Before we get started here, a disclaimer. This article should not be construed as an endorsement of illegal activity, nor of any particular club, group, organization or faction. The intent of this article is purely to examine the phenomenon of defamatory and libelous statements made by law-enforcement officials and the press, against persons or groups whom are viewed as "enemies" of the status quo. In this expose, we examine they hypocrisy as it has been carried out against the Vagos Motorcyle Club, but in truth, any one of us could be next on their list.
In August, the outlaw MC settled a defamation lawsuit against Riverside County (California) after officials slammed them with a number of unfounded accusatory remarks. According to this linked article...
The comments were made after a March 2010 law enforcement action that targeted nearly three dozen alleged Vagos members during an investigation of attacks that included torching four Hemet code-enforcement trucks and setting up a zip-gun booby trap that fired a bullet at an officer when he opened a security gate.
A month after that case was settled, the Vagos were again making headlines as a new sweep by law-enforcement across a number of counties netted the arrest of 12 members...
...some of whom are accused of crimes including rape and solicitation of murder...
...according to this linked article. Who exactly is doing the accusing though? What were the charges that were actually filed against them? Is this simply a matter of the press taking creative liberties from tidbits of information supplied by law-enforcement? The only charge actually listed in that article was against one member, charged with possession of body armor, with gang enhancement. He faces 3 years in prison if convicted. No rape, no murder for hire. Again, the same article reports...
The raids were the latest effort to dismantle what officials have labeled an outlaw gang...
...while all but ignoring that 25 other people were also arrested during this 18-month long investigation. Assuming that the Vagos members who were arrested are even guilty of anything at all, one must ask if this was indeed a Vagos enterprise, or an enterprise carried out by some people who incidentally happened to be members of the Vagos Motorcyle Club? If you live in building where 12 people are arrested in a raid, does that make your tenant's association an "outlaw gang"?
Now we all know that this club is made up of some bad-asses who are probably not beyond committing some crimes, but if people were convicted purely on hunches and who you know, we would all be in a lot of trouble. That is simply not the American way. Not supposed to be anyway. Moreover, it is against the law to state as a matter of fact that someone is guilty of a crime without proof. If you call someone a rapist, for example, you damn well better be able to prove it.
Nonetheless, some law enforcement officials and news reporting agencies like to gamble a little with making such defamatory and libelous remarks. They count on their presumptions panning out for one thing, and then they count on certain "protections" from the system if they don't pan out. After all, who is really going to stick up for a bunch of badasses from a motorcycle gang right? And why should we? Why do we presume that the accused are innocent until proven guilty?
He that would make his own liberty secure, must guard even his enemy from oppression; for if he violates this duty, he establishes a precedent that will reach to himself. ~Thomas Paine
Now keep that quote in mind here, as we have a look at what else this "news" article had to say, stating...
...as well as the rape of a woman by four Vagos members at a Los Alamitos bar in March.
No arrests have been made in either case, but authorities were asking for the public's help in identifying the rape victim.
"We feel like she's been threatened, and that's the reason why she hasn't come forward," King said.
Is this really news, or is this propaganda? Since when does what some cop may "feel" mean the same thing as stating unequivocally, after a conviction in a court of law, by a jury of peers, that someone is in fact guilty of rape?
A rape is not a rape at all without a victim. Rape is not rape at all until someone states that they were sexually violated. Who are the police to distinguish through someone unknown witness (or witnesses) of unknown motives, what was an act of rape or a consensual sex act, that may or may not have even occurred in the first place? And who are the Associated Press to make any such determination at all, printing as they have that a rape did indeed occur and that the perpetrators were members of the Vagos MC?
We don't know that a rape occurred, but they are stating it as fact. Even if a rape did occur, they are stating as fact, without proof, that the perpetrators were Vagos members.
So really, all it might take to "convict" the Vagos in the eyes of law-enforcement, the press, and ultimately the public, would be to, let's say, dress up like a Vago and have rough sex with my old lady on a pool table in a bar? Is that really all it takes to have my enemies' reputation destroyed by local law enforcement and the national press?
If that is the case, and apparently it is, how long before someone who doesn't like you, decides to do something that makes you look like a criminal? To do something that might land you behind bars for a crime that never happened in the first place?
Outlaw MC's may not be what we would call the "good guys." But at the same time, when our supposed good guys are blatant hypocrites, it makes one wonder if there really are any good guys left at all. Or are we just caught in the crossfire and listening to Hell's Bells all along?
"A thing moderately good is not so good as it ought to be. Moderation in temper is always a virtue; but moderation in principle is always a vice." ~Thomas Paine
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