A car had been flipped at Weirs Beach, Laconia police Chief Howard Knowlton was told. There was fire, violence, chaos. "It's them damn bikers."
March 15, 1965 would be the beginning of the end of anonymity for the outlaw clubs as California Attorney General Thomas C. Lynch issued a fifteen page report that day that was based on ten years of study of, “...disreputable motorcycle clubs.” This report was the basis of most of the information that the press had to go on concerning the clubs and that's all they needed. Kind of giving a arsonist a book of matches.
On May 17, 1965, The Nation published Hunter S. Thompson’s original, seminal article called "The Motorcycle Gangs, Losers and Outsiders". It appeared only two months after the Lynch report had been released. The double whammy of Lynch’s report and Thompson’s article in the national media started the ball rolling.
The Weirs Beach riots in Laconia, New Hampshire, took place during the 44th Annual AMA New England Tour and Rally and made national headlines, including Life magazine. Thirty-seven bikers were arrested and some reports claimed nearly one-hundred people were treated at the local hospital. Snapshots of riot police fighting bikers had been transmitted across the country. "Bikers invade!" "Ugly, Loud, Mean and Here!", the headlines told it all.
Until then the outlaw clubs had basically been considered strictly a West Coast phenomenon, but after the Weirs Beach affair they became rebel anti-heroes to some.
Knowlton, a 40-year-old chief at the time, says the incident received the media attention it deserved.
"Oh god, yeah, it was a big thing," said the chief.
Charlie St. Clair, a life-long motorcycle rider, was there also.
"A lot of people running and I remember . . . I saw police chasing people into their motel rooms," St. Clair said. "I could hear gunfire, police officers firing shotguns."
"That's a fact," Knowlton confirmed. "No.6 birdshot. Right in their asses."
Knowlton estimated that more than 50 state troopers, dozens of local cops and specially trained riot police, plus the National Guard showed up.
Then came the reports, from across the country...
Photos showed a bus packed with suspected rioters heading for jail; national guardsmen, wearing helmets and pointing rifles and night sticks, escorting lines of bikers down the street; and the car that started it all, upside down and smoldering after allegedly nudging a motorcycle.
One line from a The New York Times article read, "Laconia's streets have been full of long-haired, inarticulate young men riding cycles bearing such names as 'Cold Turkey' and 'Bad News.' "
One Boston paper reported the police blamed the riot on "a handful of Californians who call themselves 'one-percenters' and who have been the source of trouble in Western states."
St. Clair said, "The outlaw clubs they were blaming were on the West Coast. They weren't even here."
When asked if he believed the police deserved some blame for the riot, St. Clair said, "I do. Look at police standing there with their German shepherds and their whole demeanor. It was oppression, almost."
Knowlton estimated that more than 50 state troopers, dozens of local cops and specially trained riot police, plus the National Guard showed up.
Then came the reports, from across the country...
Photos showed a bus packed with suspected rioters heading for jail; national guardsmen, wearing helmets and pointing rifles and night sticks, escorting lines of bikers down the street; and the car that started it all, upside down and smoldering after allegedly nudging a motorcycle.
One line from a The New York Times article read, "Laconia's streets have been full of long-haired, inarticulate young men riding cycles bearing such names as 'Cold Turkey' and 'Bad News.' "
One Boston paper reported the police blamed the riot on "a handful of Californians who call themselves 'one-percenters' and who have been the source of trouble in Western states."
St. Clair said, "The outlaw clubs they were blaming were on the West Coast. They weren't even here."
When asked if he believed the police deserved some blame for the riot, St. Clair said, "I do. Look at police standing there with their German shepherds and their whole demeanor. It was oppression, almost."
