Thomas Higginbotham
Appearances
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 4: Do Not Recommend
I was worried about him. I was worried about his emotional state, really. He's married, he has kids, he's with these guys.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 4: Do Not Recommend
He could easily get hurt. He could harm his marriage. There's a lot of things that could go wrong. And he's drinking. And he's on motorcycles. He's in cars. All the things that happened to civilians could happen to him. And that's his job. That's his career. And after a while, you see his personality. It changes. It changes. And I've seen it with undercovers before.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 4: Do Not Recommend
The problem is he's at a national run for the outlaws. We don't know who they bring to their parties and their meetings and the people he's going to see. He could have easily bumped into someone he had arrested as a local cop or whatever or an FBI agent. He knows he's around dangerous people. He's there.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 4: Do Not Recommend
So they bring him in, that means he has to be a probationary outlaw. He has to start like everybody else. So he has to basically be that guy. He may be required to commit a violent act or commit a felony to get that patch. So they put him in that position. Then they start showing up at his house or his apartment. You know what I mean? So now you look at like Scott, like where the L was.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 4: Do Not Recommend
He was with them, riding with them. So he'd ride at the back of the pack. But when the angels of the rival gangs attacked
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 4: Do Not Recommend
bikers they have in massachusetts i'm sure they do in other states they go to the back of the pack they run them over and they shoot them that's what they do so now we're going to have this big guy six four six five he's a perfect target for a rival gang so i'm not comfortable with that and why would i be
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 4: Do Not Recommend
It's the ultimate in your face.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 4: Do Not Recommend
I got your colors. I'm wearing your colors. I infiltrated you. Your club. That's the victory.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 4: Do Not Recommend
Michelle, I've never watched it.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 4: Do Not Recommend
Really? I never watched it. What I heard, I heard. And I said, that's all I need to know. What else do I need to know? I didn't want to watch it.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 4: Do Not Recommend
No, I was sitting there. I heard it. And I know it happened. And I didn't need to hear anymore. It was sickening. It was scary.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 4: Do Not Recommend
He didn't drop out of the investigation. He didn't. He stayed in the investigation, but he was a puppeteer. He was doing his deals from whatever state he was in, and we were able to finish the case.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 4: Do Not Recommend
And we just sat there and we waited and we didn't know, we kind of just Listen to hear what we're going to hear and then make a decision. If there was any violence, obviously we would have to put an end to it.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 4: Do Not Recommend
Oh yeah, we heard everything. Yeah. Everything.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
They finally did manage to patch over a club. It was a nomads and some devil's disciples. They patched over a small group in Brockton and they opened up their first clubhouse in Massachusetts. I believe it was 1993. So they were here. Everybody was quite concerned about them.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
Him and Town, they were thick as thieves. They were tight. Those guys hung out together. Town took them everywhere. You know what I mean? That was the guy. And he became... I think he cared about him. I really do.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
We tossed it around about the possibility of putting an undercover in, and we kind of agreed that You know, we could try it. Let's see how far the investigation would go. You know, I'm not a big fan of it, but I said, yeah.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
It was a mystique about him because he wasn't around them all the time. He came across as a businessman, flying out here on business, Trying to do a side hustle from Texas. So they bring it up. You must know somebody in the cartels. You must know drug dealers, people that can move weapons or drugs over the line, the country, into the country and out of the country.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
What happens when we bring an undercover into a motorcycle gang, it raises all these other issues. We have to deal with his safety issues. We have to worry about him getting killed or getting assaulted. We have to protect him because he's hanging around without laws, right? And they're arch rivals for the Hells Angels in this violence. So he becomes a target by his association with them.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
He's riding with them. He's going to events with them all over the country. He's at their clubhouses, going to parties. This is just me talking, okay? His safety becomes number one. We got to keep him alive and keep him going. And they control his life. If we let him become a club member and he wears colors, they control his life and they control his every movement.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
So we were sitting out front. We were obviously in the surveillance. And we're sitting there. We're listening to the conversation. The next thing we know, we hear him going downstairs. And then you could hear clotheslines, tone of voice. And he starts swearing at him. I want your fucking name, your social security number, and all this shit. He starts on him.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
And that's when I said, we got a problem.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
One of the outlaws owned a tow company. Where they do police tows, they have the ability to have police officers who run the plates of cars they tow, looking for information.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
Yeah, so it's like, you'd never think of that, but they knew it. So we made a decision. If we thought he was being assaulted, we were going to just hit the building with a car, and that would be it. And then we'd call, obviously. We'd call for help and then hit the thing. That's what we'd have to do. We had no other options, I didn't think.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
I think if you're in the clubhouse, it was a little building, that would get your attention. It was scary. Not for me. But for Scott, for who we are, we're going to lose him, you know?
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
We lose complete control of the investigation and the undercover. You know what I'm saying?
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
When I started as a police officer, most of the club members that I encountered, they were Vietnam vets, just as they were when they started after World War II, the Hells Angels. They were basically combat veterans, a lot of them. And a lot of them don't have much love for the government, you know? They don't operate within the laws that most the rest of us do. They're territorial.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
They take what they want by force. They claim areas, like their patches, like Massachusetts. The outlaws were a bottom rock of Massachusetts. Well, the Angels always did that. So that's an instant war with these people, you know.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
They have ties to organized crime, racist, white supremacists. They have all of that, and they're close. And I always had an interest in them.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
Well, I actually, to be honest, when I was young, I actually had a Harley, and I rode. And all they did was steal everybody's bikes. They were notorious motorcycle thieves. But I found, like, the ones that I've got to know... There's something in their lives that brings them to that. They're looking for, like, there's something that they're missing. It's like a brotherhood. You know what I mean?
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
Or camaraderie. It's just, it's an odd culture in a way, but it is a violent, violent way to live, though.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
So basically, we had done our wire, we'd made an arrest, and we had some of the members done for a narcotics violation.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
My name is Thomas Higginbotham, and I was a trooper from 1978 to 2009. I retired in December 2009. I retired as a sergeant.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
When they decided that they were going to bring in an undercover, then we picked out a target that we thought was a weak link in the club. I don't know if he told you this.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
Scott, you can tell, he's a tough guy. He's a big guy. He's got that Southern drawl. He's a bullshit artist. He's perfect. And he's a schmoozer. And he's got that big voice. And that's the kind of people Spanky likes. Big dude. You know, he probably could harm some people, beat people up. He had money so he could buy Spanky drinks at the strip club.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
Ever since I came on in 1978, I seized a lot of stolen motorcycles from various gang members. And I was able to develop information, develop informants.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
He happened to start throwing some money around, having a few drinks, and guess who latched on to him? Spanky.
White Hot Hate: Agent Pale Horse
Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
No, you couldn't. But see, that's the advantage of having the intelligence.