The Deadliest Outlaws

Download or read book The Deadliest Outlaws written by Jeffrey Burton and published by University of North Texas Press. This book was released on 2009 with total page 561 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the late nineteenth century Tom Ketchum and his brother Sam formed the Ketchum Gang with other outlaws and became successful train robbers. In their day, these men were the most daring of their kind, and the most feared. Eventually Tom Ketchum was caught and sentenced to death for attempting to hold up a railway train. He became the first individual--and the last--ever to be executed for a crime of this sort. Jeffrey Burton has been researching the story of the Ketchum Gang for more than forty years. He sorts fact from fiction to provide the definitive truth about Ketchum and numerous other outlaws, including Will Carver and Butch Cassidy. The Deadliest Outlaws initially was published in a limited run of one hundred paperback copies in England. This second edition in hardcover contains additional material and photographs not found in the earlier printing.

Download or read book Vagos, Mongols, and Outlaws written by Charles Falco and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-02-05 with total page 269 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The basis for the hit TV series Gangland Undercover! Vagos, Mongols, and Outlaws presents the gripping account from an ex-con who went undercover to help the ATF infiltrate three of America's most violent biker gangs. Despite lacking any experience with motorcycle gangs, Charles Falco infiltrated three of America's deadliest biker gangs: the Vagos, Mongols, and Outlaws. In separate investigations that spanned years and coasts, Falco risked his life, suffering a fractured neck and a severely torn shoulder, working deep under cover to bring violent sociopaths to justice. His dedication was profound; Falco spent almost three years infiltrating the Vagos gang and rose to second in command of the Victorville, California chapter. He even served time in San Bernardino's Murder Unit and endured solitary confinement to protect his cover and the investigations. Falco recorded confessions of gangland-style killings and nearly became a target himself before he sought refuge in the Witness Protection Program. But discontent to remain on the sidelines and motivated by a strong sense of duty, Falco eventually left the Program and volunteer his talents again to infiltrate the Mongols and Outlaws, rising in rank to Vice President of the Petersburg, Virginia Outlaws chapter. His efforts culminated in sixty two arrests of members for various crimes, including assault and murder. Executing one of this country's most successful RICO prosecutions and effectively crippling the criminal enterprise, Falco's engrossing narrative of the dangers of the biker underworld harkens back to Hunter S. Thompson's classic Hell's Angels, vividly recounting a life undercover.

Download or read book He Rode with Butch and Sundance written by Mark T. Smokov and published by University of North Texas Press. This book was released on 2012 with total page 457 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive biography of infamous western outlaw Harvey Alexander Logan, better known as Kid Curry. A violent conflict with a ranching neighbor in Montana caused him to flee to the Hole-in-the-Wall valley in Wyoming, where he became involved in rustling and eventually graduated to bank and train robbing as a member of the Wild Bunch. This outlaw group was a melding of the best of the Hole-in-the-Wall gang and Butch Cassidy's Powder Springs gang. Smokov shows that Curry was not the bloodthirsty killer that many have claimed. He contends that Curry was the actual train robbing leader of the Wild Bunch.

Download or read book Under and Alone written by William Queen and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2007-06-26 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1998, William Queen was a veteran law enforcement agent with a lifelong love of motorcycles and a lack of patience with paperwork. When a “confidential informant” made contact with his boss at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, offering to take an agent inside the San Fernando chapter of the Mongols (the scourge of Southern California, and one of the most dangerous gangs in America), Queen jumped at the chance, not realizing that he was kicking-starting the most extensive undercover operation inside an outlaw motorcycle gang in the history of American law enforcement. Nor did Queen suspect that he would penetrate the gang so successfully that he would become a fully “patched-in” member, eventually rising through their ranks to the office of treasurer, where he had unprecedented access to evidence of their criminal activity. After Queen spent twenty-eight months as “Billy St. John,” the bearded, beer-swilling, Harley-riding gang-banger, the truth of his identity became blurry, even to himself. During his initial “prospecting” phase, Queen was at the mercy of crank-fueled criminal psychopaths who sought to have him test his mettle and prove his fealty by any means necessary, from selling (and doing) drugs, to arms trafficking, stealing motorcycles, driving getaway cars, and, in one shocking instance, stitching up the face of a Mongol “ol’ lady” after a particularly brutal beating at the hands of her boyfriend. Yet despite the constant criminality of the gang, for whom planning cop killings and gang rapes were business as usual, Queen also came to see the genuine camaraderie they shared. When his lengthy undercover work totally isolated Queen from family, his friends, and ATF colleagues, the Mongols felt like the only family he had left. “I had no doubt these guys genuinely loved Billy St. John and would have laid down their lives for him. But they wouldn’t hesitate to murder Billy Queen.” From Queen’s first sleight of hand with a line of methamphetamine in front of him and a knife at his throat, to the fearsome face-off with their decades-old enemy, the Hell’s Angels (a brawl that left three bikers dead), to the heartbreaking scene of a father ostracized at Parents’ Night because his deranged-outlaw appearance precluded any interaction with regular citizens, Under and Alone is a breathless, adrenaline-charged read that puts you on the street with some of the most dangerous men in America and with the law enforcement agents who risk everything to bring them in.

Download or read book Gods of Mischief written by George Rowe and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-02-11 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Relates the undercover work of George Rowe, who infiltrated the Vagos motorcycle gang, spending three years working to take down the gang from the inside.

Download or read book Outlaws of the Atlantic written by Marcus Rediker and published by Beacon Press. This book was released on 2014-08-12 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This maritime history "from below" exposes the history-making power of common sailors, slaves, pirates, and other outlaws at sea in the era of the tall ship. In Outlaws of the Atlantic, award-winning historian Marcus Rediker turns maritime history upside down. He explores the dramatic world of maritime adventure, not from the perspective of admirals, merchants, and nation-states but from the viewpoint of commoners—sailors, slaves, indentured servants, pirates, and other outlaws from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century. Bringing together their seafaring experiences for the first time, Outlaws of the Atlantic is an unexpected and compelling peoples’ history of the “age of sail.” With his signature bottom-up approach and insight, Rediker reveals how the “motley”—that is, multiethnic—crews were a driving force behind the American Revolution; that pirates, enslaved Africans, and other outlaws worked together to subvert capitalism; and that, in the era of the tall ship, outlaws challenged authority from below deck. By bringing these marginal seafaring characters into the limelight, Rediker shows how maritime actors have shaped history that many have long regarded as national and landed. And by casting these rebels by sea as cosmopolitan workers of the world, he reminds us that to understand the rise of capitalism, globalization, and the formation of race and class, we must look to the sea.

Download or read book The Last Chicago Boss written by Peter "Big Pete" James and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2017-09-19 with total page 275 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A legend in the biker community, Peter “Big Pete” James was the most revered gangster in the Outlaw Nation. He first perfected his skills with the Hells Angels, the Outlaws’ chief rival, before persuading thousands of disgruntled members from splintered Outlaws chapters to unite. Together, they formed a powerful criminal syndicate involved in extortion, contract murders, drugs and arms trafficking, money laundering and assassinations. Then a shocking medical diagnosis knocked James sideways, forcing him to face a new life on the outside of the organization he built, dodging snitches, federal law enforcement, and contract hits. In The Last Chicago Boss, James provides a startling and unprecedented expose into the inner workings of the Outlaw Nation from the unique perspective of its renowned leader, all brought to life through never-before-revealed interviews, police files, wiretaps, recordings, and trial transcripts.