Vagos Arrested in San Francisco; Prompt Hemet County To Offer $200K Reward

San Francisco--At least 30 members of the Vagos Motorcycle Club were arrested in a multistate police raid that "brings new attention to the California-based gang known for its violent past," said a report in the Christian Science Monitor. Police in San Francisco may want to watch their backs in light of developments outside Los Angeles supposedly caused by the Vagos.

"The raids that reportedly took place in Utah, Nevada, Arizona, and California involved some 400 police officers. As many as 70 locations were hit in Southern California, where police seized weapons and drugs and discovered a methamphetamine lab," the article said.

The gang has “hundreds of members in the US and Mexico and poses a serious criminal threat to those areas in which its chapters are located,” according to the US Department of Justice.

The Vagos, also known as “Green Nation,” first formed in the late 1960s and has since been the subject of numerous investigations. In 2006, at least 25 Vagos members were arrested for various weapons and drug violations after a three-year investigation that the Orange County Register called one of the “largest coordinated law enforcement probes ever conducted in the region.”

Police at Hemet City Hall, a city of tract homes and trailer parks in Riverside County, about 80 miles east of Los Angeles, has all but said they are at war with the Vagos MC and has gone so far as to construct an iron fence around the Police Department downtown, “to prevent someone from lobbing a grenade or something in the window,” Police Chief Richard Dana said in an interview found here.

The police have been subject to numerous attacks attributed to the Vagos, and the

The Hemet Police Department, the state attorney general’s office and federal agencies have raised a $200,000 reward for any information leading to an arrest and conviction in the attacks.

The trouble started for Hemet officials shortly after a gang task force began “putting pressure” on the Vagos motorcycle gang late last year by checking members for potential parole violations, said John Hall, a spokesman for the district attorney’s office, as outlined in the New York Times article.

Civilization would appear to be in trouble if the police must turn to bounty hunters/killers to maintain justice in our streets.