My Wild Ride from Outlaw Biker to Undercover Cop
WAYNE “BIG CHUCK” BRADSHAW
WITH DOUGLAS P. LOVE
For Pearl and Barb,
to feel goodness glowing inside, where love and loyalty meet.
To the men and women on the thin blue line:
keep the faith. Better days are coming.
Invictus
“Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.
In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.
Beyond the place of wrath and tears
Looms the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds, and shall find, me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.”
—William Ernest Henley
FOREWORD
By Renzo Gracie
My chosen profession has provided me with the opportunity to meet a staggering number of people, including Middle Eastern royalty, famous actors, other sports stars and many more. Occasionally I meet extraordinary people known only to their friends—remarkable individuals with amazing stories to tell. Wayne “Big Chuck” Bradshaw is one of those individuals. His life story is almost unbelievable.
Big Chuck is the only person in America to have gone from being an enforcer in one of the most feared motorcycle gangs to becoming a sworn police officer and decorated undercover narcotics detective. What makes his story even harder to believe is that he made many arrests and took down drug dealers on the same Jersey Shore turf where he once rode as an outlaw biker with the Pagans. If he wasn’t a close personal friend and confidant, I wouldn’t believe it to be true.
I consider myself an avid reader and was honored when Big Chuck asked me to write the foreword for his book. Although I thought I knew this gentle giant, I couldn’t put the book down as I read of his difficult time in the U.S. Army, his wild days with the Pagans and then his distinguished 20-year police career.
Wayne Bradshaw is most assuredly unique. I dubbed him “Big Chuck” because of his physical size. After we became friends I came to realize he was bigger than life in ways other than his muscular 250-pound frame. Big Chuck managed to cram several lifetimes of experiences into one action-packed existence.
Big Chuck grew up in a sheltered suburban community in Middletown, New Jersey. He dreamed of proudly serving his country and volunteered for the U.S. Army Infantry near the end of the Vietnam conflict. He trained as a rifleman and planned on going into the Special Forces someday. But the army instead sent him to Germany, where he became involved in a series of violent situations that shook him to the core. In the First Infantry Division he learned to meet violence with violence. His years in the army forever changed him.
Jersey Tough traces the amazing course of Big Chuck’s life. It describes his youth and his decision to enlist in the army at the age of 18, when some teens were fleeing to Canada or finding other ways to avoid going to Vietnam. It takes us through his rough three years in the army, his return to the States, and his descent into the dangerous and unpredictable world of outlaw motorcycle gangs. His strength, his size and the violent skills he learned in the army brought him to the attention of the feared Pagans Motorcycle Club, which is believed to be the most dangerous and violent motorcycle gang in the country. Big Chuck describes the constant turf wars with other one-percent motorcycle clubs, including the ferocious Hells Angels and the Breed. He was made an officer in the club, an enforcer and a sergeant-at-arms in the Sandy Hook chapter of the Pagans, which ruled the Jersey Shore. I still have trouble seeing this gentle, hulking, intellectual man in such a role.
Incredibly, he survived two years with the Pagans and managed to leave the gang alive, with no physical scars and no criminal record. Although he was once arrested by the Middletown Police Department, he was never found guilty of a crime and moved on to become a sworn police officer in the very same department. The hard-earned street skills he learned with the Pagans MC gave him unique skills as an undercover narcotics detective. He made arrests at an astonishing rate.
The Big Chuck I befriended and personally taught Brazilian Jiu Jitsu to is a humble, deeply intelligent man, who rarely if ever talks about his violence-filled stint in the army and his time riding with the Pagans. We talked about his work as a police officer and Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association leader who fearlessly stood up for his men time and again. I know him as a loyal and accomplished Jiu Jitsu student and someone who always went out of his way for my family and friends.
From a tumultuous criminal lifestyle to a career as an undercover narcotics detective, Big Chuck has seen life from many angles. Big Chuck Bradshaw is my American brother.
CHAPTER ONE
GOING UNDERCOVER
Glenn Frey’s “Smuggler’s Blues” was getting serious airtime, and New Jersey was at the very peak of the powdered cocaine revolution, when I reported to the Monmouth County Narcotics Task Force (MCNTF) in the spring of 1985. Like many other task force members, I was on loan from one of the local police departments operating within Monmouth County, the Middletown PD.
The MCNTF was a busy agency, with jurisdiction in some of the roughest places in the state, including Asbury Park. The city that was once a vacation spot for the rich and famous had fallen on some serious hard times, and drug dealing, street crime and even murders were routine.
