'Bad boy' behavior while Hells Angels were in town amounted to several tickets

LACONIA — Captain Steve Clarke told the Police Commission yesterday that Hells Angels World Run, hosted by the city last month, passed "without any significant public safety issues."

Apart from issuing several motor vehicle summonses to members of the club, there was no occasion for police to take any other law enforcement action against a member of the motorcycle club attending the event.

In a written report to the commission Clarke recalled that planning for the event began in September 2010, after Edward Shaughnessy, then president of the local Nomad Chapter of the Hells Angels, confirmed rumors that the club had chosen Laconia as the site of the 2011 World Run, a sort of reunion/convention where representatives of chapters based around the world gather. Police estimated that the even would draw between 700 and 900 members during the last week of July.

Events were centered at the Hells Angels-owned compound at the dead end of Phillmore Ave., off White Oaks Road.

After officers of the Police Department and New Hampshire State Police attended the annual International Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Association Conference, planning began, continuing until the eve of the event. Clarke stressed that from the outset various local, state, county and federal agencies agreed that as the city was hosting the World Run, the Laconia Police Department would be in charge of law enforcement operations.

The New Hampshire State Police took responsibility for gathering intelligence and the Belknap County Sheriff's Office searched for grants to fund the policing of the event. Clarke reported that "little or no funds" were available, noting that funding from Immigrations and Customs Enforcement and a Safe Neighborhood Grant represented a quarter of the grant funds provided to police the same event in 2003.

Clarke wrote that police met with representatives of the Hells Angels, including their attorney P. Scott Bratton to identify issues likely to arise and set ground rules for the event "so that there would be as few surprises as possible." By inquiring of hotels and motels police were able to make what Clarke called "an educated guess" of the numbers to expect. Likewise, by learning which bars were planning special events during the World Run police determined where personnel should be deployed.

Ultimately the event was policed by local officers, state troopers and 17 agents of the United States Customs and Border Protection working closely with officers on the street under the command of Patrol Agent Paul Kuhn at no cost to the city.

Clarke estimated that close to 500 Hells Angels reached Laconia, well below the numbers expected, as the State Department invoked its authority to define the club as "a criminal organization" and withhold visas or deny entry to members from abroad as "aliens engaging in organized crime."