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The Newest "Wild One"?
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Shades of July 4th weekend, 1947, when some 4000 motorcyclists from California, Arizona and Oregon who had gathered for the "Gypsy Tour," a three-day program of social activities, races and hill climbing events, instead began getting mean drunk and racing their bikes through the streets of Hollister, CA, in a scandalous episode that eventually sent three men to the hospital and sparked the making of Marlon Brando's epic performance in The Wild One, and that later gave rise to the notorious epithet for outlaw bikers: "one percenter".
At 8:45 PM on Sunday, April 19th, a true "outlaw biker" shot five times and killed a traffic worker sitting in a radar emitting "photo enforcement" van by the side of the road in Phoenix, AZ. Apparently the van's systems took pictures of the murderer, and the police were intent on tracking him down. But the very next day Thomas Petrick Destories, 68, confessed, gave himself up, and voluntarily turned over the murder weapon to Maricopa County police.
At this point, we don't know what motivated the murder, and it's too early to estimate whether this negative image catches the public's imagination and further taints the already slightly off-kilter cultural image of ordinary, innocent motorcyclists. Life would not be so sweet if every automobile driver considered us on two wheels to be outlaws, dangerous, and likely murderers.
In the absence of anyone whipping the crowds into a frenzy, the backlash may be contained. I hope so.
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