Monday, Jun. 17, 1957
He wore black denim trousers and
motorcycle boots And a black leather jacket with an
eagle on the back. He had a hopped-up cycle that took
off like a gun, That fool was the terror of Highway
101.
—Jukebox Favorite
Organizing a weekend "gypsy tour" to the tiny California mining town of Angels Camp (pop. 1,163), the
Northern California chapter of the American Motorcycle Association won eager support from the Angels
Camp Lions Club and police. The Lions agreed to sponsor A.M.A. races, borrowed $1,000 from the bank
to pay advance costs. The police department increased its force from two officers to eight after warnings
that motorcycle hoodlums sometimes dog the A.M.A. riders, sometimes get violent. (Ten years ago they
almost wrecked nearby Hollister, Calif, during a three-day beer and battle orgy.) One day last week, as
predicted, almost a thousand of the black-denim trouser set trailed 3,000 A.M.A. Riders into Angels Camp.
The A.M.A. pitched its camp in the fair grounds just outside town. The hoodlums, their waists girdled by
metal chains and their leather jackets emblazoned with gang names—Vampires, Huns, Tartars—parked
their cycles on Main Street and tossed their bedrolls beside Angels Camp's bubbling trout stream. Then
they took over the community. They bought all the beer in town (100 cases), buzzed over to neighboring
Altaville for more, and for wine. They guzzled fast, tossed empty cans and bottles into gutters. Residents
soon found drunks stretched in their doorways. A group trailed a town girl; while one yelled obscenities,
the rest of the pack twirled waist chains menacingly to discourage interference. Three of Angels Camp's
four bars shut down; merchants decided to close early. Then came action. Flashing down the Main Street
hill with muffler throbbing, a long-haired youngster wheeled artfully through a knot of idlers, snatched a
can of beer on the fly. Hundreds of daredevils kicked their starters, ready to meet his challenge. "You're
Dead." One motorcyclist roared down Main Street with a wine-swilling companion on his shoulders;
another stood on the saddle of his speeding motorcycle and drained a bottle. Others spaced beer cans
along the street, wove in and out on their cycles in an impromptu slalom race; soon the steeliest of the
girls stood beside the cans as markers. An Angels Camp policeman darted into the street to pick up the
beer cans, retreated amid hoots and catcalls when a cyclist buzzed him. Other gangs organized drag
races, reached 50 m.p.h. from standing starts. Some settled for simple horseplay. One doughty fellow
teased his friends with a mop until they charged him with chains, beat his face bloody and banged his
head against the pavement. "Get up and you're dead," said a buddy, who kicked him in the groin and
slouched off. Along the streets more bodies were piling up. Drunken riders lost control, pitched off on
their heads and lay still. Outside Angels Camp a girl riding behind her husband was killed when he
slammed into a gasoline tanker. Two hoodlum outriders headed toward the fair grounds, the A.M.A.
territory. They charged a formation of six A.M.A. riders just topping a rise in the road. All eight crunched
together in a pile of twisted metal and spinning wheels. When the wheels slowed, two of the eight
were dying. Carried to an ambulance with his foot sheared off, A.M.A.'s Richard Casparian, 25, watched a
leather-jacketed form lifted in beside him. "You put him in here with me," spat Casparian weakly,
"I'll kill him." Get Out of Town. At that point Angels Camp and the A.M.A. both had had enough. A.M.A.
Members volunteered to clean out the town. Police Chief Joe Spinelli refused, instead persuaded them
to cancel a scheduled parade. Spinelli telephoned the Calaveras County sheriff for reinforcements,
moved his seven men to the town's edge to join arriving officers in a show of force. The power play
was effective. Hoodlums sprawling along Main Street found themselves suddenly pinned between 30-odd
policemen walking quietly into town from the south and 14 carloads of state highway patrolmen rolling in
from the north. The cops wrote 300 tickets for defective motorcycles and improper licenses, arrested all
who protested, quickly jammed the tiny ivy-covered Angels Camp jail with 23 prisoners. In the face of
such action, hooligan bravado collapsed. The gangs packed bedrolls, hid jackets to prevent identification,
whined their way past police checkpoints, and rolled quietly into the darkness. With relief, Angels Camp
watched them depart.
© Top Hatters Motorcycle Club
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