Jerry Langton Three-Book Bundle by Jerry Langton

Author:Jerry Langton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins Canada
Published: 2014-05-26T16:00:00+00:00

If the bikers had any support in the public, if their mystique had any currency with the people of Quebec, it died on the afternoon of August 9, 1995. At the corner of Boulevard Pie-Ix and Rue Adam in the heart of Montreal’s rough Maisonneuve-Hochelaga district, two men got into a Jeep Wrangler. Six other men were watching. Just as the driver turned the ignition key, one of the six others detonated a bomb under his seat. The blast was powerful enough to send the driver’s suddenly legless body flying 12 feet into the air and shower the quiet, tree-lined streets with shrapnel. But this time, there was no miracle. Across Rue Adam from the explosion, two boys were playing on the lawn in front of Saint-Nom-de-Jésus School. When the blast occurred at 12:40 p.m., Yan Villeneuve and Daniel Desrosiers fell to the ground. Desrosiers never got up again. As the wall of debris from the explosion showered them, a piece of hot metal—about the size of a roll of dimes—seared its way through the boy’s skull and lodged in his brain. The 11-year-old boy went into a coma and died four days later.

When news of the incident broke, Montrealers were sick and angry. Although many just hated all bikers—even if it proved to be a Rock Machine bomb, it could have just as easily have been a Hells Angels bomb—everybody wanted to know the identity of whoever had pulled the trigger. The type of remote-control device used in such bombs has a very short range, and the detonator must see his intended victim get into the car in order to ignite the bomb at just the right moment. For the bomber to be able to see the driver, he almost certainly also had to be able to see the boys. Of course, neither side wanted to be labeled child-killers, so both denied involvement. Not wanting to see the public choose one side as the bad guys (making the other appear good by comparison), the police denied that the Jeep’s driver, Marc Dubé, or passenger, Jean Côté, had any connection to either gang. Some more gullible members of the media bought a story that Dubé was just an honest citizen who happened to bear a resemblance to Alliance drug dealer Normand “Bouboule” Tremblay and coincidentally drove the same kind of car. Of course, the idea of someone as high-profile as Tremblay cruising around Maisonneuve-Hochelaga on foot and in an open-topped car, just four blocks from Boucher’s headquarters, was ridiculous. And even if the cops’ scenario was true, the Hells Angels would still have been responsible for the bomb and Desrosier’s death.

Realizing there was little they could do to assuage the public’s anger, the Hells Angels repeatedly denied any involvement with the bomb, but offered Daniel’s mother an undisclosed amount of cash “in a gesture of sympathy.” Predictably, she was outraged. “It disgusts me; I’ll never forgive this act,” said Josée-Anne Desrosiers, who, like the public, turned much of her anger on the police.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.