I was happy to read that The Bandido Massacre is the 5th best selling true crime book in Canada, and the top one that was written here. I’m also a little stunned to read this, since it’s been out for more than half a year. Maybe the summer is biker season. Who knows? Why question good news?

Last week, I met Edward Winterhalder, former secretary-treasurer of the Bandidos worldwide and the author of numerous authoritative books on the club. He’s a really nice guy face-to-face. We were having breakfast and he saw a soldier at another booth. By reflex, he bought the service man breakfast. It wasn’t something for show, just something that he says is pretty common down there. Proud as I am to be Canadian, we could learn some things from Americans.

I don’t know Vancouver Sun reporter Kim Bolan but I have respected her work for some time. She did a great job of covering the hit on East End Vancouver Hells Angel Juel Ross Stanton this week. It was an excellent example of energy and knowledge combining in reporting.

Her city of Vancouver’s difficult to fathom, as they have a myriad of groups, but not nearly as strong of a Mafia presence as here in Ontario.

Former Ontario biker Ion (Johnny K-9) Croituro’s in custody in B.C. now. He’s mentioned in a story I have in today’s paper, in which former Hamilton Mafia hitman Ken Murdock talks about his former nasty trade. Murdock says that the Hamilton mob wanted him dead for enforcement work he was doing for another crime family.

I don’t imagine there’s any shortage of suspects in the Stanton murder. I also wouldn’t bet it will be solved until someone is picked up on other charges, and then cuts a deal. Or maybe it will remain a mystery.

Nothing in Murdock’s former business is carved in stone, but there are some standard practices here in Eastern Canada, Generally, the Mafia generally prefers guns while dynamite is more of an outlaw biker way of doing things.

We’ve probably all wondered what’s happened to a former home. Most of us don’t read about it in the news pages, like this Winnipeg resident.

There are no patches in the Bandido world for perfect attendance, and even if they existed Robert (Peterborough Bob) Pammett would definitely not have won one. He was absent the night of the massacre, and if he had attended, there likely would have been nine funerals instead of eight. As it was, he was the biker in the yellow leather vest at Boxer’s funeral. Since the massacre, goateed Bob has spent more time in jail than outside of it, after he was pinched selling cocaine to a police agent. He’s fighting now to keep his fortified home on the river from being seized by police as proceeds of crime. It’s not your typical biker digs, with a koi pond and almost life-sized statue of a Greek woman. He’s back in custody, since being scooped up at mid-afternoon on Saturday, July 24 in Peterborough, driving his canary-yellow pickup erratically down a city street, trying to keep up with nine buddies from the Outlaws. Word is the Outlaws have moved into Peterborough, although no one’s yet seen a Peterborough rocker on their backs. Interestingly, the “Canada” bottom rocker is gone, as their days as a national club are over. With about 50 members scattered across a half dozen clubs (Ottawa, South Simcoe, Toronto East, Toronto, St. Catharines, Sault Ste. Marie and London) in Ontario, they still have a presence, but that’s less than a third of the 170 or so full patch Hells Angels in Ontario. Even with members behind bars or on bail, on stipulations not to associate with other bikers, there are some 140 Angels on Ontario roadways. Thanks to my friend Julian Carsini for spotting some errors in the original version of this post.

For all the news about bikers and illegal drugs, it’s interesting that many of them turn to legal prescription ones to take the edge off of life. Boxer Muscedere’s Bandidos called them “groovies” and they were the sort of thing that’s legally prescribed and paid for by public health care. It’s enough to get the Rolling Stones’ “Mother’s Little Helper” playing in your brain.

The troubles continue for the Winnipeg Hells Angels. Authorities have seized their clubhouse, which looks more like a suburban ranch-style home than a bunker, although its nestled behind a graveyard, which gives it an edgy feel when you drive up to it. Authorities charge the bikers planned crimes within its walls, giving them justification to shut it down. I’ve heard that the Sherbrooke Hells Angels clubhouse was kept cleaner than the average college frathouse, with posters on the walls warning visitors to refrain from drugs. The idea’s to keep authorities from raiding it and shutting it down too.

Any journalist who hasn’t read Hunter S. Thompson isn’t that interested in being a journalist. And Thompson’s Hell’s Angels, while 43 years old, remains a great read and a great slice of biker history. Here’s a look at Thompson taking some heat after the publication of Hell’s Angels.

A reader points out that Boxer  Muscedere was impressed by the German Bandidos’ concept of brotherhood, even if his Canadian Bandidos weren’t able to duplicate this. He also notes that those German Bandidos have just reached a truce with the Hells Angels, which they say they’ll enforce with a strong hand. I hesitate to call this enforcement “policing.” The word just doesn’t seem to fit.

The old idiom “Nature abhors a vacuum” applies to crime as well. As long as there are customers for illegal services, there will be sellers, and we shouldn’t be surprised that they’re often nasty folks. A recent crackdown on the Hells Angels – and the earlier implosion of Taz Sandham’s Bandidos – has created a predictable scramble for turf in Winnipeg, with a spate of murders. What’s particularly disturbing is the young age of many of the victims. Until control is established, we can expect things to get worse before they get better. In many ways, it’s like the escalation of violence in Montreal’s underworld, with the absence of Vito Rizzuto, who’s due to be released from an American prison in 2012 on murder conspiracy charges.

Vito Rizzuto’s crime family haven’t always been at the centre of the Montreal underworld, and by extension, most of the rest of Canada. It just feels that way. His organization certainly played a subtle but undeniable role in the war between the Bandidos and Hells Angels, while regulating the price of street cocaine like a mainstream marketing board. Now someone is killing top members of the family, and there’s no indication the killings will stop. It’s hard to believe someone in the family isn’t helping the killers. It’s also clear that the killings will only help the Rizzutos’ old partners in crime in the Bonanno family of New York. A weakened Rizzuto crime family means a strong grip by New York in Canadian mob affairs.