Last month, Jeffrey "Jethro" Pettigrew, the leader of the Hells Angels' San Jose, California, chapter, was shot to death at a Nevada hotel in Sparks, Nevada. Pettigrew's death was just one of many violent incidents that have occurred between the Vagos Motorcycle club and the Hells Angels. According to a new report, all of that violence stems from incident last year at Starbucks.
Graham Barlowe, resident agent in charge of the Sacramento office of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, said: "There have been concerns about this rivalry for some time."
Reuters reports that 11 months ago a violent fight, involving ball peen hammers and other weapons, erupted outside of a Starbucks in Santa Cruz.
"It was all about who would be allowed to hang out at the Starbucks downtown," Santa Cruz Deputy Police Chief Steve Clark said. "The Vagos brazenly came in and tried to cement their presence. It was a pretty strong play on their part to establish themselves as the premiere club.... Only in Santa Cruz would you have biker wars over who's going to control pumpkin spice lattes."
In the wake of the epic latte battle, several man have been killed, and many more have been wounded or imprisoned. And the violence isn't likely to stop any time soon.
At Pettigrew's funeral, Hells Angel Steven Tausan was shot and killed by his fellow gang members.
San Jose Police officer Jose Garcia, said:
"As you can imagine, it was a large crowd. About 4,000 people were at the funeral. We're at square one, asking to the community to come forward."
