California killing cited in Vegas-area bikers shooting case

HENDERSON, Nev. — A capturing that authorities say concerned rival Hells Angels and Vagos bike gang members on a Las Vegas-area freeway could have been retaliation for the killing of a person a number of weeks in the past in Southern California, a prosecutor stated Thursday.

Danielle Pieper Chio, a chief deputy Clark County district lawyer, revealed the potential hyperlink throughout the arraignment in suburban Henderson of three alleged Hells Angels members within the Memorial Day weekend capturing. Police say one is the Las Vegas chapter president and the opposite two had been Hells Angels recruits.

Exterior courtroom, Pieper Chio cited the April 23 capturing dying of James Vincent Dickson, 32, throughout a heavy metallic live performance at a bar within the California metropolis of San Bernardino. Information reviews stated 4 different folks had been wounded, together with a member of the band that was enjoying on the time. Pieper Chio stated Dickson was a Hells Angels member.

“The allegation is that Vagos hit a Hells Angels member (in San Bernardino),” the prosecutor stated, “and that makes this probably a retaliatory capturing.”

San Bernardino police, together with detectives assigned to Dickson’s slaying, declined Thursday to remark about their investigation and the potential hyperlink between Dickson’s dying and the gunfire close to Las Vegas. No arrests have been reported within the San Bernardino case.

Henderson police stated six Vagos members had been wounded and Pieper Chio stated a seventh one that confirmed up at a hospital with gunshot wounds attributed to the mid-day Sunday capturing was a Hells Angels member.

Pieper Chio didn’t say whether or not that man’s wounds had been inflicted by Vagos members. No Vagos members have been charged with against the law within the capturing.

Richard John Devries, 66, and membership recruits Russell Smith, 46, and Stephen Alo, 26, had been arraigned Thursday on a number of tried homicide, conspiracy, battery and weapon expenses that would get them many years in jail.

Henderson magistrate David Gibson stored bail for every man at $380,000 pending one other courtroom look June 14.

In courtroom, Pieper Chio cited retaliation as a potential motive and stated the Vagos members had been using bikes again to Las Vegas after stops on the Hoover Dam, in Arizona, and on the Southern Nevada Veterans Memorial Cemetery in Boulder Metropolis.

An individual police recognized as an nameless witness offered video exhibiting three males carrying Hells Angels apparel using as much as the Vagos members earlier than photographs had been fired, in accordance with police reviews.

Pieper Chio stated greater than a dozen photographs had been fired on U.S. 95 in Henderson, and stray bullets struck a close-by Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints constructing and a parked car. Police stated spent bullet casings had been discovered strewn for greater than a mile (1.6 kilometer) alongside the freeway.

Devries’ lawyer, Richard Schonfeld, declined exterior courtroom to verify whether or not his shopper leads the Hells Angels in Las Vegas. Schonfeld informed the decide that Devries is a army veteran with no felony document, and there was no proof that he fired a weapon. The lawyer stated he intends to file paperwork searching for to scale back Devries’ bail to an quantity he can submit.

Protection lawyer Thomas Pitaro, representing Smith and Alo, additionally sought decrease bail, saying he doubted they may increase $380,000.

Gibson cited the stray photographs and stated he felt the three defendants posed a hazard to the neighborhood.

“I’m fearful that one thing goes to occur,” the decide stated, noting the gunfire came about “on a freeway I take, in a neighborhood that I reside.”

Henderson police on Thursday issued a public request for witnesses to the capturing to contact investigators.

Schonfeld and Pitaro have represented Hells Angels members in earlier circumstances in Las Vegas together with state and federal felony circumstances stemming from a lethal on line casino brawl with rival Mongols bike gang members at a Laughlin on line casino throughout a biker rally in April 2002.

Vagos members even have confronted federal prosecution in Nevada in recent times, however the group averted being branded as a global felony enterprise following the killing of a rival Hells Angels chief in a 2011 on line casino shootout within the northern Nevada metropolis of Sparks.