For years, anyone living or driving through the east side along Michigan Street could’t miss the home of the Indianapolis Outlaws Motorcycle Club. The big sign, privacy fences and security cameras intimidated outsiders but made neighbors feel a little safer.
Before turning workers lose with power saws and plywood to board up windows and doors, lawmen searched the compound for explosives and other dangers. The two homes and several garages are on the corner of East New York Street and Jefferson Road. Remaining club members apparently knew US marshals were coming and moved out days ago.
Walter Boles has lived within sight of the clubhouse and its members for 30 years
"They were kind of a police vigilante a little bit," he said. "You didn’t mess around in this part of the neighborhood. But they were a bike gang."
Federal authorities claimed the Outlaws were also a criminal enterprise.
Three years ago, 300 lawmen raided the clubhouse and members’ homes. They arrested its president and more than 40 others. Federal charges included drugs, extortion, racketeering and fraud.
But in this hardscrabble neighborhood, many appreciated, if not respected, the club members.
Ashley Neiten grew up nearby.
"We’re not glad they are gone. I mean, nobody had a problem with them. They didn’t cause any problems," Neiten said
Neiten is raising her family across the street from the clubhouse. She said gang members looked out for the kids and if any outsiders started causing trouble, they stepped in with a warning.
"Just, 'hey, is there a problem here? You need to take that down the street,'" she explained.
U.S. marshals say gang members still used the clubhouse occasionally on weekends or for special events. Now that it’s shuttered and in the hands of the federal government, neighbors are afraid of who will move in next.
"Another absentee boarded house that will sit in the neighborhood and cause junkies or people walking the streets to break in there and squat," Neiten said "That’s what happens to abandoned properties in this neighborhood."
The United States Marshal for the Southern District of Indiana, Kerry J. Forestal, said "the seizure of the Outlaw Motorcycle Gang Clubhouse will remove a decades old base of operations in the Indianapolis area."
The prepared statements didn’t offer any information on what federal authorities will do with the property or how quickly they can rid the neighborhood of the eyesore.
