Grim Reapers MC : Ask Biography

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The Grim Reapers Motorcycle Club was an outlaw motorcycle club, founded in 1958 in Calgary, Alberta, that was active during the sixties and seventies, and grew to become a dominant club in the region during the eighties and nineties.

They were apparently independent of a US-based motorcycle club of the same name that was founded in 1965 in Louisville, Kentucky. Along with the Rebels, the Warlords, and King's Crew, they were one of the four dominant outlaw motorcycle gangs operating in Alberta prior to 1997. In 1997, the gang became part of the Hells Angels in a patch-over ceremony held in Red Deer, Alberta.

In 1970, 11 members and 2 associates were sentenced to life in prison for the murder of Ronald Hartley, president of the Outcasts Motorcycle club. After an appeal several members were released and others had their sentences reduced. Two members were eventually convicted and sentenced to life in prison for the murder.

The Grim Reapers were listed as an "Outlaw Motorcycle Gang" by Criminal Intelligence Service Canada. In 1997, primarily because of public outcry due to escalating violence in eastern Canada between the Rock Machine and the Hells Angels' Quebec chapters, the Canadian government passed Bill C-95 which amended the Criminal Code of Canada (and other legislation) to give Canadian law enforcement organizations powers similar to those provided to their American counterparts via RICO.

The new Canadian legislation essentially made it illegal to be a member of an "outlaw motorcycle gang" or any other "known criminal organization". While the new laws first came into effect in 1997, the first convictions using the new legislation weren't won until February 2001, and the first real test of the new laws didn't start until September 2004 when two members of the Hells Angels went on trial in Barrie, Ontario for extorting money from a businessman. Critics of the legislation say it goes too far, arguing that it infringes on the freedom of association guaranteed by Section 2(d) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms.

Several former members of the Reapers, now members of the Hells Angels' Western Canadian chapters, were eventually successful in their challenge of charges brought against them under the new legislation as a result of events that occurred in relation to their patch-over gathering in Red Deer. In 2005, the bikers in Alberta won a major court victory when a judge ruled that police violated their constitutional rights during a roadside check in 1997.