Season 2, Episode 3: Who’s A Rat Dot Com
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What is the main premise of the episode?
It's on. A federal election is here and party leaders are racing around Canada to convince you to give them your vote. We're seeing a lot of spin, a lot of promises, and a lot of accusations swirling around. And we are here to filter through the noise. I'm Catherine Cullen, host of The House, and every Saturday we want to slow you down and make sure you're getting the big picture and deep context and everything you need to make politics make sense. Because democracy is a conversation, and we're here for it.
This is a CBC Podcast.
The following episode contains strong language and descriptions of violence. Please take care when listening. Hi there, Higgy?
Yes.
How are you? It's Michelle out of Toronto.
Who is Scott Payne and why is he significant?
How are you, Michelle?
I'm good. I just looked up your... This is Higgy. He told me I could call him that. More properly, though.
My name is Thomas Higginbotham, and I was a trooper from 1978 to 2009. I retired in December 2009. I retired as a sergeant.
Higgy, if you can't tell from his accent, is from Massachusetts. In his decades-long career, Higgy worked in Boston and the surrounding area.
What challenges do undercover officers face?
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.
For a long time, Higgies, Massachusetts was a Hells Angels state. Then, in the early 1990s, their arch rival, a biker gang named the Outlaws, started to inch into the region by absorbing smaller local clubs.
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.
And where I was assigned to the city... By 2005, Higgy and his team started an investigation into the Taunton, Massachusetts chapter of the Outlaws. Eventually, it would draw in police from the local, state, and federal level. It was called Operation Roadkill.
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.
And why is it that you normally don't like to have an undercover?
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?
But for Scott, this was a dream assignment.
I had this just, I don't know, I want to say crush, but this thing about being an undercover biker, because I mean, I was a biker, I rode. I mean, like I can show you a picture of all the guys or most of the guys in my narcotics squad at the sheriff's office. And if I showed you that picture of us at bike week, you'd think we were all like one percenters. And I mean, I'm comfortable in that environment. I bounced in strip clubs. And even when I wasn't bouncing, I would go back and visit as a single young cop. I'd go back and hang out with all my buddies. I mean, that's just my mentality. It's my skill set, right? You're not going to take me and put me in a vegan or an eco... I'm not going to infiltrate Elf or Alf, probably.
They can smell the beef on me, you know?
But just because Scott rode a Harley and could wear a leather vest unironically, didn't mean it would be easy to infiltrate one of the most violent cop-hating organizations in the world. And surviving it would be even harder. I'm Michelle Shepard, and from CBC, this is Agent Pale Horse. Episode 3, whosarat.com. Around the world, there are what's traditionally called the Big Four motorcycle gangs.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main premise of the episode?
0:00–0:51
2
Who is Scott Payne and why is he significant?
0:51–1:22
3
What challenges do undercover officers face?
1:22–7:00
4
How do motorcycle gangs operate and what is their culture?
7:00–24:41
5
What is Operation Roadkill and its objectives?
24:41–35:05