In the ’80s Asbury Park had all the charm of a war-ravaged city—gritty, dark streets punctuated by the occasional boarded-up building, real estate “for sale” signs that looked like they’d been hanging for years, and gutters littered with trash. It was a great place to live, if you were a rat. During the summer, tourists would still gravitate to the famous boardwalk, which was adjacent to the old Convention Hall, Paramount Theatre and arcade—massive structures from the 1920s and ’30s that had fallen into disrepair decades earlier.
At night, locals and tourists alike packed dimly lit nightclubs to listen to up-and-coming artists, including Bruce Springsteen, a regular at the Stone Pony, the famous nightclub one block from the Atlantic Ocean. A few blocks away, other aspiring stars played at the Wonder Bar, with its weird smiling clown logo. Springsteen’s “Born to Run” ruled the land, and perhaps the nearby boardwalk, too. The Boss sang dark and resonant themes about the Jersey Shore and breathed life into the dying city, at least for the summer.
Asbury Park’s residential area, barely a mile away from the boardwalk and the nightclubs, was ignored by the tourists, for good reason. The landscape there was punctuated by burned-out buildings, rusting junk cars and streetlights that hadn’t worked in years. That was the part of town where I’d be spending my time with the MCNTF.
What set me apart from most of the other undercovers was my years with the outlaw Pagans Motorcycle Club, which counted Asbury Park among its territories. We had ruled the bars and nightclubs there with an iron hand and would rain down a serious beating on any other motorcycle club that dared to come into the city. As a Pagan, I used to hang out on those very streets where the drug deals occurred, engage in wild bar fights as needed and pick up chicks who found it sexy to be riding with a bad-boy biker on a chopped Harley.
Now I was going back to some of the same places I used to ride in as a Pagan, only this time with a badge and a gun. It f
elt weird for me, because just seven years had passed since I’d left the Pagans. No doubt it felt weird, too, for some of the other task force members who knew about my days as an outlaw biker, a one-percenter.
The task force had money, an array of confiscated undercover, or UC, vehicles and access to skilled prosecuting attorneys. It was a happening operation. Still, my world was quite unlike that of “Sonny” Crocket and “Rico” Tubbs in Miami Vice, which was all over the tube at the time. There were no Ferraris, yachts or “go-fast” boats for us.
In order to get diverse (and hopefully talented) undercover operatives, local police agencies were asked to “loan” officers to the requesting task force. While on assignment, the “loaners” would continue to be paid by the department that employed them. When they completed their assignments, they would return to their departments—bringing their undercover experience, and contacts, with them. It was one of those rare things in the police world, a plan that really worked. Oftentimes, loaners couldn’t function as undercover operatives. Loaners who couldn’t cut it would sometimes recognize the problem themselves and volunteer to return to their agencies. Sometimes they wound up doing low-key surveillance duties or desk work.
Most loaners were good street cops from within the county. We worked crazy shift hours and often had to face confrontations late at night and alone. We dealt with all manner of situations, usually weary from the lack of sleep. And we frequently dealt with investigators from the prosecutor’s office. Sometimes they had similar experience and had transferred to the prosecutor’s office. But mostly they did not—and were there because of some political connection. Some of these men and women had no concept of what a real cop did on the street. Joining the task force, they suddenly became detectives and perceived themselves as cool. They had not paid their dues, and it showed. There was a rivalry between the men who came up through the ranks in the police department and those who had been assigned from the prosecutor’s office. Some of those prosecutors had also investigated police brutality claims, adding even more tension.
My team included some very tough and skilled undercovers. The real leader was Rick Coutu—another police department loaner who was on temporary assignment to the task force. A couple of the guys were members of the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office, where we were based. The police department loaners like Rick and I didn’t care for them, and they didn’t much like us. Still, we had each other’s backs; you couldn’t survive on the street any other way. In most cases, the county investigators were good and ambitious cops. But a handful were not of the same caliber, either untrained or uncaring, or both. Some of them you just wanted to strangle.
Rick Coutu, who was from Red Bank, was exceptionally street-smart, hard-core tough and a total adrenaline junkie. He was of average height and build but very fit. His thick, wavy hair and intense eyes commanded everyone’s attention. Very little happened in Red Bank—a two-square-mile community on the banks of the Navesink River—that Rick didn’t know about. Ultimately, the team trusted him—I trusted him—because he was incapable of letting people down. He had focus and nerves of steel. I was willing to follow that guy anywhere, even if that meant going into hostile territory unarmed.
