You Gotta Be Dirty

Book excerpt: In August 1964, a disheveled band of motorcyclists mysteriously appeared in Milwaukee. Over the course of the next decade, the Outlaws Motorcycle Club (OMC) became synonymous with acts of intimidation and violence. In the ruthless world of renegade bikers, the OMC's Milwaukee chapter became known as the "Wrecking Crew." You Gotta Be Dirty: The Outlaws Motorcycle Club in & Around Wisconsin, examines the evolution of outlaw motorcycle clubs in the United States. From 1947 - the early 1960s, the influence of rogue riders - the one-percent of motorcyclists living outside the law - spread from the west coast and in to America's heartland. In Wisconsin, investigators linked members of the Outlaws to at least eleven murders. Four of the innocent persons killed were women and two were elderly. Three children also lost their lives: A fifteen-year-old boy was killed by an explosive device; an infant perished in an arson fire; and a ten-year-old boy was executed vis-a-vis a gunshot to the head. During the tumultuous 1990s, the Outlaws orchestrated a guerrilla-style offensive in a quest to beat back the expansion of the world's largest one-percent motorcycle club - the Hells Angels (HAMC). During this period, the HAMC began courting the Hell's Henchmen Motorcycle Club, a group with chapters in Chicago, Rockford, and South Bend, Indiana. The Hells Angels' bold move into northern Illinois touched-off a seven-year conflict that was exacerbated by beatings, bombings, and shootings. "As a former outlaw biker investigator," wrote author and retired Milwaukee Police Department Detective Larry Powalisz, "I participated in the investigations of several of the incidents documented in this well-researched book. This history of the Outlaws Motorcycle Club shines a bright light on the one-percent motorcycle subculture.""