There seems to be a failure of the North American Law Enforcement Intelligence community when it comes to being able to distinguish between the good guys and the bad guys. How is it that the Blue Knights Law Enforcement Motorcycle Club can be deemed a “Gang” when NO EVIDENCE of criminal wrongdoing has been offered in support of this unjust label ? And, more importantly, what about the mountain of evidence of charitable, honorable, and benevolent work by this and other similar clubs that is ignored by the “Intelligence” community ?
Along with the Blue Knights MC are countless other smaller law-abiding motorcycle clubs that are made up of people who happen to work in, and/or support, the Police, Fire, EMS, and Military professions. These clubs combined are vastly larger than the outlaw clubs that they are too often lumped in with by “Intelligence Analysts”.
To all of these law abiding bikers, it is insulting that those who are charged with “Intelligence” work are unable or unwilling to differentiate between the law abiding and the outlaws in the Motorcycle Club community. What seems simple to the average person is apparently too much for our “Intelligence” analysts.
I guess it’s really not that simple. Blacklisting law enforcement motorcycle clubs along with the known outlaw clubs is overly simplistic as everybody knows the Blue Knights are NOT criminals. But the similarities between the 99% and the 1% MC members are enough for some POLITICIANS to declare them all dangerous, ignore the good qualities, and sell it to the ignorant consumers. But, people are getting smarter. The information age has raised the awareness of more people than ever. And now, sadly, the “Intelligence” community, on this subject, doesn’t look so intelligent.
The three piece patch (Here we go again) seems to be the Intelligence Community’s “Evidence” that the wearer is, or affiliates with, criminals. Note to the “Intelligence Analysts”: THE NUMBER OF PATCHES DOESN’T MATTER - IT PROVES NOTHING. There are plenty of criminal motorcycle gangs wearing one and two piece back patches. The proof that any organization is criminal is found in the behaviors of the members.
We, in the law abiding motorcycle club community, have no problem with the mission of the intelligence community. We all want to be safe. It serves no useful purpose to call law abiding, socially responsible citizens criminals. This is damaging to the credibility of our intelligence efforts.
We agree that all police officers should be held to the higher standards already articulated in their agencies’ code of conduct. We should not have to surrender the very freedoms we are sworn to protect.
It is demeaning and insulting to state that law enforcement officers, who happen to be a member of a law abiding motorcycle club, cannot attend training on criminal outlaw motorcycle gangs. You are essentially saying that we are somehow not entitled to the same level of protection as those that we risk our lives for every day.
The freedom to form clubs, wear patches, and ride motorcycles was paid for with the blood and lives of far too many good people, and is NOT NEGOTIABLE for the sake of politics.
You, in the “Intelligence” community; You work for us, you are us. We demand fair and equitable treatment. No-one should be subject to the stigmatization of a criminal reputation without PROOF demonstrated by due process.
Look at more than a patch, look at the patch. Look at more than the person wearing the patch, look at the patch being worn by the person.