Bikers' 'code of honour' brings cycle of violence to sedate Berlin - The Irish Times - Fri, Apr 09, 2010

Bikers' 'code of honour' brings cycle of violence to sedate Berlin - The Irish Times - Fri, Apr 09, 2010: "Hells Angels and rival Bandidos gang have been engaging in riots, street battles and shootings, writes DEREK SCALLY
MICHAEL WAS on the way home from the supermarket last September when the killer struck, knocking him down from behind and driving a knife into his thigh.
The 33-year-old dropped his shopping – jam, a beer and a bottle of cola – and tried to flee when a bullet from a small-calibre pistol penetrated his back and ripped through his heart.
He struggled on for another 100 metres before collapsing in a pool of his own blood as his killer disappeared down a side street in Berlin’s eastern neighbourhood of Hohenschönhausen.
Police blame the killing on the victim’s decision to leave Berlin’s Hells Angels and join the rival Bandidos gang. In the six months since then, the killing has triggered gang warfare unheard of in the normally peaceful German capital, running street battles that have hardened local attitudes to the rocker groups.
Until now, you could be forgiven for mistaking the local Hells Angels – heavyset middle- aged men in leather jackets on custom Harley-Davidsons – as just another part of Berlin’s love affair with the 1980s that includes mullet haircuts, Bonnie Tyler and stone-washed denim.
The Hells Angels – apostrophes are for wimps – was founded in California in 1948 and the Berlin Hells Angels arrived in 1990. They also answer to the name “Bad City Crew” but bristle if anyone calls their “motorcycle club” a “gang”."