Mongols and Hells Angels Invade Hiptown

The soft-spoken guitarist recalls hearing, " 'All you motherfuckers are going to die'" and "then I just saw muzzle flashes."

PHOTO BY DYLAN GORDON

Part Time Punks producer Michael Stock at the Echo

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More About

• Jose Luis Sanchez
• Los Angeles Police Department
• Hells Angels Motorcycle Club
• Shootings
• Crime and Law

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Reaching for his coffee as a tremble in his hand attenuates up his tattoo-sleeved forearm, the musician says of his tremor, "It's nothing — a family thing."

But it may have something to do with getting rained on by a barrage of bullets fired at close range on a busy commercial stretch of Echo Park. Today, the guitarist offers insight into two criminal biker groups that are clashing in Los Angeles, leading one biker to act out a violent video game–style fantasy that targeted innocent clubgoers.

As the Echo's weekly Part Time Punks show let out in the early morning of June 21, witnesses say, a black-clad, automatic weapon–wielding gunman lumbered into the middle of Sunset Boulevard and calmly fired round after round into the exiting crowd on the sidewalk before fleeing on his motorcycle.

There are Los Angeles neighborhoods where, when someone flashes a firearm, the fight-or-flight instinct kicks in. Not here, on Sunset north of Echo Park Lake, among record shops and ironic storefronts such as Dave Eggers' Time Travel Mart. The shooter actually announced his intent to kill, yet the crowd stood passively as if watching a performance-art piece.

"It seemed so cheesy, I thought it was a joke," says the guitarist, 30, whom we'll call Brad; he's a witness in the gunman's trial and fears for his life. "When he started shooting, I just stood there staring at him. I couldn't believe anyone would fire a gun into a crowd of nerdy indie-rock kids.

"After four shots, that changed," Brad says. "He shifted his fire toward [the Echo's] doorway, and I finally ducked." And saved his own ass.

The bullets, which bit chunks of concrete off the Echo's crudely candy-colored façade, all hit high. Amazingly — Die Hard 2 ridiculously — Brad, though struck in the head, suffered only a grazed temple, with another bullet leaving a burn across his wrist.

Two other clubgoers weren't so lucky. A drummer caught a round in his arm, which shattered the bone, and now, months later, his music career is probably over. Another guitarist languished for months in the hospital following complications from a bullet tearing through his torso.

Amy Lee, vocalist for the Meek, had just collected her band's pay when she stepped out of the Echo and saw the shooter. "I froze," Lee recalls. "It didn't register. This guy in a big jacket, screaming like a bear — I didn't think it was real."

Luckily someone knocked Lee to the ground, and a girl dragged her inside, out of harm's way.

Los Angeles Police Department detectives were initially baffled. The Echo isn't a hub of criminal activity, and Part Time Punks is just that. This is where the bloodless and the twee, guys who can't bench-press their shirts, chicks in leopard-print dresses, have no natural predators.

At the time, an LAPD supervisor at Rampart Division could only comment, "This is kind of weird."

But the LAPD quickly established that among fans of the dark, psychedelic music churned out by garage rockers the Warlocks and the Meek are members of the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club. "We're going over the security tape and see there's a 'full-patch' Hells Angel in the club," says Officer Jose Mireles, of Rampart Division, meaning a full-fledged member, "and he's the victim" of the attempted hit.

A blood feud between the Mongol Nation Motorcycle Club and the Hells Angels has not abated since "Operation Black Rain" in 2008, in which 1,000 local cops, feds and deputized Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms agents arrested 60 members of the Mongol MC in five states.

Less than a month after the Echo shooting, LAPD's Mireles, along with other Rampart cops, arrested Jose Luis Sanchez, 25, a Mongol "prospect," in his Hollenbeck area home, for the crime.

"This is an ongoing battle for territory," Mireles says, "and it's all about the California bottom rocker" — the word California written in Gothic lettering on both the Mongols' and the Hells Angels' jacket patches, which are considered a gang's colors. The patch, Mireles says, is a message to others: "I sell my drugs here, and you're not allowed to."

Police say that shortly before the Echo Park shooting spree, Sanchez, who now faces several counts of attempted murder, assault and weapons charges, somehow was alerted to the presence of a Hells Angels member at the Echo. As if inspired by video game Assassin's Creed — where cred is built by attracting the most witnesses to a killing — Sanchez allegedly engaged his target, the Hells Angel, in front of dozens of witnesses, while being taped by video surveillance cameras.

"I felt terrible, after I invited people to the show and something this tragic happened," says Lee, vocalist for the Meek. "Afterwards, we didn't book a show, we didn't know why this happened. Only now do I feel normal again."

Police won't identify the victims, because Sanchez's trial is ongoing, with another court appearance set for Jan. 18. "Mongols have a reputation for intimidating witnesses," Mireles tells L.A. Weekly.