Lesson from NYC shooting: Don't disturb Hells Angels' bikes

NEW YORK (AP) — It's conventional wisdom on a block in Manhattan's East Village that the Hells Angels bikers at a notorious local headquarters there aren't necessarily horrible neighbors — but just don't do anything to disturb the bikes parked outside.

With the secretive group refusing to help investigators identify the shooter, patrol officers swept onto the mostly residential block this week and ticketed the tenement building it owns for petty offenses that had previously been ignored: installing an unauthorized bench, planters and a motorcycle ramp on the sidewalk outside the front door.

A "No Parking, Except for Authorized Hells Angels" sign remained posted on its red brick facade.

A reporter's knocks on the door went unanswered at the apartment building the Hells Angels have occupied since 1969, an era when the East Village's future as a high-rent district was unthinkable.

Any mayhem that crops up these days is typically instigated by people who consider the clubhouse a tourist attraction instead of a private property, said attorney Ron Kuby, who's represented the Hell Angels in multiple cases over the years.