My Scrape With One of Detroit’s Most Dangerous Biker Gangs

Editor’s Note: The names of individuals, locations, and biker gangs involved in this have been omitted or changed.

I roll with everything I need to blend in. Or at least I try to. In this case, I was in the Appalachian region of southern Ohio tracking a target. I popped the trunk of my car, reached in and pulled out a Bauer hockey bag stinking of jungle rot from old skates and gloves, only there was no hockey equipment in this bag. I pulled out camouflage mossy-oak hunting gear. Camo pants, shirt, jacket. Head to toe.

I suited up, silenced the Nextel, threw my cameras into a backpack, and climbed into the woods carrying a tripod. I began to slowly trek into the wilderness. Low to the ground. Quietly. Inch by inch. No sound. My heart was racing, but my breathing was controlled. I mission-creeped well over a mile into the woods before I could hear the faint sounds of men talking and music playing.

I found my perch and waited, searching for my target, until finally he came into view, surrounded by dangerous men. I was invisible. All was well for an hour. Then someone opened a car door. A dog jumped out and began running around the clearing. My heart rate spiked. The dog smelled me and kept coming closer. Armed men started looking in my direction. How did I get here?

I’m not some tough guy with steely-eyed intensity and grass for balls, I’m just a regular Michigan suburbanite who happens to have a job that makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up from time to time. At no time in my life did I feel more fear than when I conducted surveillance on a member of a biker gang.

Metro Detroiters are somewhat familiar with motorcycle gangs. There are several that operate within Detroit, including a few “outlaw” gangs with clubhouses in the city’s east and west sides. These gangs mostly operate on the fringes. My only knowledge of them was from films and television shows. But in the fall of 2007 that changed.