Nearly six years after Toronto police raided the Hells Angels downtown clubhouse, items bearing the gang’s ‘death head’ insignia were returned to the bikers.
The decision to return the items, which included black vests, belt buckles, and jewellery bearing the gang’s famous logo, was made last year, when a judge ruled there was no relation between criminal acts committed by club members and their paraphernalia.
“This is not a case where any item bearing a symbol of membership was used to extort or intimidate,” Justice Maureen Forestell wrote in her decision.
“In this case, membership was used to commit the offences but the property was not used to commit the offences.”
The ruling came just months after the building was officially forfeited in June 2012.
In April 2007, police, with the help of a battering ram, chainsaws and a hook connected to a truck, smashed through the brick wall of the biker gang’s biggest and most visible clubhouse at 498 Eastern Ave.
The raid was publicly orchestrated to send “a very clear message to those who choose criminal lifestyles,” Toronto police told reporters after the seizure of the downtown headquarters.
Police also raided 23 other clubhouses in the city, the homes of several bikers, and 20 other clubhouses and affiliates throughout Ontario.
Nine bikers were convicted of a range of drug-related offences.
With a report from CTV Toronto’s Tamara Cherry and a file from The Canadian Press
