

he kicked down the door of the hotel, and he choked me.

I just had my little son, and he was 6 weeks old,

and we went to a hockey game.

And we were driving home from the hockey game,

and out of the blue, he punched me in the face.

I remember blood splattering the window,

and he threw me in a ditch

because I didn't wear the right outfit

and present him properly at the game.

Another time, my son -- he gets a little buddy.

Well, his little buddy ended up being a police officer's son.

My ex-husband seen that e-mail that came in

which is just on a parent e-mail thread.

He beat me for probably about 9, 10 hours.

♪

And he had the computer ripped out of the house

to have it analyzed.

And he threatened that I would be killed,

that brothers of his would help bury me.

Um...

♪

[ Sobs ]

♪

♪

-The position of women in the Hells Angels

is either on their back or on their knees.

And they have no respect for anyone.

-Sonny wanted to fight with me. He wanted to argue with me.

He wanted to say bad things to me.

I was hurt many times. I was hit for no reason.

I think the fist came into play because I can be lippy.

-I think that was a really tough time for Sonny.

That relationship spun out of control with Noel.

He physically hurt her. She said she couldn't move.

-He kicked me in the back

while I was sitting in a lawn chair.

Broke it. Three places.

He had called 911, said that I tried to shoot him.

-And it finally came to a head when he did the 911 call,

and he basically called the cops on her.

-Never dial 911. No.

That's a big rule in the club.

You do not dial 911.

And that was the first thing he did.

-Sonny Barger was the only member that called 911,

interacted with law enforcement, and remained in the club.

Because that was a rule. He broke it.

Other members had got kicked out in the past for it,

and other members got kicked out in the future for it.

And this caused a big problem

between Sonny and not just myself in the club,

but I would say 50% of the club.

-I heard the tape, and I was flabbergasted,

and I was thinking, "Wow."

-There was a group of individuals

that were gunning for him with that 911 tape.

-As much as he's respected and loved as a man,

he should have just stepped down and walked away

and said, "You know, I [bleep] up, man."

♪

-Sonny Barger was very abusive toward women

and so really instrumental in the mentality

of the Hells Angels.

You know, they were misogynists,

and he was completely accepting of it

within the culture of the Hells Angels.

-You know, him and I feuded for years.

He was a Hells Angel 24 hours a day,

7 days a week.

But there was a problem and a flaw

that I saw in Sonny.

The problem was

Sonny thought the club belonged to him.

And my position was that we all belonged to the club.

And that's the big difference between me and Sonny.

You know, I wasn't afraid to disagree with him

on any level, and I did many times.

And, you know, it really created a wedge ultimately at the end.

♪

-Ride on, Sonny, into history, which are angels from hell.

[ Engine revving ]

-I've got to give him credit. He was a hell of a leader.

-Sonny succeeded absolutely in building a myth

for the Hells Angels.

-And he set in motion what would become

the largest organized-crime gang on this planet.

-Even today, the Hells Angels remain a threat to society.

The Hells Angels are involved in drug and arms trafficking,

in prostitution, in gambling.

They're skilled as assassins, and they murder witnesses.

They bribe judges.

The fact of the matter is,

they are an organized criminal syndicate.