False Flags, Biker Gangs, and the PATCON Legacy

William Norman Grigg
May. 20, 2015

The bloody incident at Waco’s Twin Peaks restaurant was not a “biker shootout.” At present there is no evidence that any of the nine victims were killed by fellow bikers, rather than being “taken out” by the scores of police — including snipers — who had effectively turned the parking lot into a kill zone.

The Twin Peaks Massacre has prompted the predictable outpouring of state-centered outrage over the purported threat posed by Outlaw Motorcycle Clubs (OMCs). Buried beneath the blizzard of re-purposed official press releases is a critical disclosure made by former FBI undercover operative John Matthews: During the 1990s, as part of the FBI’s PATCON (Patriot Conspiracy) operation, Matthews and his handler, Donald Jarrett, sold illegally converted full-auto machine guns to narcotics-dealing motorcycle gangs. (I first reported about this in early March.) This was done through one of the firearms stores later forced by the ATF into participating in the “Fast & Furious” gun-walking scandal, in which firearms of that kind were provided to operatives of Mexican criminal cartels.

"As we talk of gun control "¦ over the years [of] how many cases of sporterized SKS, AK47s, and SKSs were sold to groups and case after case of ammo for them all with the blessings of the FBI & ATF with no paper work," Matthews wrote in a November 8, 2014 email (lightly edited here for spelling and grammar). "Also let's not forget the AR15s, they were made full auto from the Lone Wolf gun store back in the 90s by a guy brought in by the FBI for me to put in place. Those guns went to bikers who were sell[ing] drugs on the border. Those drugs were [believed] to be coming in from China."

In March 2013 correspondence with Jarrett, Matthews referred to the David Mann, the dealer brought in by the FBI to broker the firearms transaction with the biker gang.

"I [would] pick him up in Payson, AZ on our way up to Surplus & Stuff in Snowflake ... and met with a guy name[d] Tim," Matthews recalled in a March 28, 2013 email to Jarrett. "He [would] show him his weapons that he was making and how he could make them anything they wanted. Then from there we took a trip up to where the guy [kept] the tractors that we were thinking the dope was coming in from."

The tractors were apparently being used as part of an international narcotics smuggling operation.

During the trip recalled by Matthews, he and David Mann met with another individual who "ran the church and we [thought was] selling the drugs to the bikers. We were going to get David to sell weapons too [sic] them. This trip was where [I] got David in with this [sic] guys so I could move on. Does this sound right to you[?] Also have more info on him and [meetings] at gun store (Lone Wolf) and other places like Scottsdale, before we turn[ed] him loose."

"Yes, that sounds absolutely correct about David," Jarrett replied the following day. "I only introduced you to one guy that work[ed] with guns, and that was David."

On March 2 I sent a letter to the Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General requesting an investigation of Matthews’ confirmed claims about the FBI’s role in arming biker gangs. A week later I received an official reply that tacitly validated those claims while dismissing them as inconsequential: "The Investigations Division of the Office of the Inspector General has thoroughly reviewed your allegations and concluded that the issues raised do not warrant an investigation by this office.”

Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue, who has been investigating the death of his brother Kenneth in FBI custody following the 1995, following the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing, has been responsible for nearly all of the key disclosures regarding the PATCON program. This was an effort by the FBI to infiltrate so-called Radical Right groups with informants and provocateurs. In a telephone interview, Trentadue told me that he firmly believes that there is a connection between the PATCON-related FBI initiative to arm biker gangs, and the bloodshed in Waco over the weekend.

“At the very least, we’re dealing with part of the legacy of PATCON,” Trentadue declared.

PATCON wasn’t the FBI’s only means of infiltrating OMCs. In 2004, James “Pagan Ronnie” Howerton, a prominent member of the Pagans OMC and a convicted murderer, was recruited by the FBI. He eventually became the club’s sergeant-at-arms. Five years later, the Feds breathlessly announced that with the help of their undercover asset they had compiled a massive indictment against the Pagans as an interstate criminal conspiracy. That bloated indictment eventually deflated into a small number of relatively trivial charges against specific members of the club. The interstate "criminal enterprise" was reduced to the accusation that the Pagans had committed a federal offense by running a raffle.

The only notable violent crime arising from the federal investigation of the Pagans was the police murder of Iraq combat veteran Derek Hale, who was tasered a dozen times and then executed at point-blank range by Lt. William Brown of the Wilmington, Delaware Police Department. Hale, who was killed in front of the wife and children of a friend from the club, had no criminal record, nor was he a criminal suspect. He died because the State’s officially licensed gang decided to wage an indiscriminate war on the motorcycle club to which he belonged — which, in all probability, is what happened in Waco over the weekend.