Thomas Higginbotham
speaker
41 appearances
2 recordings
1 series
first heard Apr 2025
last heard Apr 2025
Thomas Higginbotham’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
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.
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.
We lose complete control of the investigation and the undercover. You know what I'm saying?
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.
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.
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.
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?
Or camaraderie. It's just, it's an odd culture in a way, but it is a violent, violent way to live, though.
So basically, we had done our wire, we'd made an arrest, and we had some of the members done for a narcotics violation.
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.
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.
He happened to start throwing some money around, having a few drinks, and guess who latched on to him? Spanky.
No, you couldn't. But see, that's the advantage of having the intelligence.
Get the fuck out of here.
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.
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.
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.
And that's when I said, we got a problem.
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.
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.
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