Some of the Hell’s Angels’ most spectacular crimes are technically misdemeanors,
such as „lewd and lascivious behavior” and „disturbing the peace.” These are routine
offenses, generally appearing on police blotters as „vag lewd.” Thousands of people are
booked every year for obscenity in public places, for fighting in bars, and racing vehicles in
populous areas. But when five hundred delegates from some apparently subhuman species
converge on a peaceful community and begin pissing in the streets, hurling beer cans at
each other and racing loud motorcycles around the village square… the shock effect on the
citizenry is more severe than a Dillinger-style machine-gun assault on the local bank –
which is, after all, insured. Few men will break down and weep at the prospect of the
Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation having to pay off a claim… but reports of a hundred
filthy thugs en route to a mountain resort can throw the whole population into armed
panic.