Deadly brawl described to grand jury

Jace Radke and Christina Littlefield

Friday, April 23, 2004 | 11:10 a.m.

Kerry Richard was looking forward to meeting his friends as he sat in a bar at Harrah's Laughlin on April 27, 2002, but instead he found himself in the middle of a deadly brawl between two rival outlaw motorcycle gangs.

In testimony to the Clark County Grand Jury, Richard explained how the riot that would claim the lives of three people and injure several others started in the bar with a face-off between members of the Mongols and Hells Angels.

"I didn't want to take my eyes off of that because it did appear that something was going to happen," Richard said according to grand jury transcripts. "He (one of the Mongols) did a kick to the Hells Angels' face. Kind of a roundabout fashion like you'd see in a movie, like a Bruce Lee movie where he would swing up and kick, and the moment that happened I knew there was trouble."

Nine alleged motorcycle gang members entered not guilty pleas Monday on 73 counts originating from the grand jury testimony, including murder, in connection with the shootout at the 2002 Laughlin River Run gathering that left three people dead.

Hells Angels Calvin Schaefer, 34, of Chandler, Ariz., Sohn Regas, 37, of Reno, Dale Leedom, 42, of Two Rivers, Alaska, James Hannigan, 36, of Mountain View, Calif., Raymond Foakes, 40, of Petaluma, Calif., Maurice Eunice, 53, of Lakeside, Calif., and Rodney Cox, 45, Phoenix, along with Mongols Alexander Alcantar, 35, and Roger Pinney, both of Los Angeles, were named in the indictment.

Metro Police Capt. Marc Maston testified he had tried to try to defuse tensions between the two groups only a few hours before the shootout. Tensions were running high between the rival gangs that weekend, who were in the midst of a long-standing feud.

Maston said he told the Mongols that he didn't want to see a confrontation between the biker gangs.

When he later met with Hells Angels leaders around midnight, Maston said, one of them cursed at him.

Richard told the grand jury of the terror he felt as the fight continued in Harrah's and innocent bystanders scattered.

Richard crawled behind a bank of slot machines and saw a bleeding man crawling toward him.

"He was saying 'Help me, help me,' " Richard said. "I could see him kicking at something in between the slot machines and I couldn't figure out what he was kicking. I thought he was just an average person like myself ... I thought he had been hit by a stray bullet.

"Then I looked closer as to what he was kicking, and it was either a Mongols vest or a Mongols coat, and it appeared to me that he was trying to hide his colors so he could get away free or not be shot again."