Getting caught with a handgun in New Jersey at the time would land you in more serious trouble than any street-level drug bust. Prosecutors routinely sought stiff sentences for criminals caught with both hard drugs and a gun—and judges were more than willing to hand down those rulings. Just about the only people carrying guns were the cops; if you were working an undercover operation and trying to keep a low profile, you went in unarmed.
Loaners drifted in and out of the MCNTF, usually sent by a local police chief to sharpen up an up-and-comer for his detective bureau. Some PDs sent their problem children because they hated the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office and creating conflict was just part of the game for them.
Mike Panchak, aka “Pancakes,” from the Eatontown Police Department, and Rick and I were in it for the rush. We made our own hours, and there was certainly no reason to be in the office before noon. Everyone on the task force dressed down, and most guys sported beards and earrings. I didn’t like how my beard grew out, so I stayed clean-shaven and went with a basic blue-collar look.
Like the rest of the new guys, I had to work out an undercover persona for myself—an image that would be believable to people on the street, and one that I could maintain under any circumstances. How would I dress, and how would I act during undercover operations? I knew that I wanted something simple, an easy façade that I could slip into whenever needed. Undercovers have to maintain focus at all times—getting drug buys done, for example, while keeping detailed mental notes about what’s happening around them. Everything done while undercover would eventually have to be written up in case reports. UCs are often interrogated by the dealer, and there’s no margin for error in responses.
The undercover persona I selected came naturally; I based it on my years as a sergeant-at-arms for the Pagans Motorcycle Club, based in Atlantic Highlands on the Jersey Shore. I knew that drill because I’d lived it. I would wear the same clothes I’d worn in the past: cutoff T-shirts, black jeans and engineer boots. And I’d stick with the same Jersey tough attitude I already had.
My clothes, attitude and tattoos allowed me to fit in seamlessly. I was the UC operative who didn’t need much training, outside the usual administrative briefings.
Two years earlier, when I’d first joined the Middletown Police Department as a cop, I was very wary during my first night on the street. I had no idea at the time if the guys would back me up or not, because of my history with the Pagans. At the MCNTF, I had a new worry: the group had access to the FBI’s files on Pagan members. That meant my file in the MCNTF was thick and not altogether favorable.
Working with the MCNTF often involved policing the notoriously crime-ridden area around Springwood Avenue in Asbury Park, just a mile and a half from the oceanfront boardwalk. The area was so bad it was actually featured on Ripley’s Believe It Or Not! as the most crime-infested block in the U.S. ever. No one, not even armed cops on patrol, felt safe there.
Local officials were so troubled that they renamed Springwood “Lake Avenue” for a while, hoping it might make a difference in how it was perceived. The name change didn’t make a damned bit of difference for the people who lived there—or the cops who tried to keep order. The task force was charged with going in and cracking down on some of the many drug dealers who had managed to operate with impunity for years.
The neighborhood was almost entirely African-American, which meant white guys like me looked distinctly out of place. If you were white, there could be only three reasons for being there: (1) you were a cop; (2) you were seriously lost and potentially in more danger than you could ever dream; (3) you were buying drugs.
The Asbury Park Police were ever-present, but it would have taken a full company of officers to clean up the place. Periodically, we’d send an undercover cop and an informant down there to buy some heroin—typically just a couple of dime bags, which sold for $10 apiece and were usually in glassine or cellophane packages stamped with names like “Murder” and “Hot Shot.”
The undercover would then try to persuade the target to let him come back alone for more product, a practice we called “doubling.” Repeat buys of small amounts of drugs confirmed that the dealer was in play without financially crippling the unit. We got to the big dogs by bagging the up-and-comers, then flipping our targets into informants after they were arrested.
One hot and humid June day, one of our UCs, Rob Uribe, attempted to buy a dime bag from a dealer, only to get ripped off. When Uribe went to make the buy, the dealer grabbed the bill and ripped it in half, leaving him with a torn $10 bill—and no drugs. When the UC arrived at our prearranged meeting place, all he had to show for his efforts was half of a $10 bill; the dealer still had the other half.
“Fuck them,” Rick Cou
tu shouted. “If we let them rip us off, we might as well pack it in. We’ve got to hit back.”
In one sense, the rip-off was no big deal. The unit hadn’t invested much time in the investigation, and there hadn’t been a financial loss, either. But it didn’t bode well for our ability to work the neighborhood, and that was enough to infuriate Coutu and some of the other guys. Rick argued that if we let a single dealer in this neighborhood get away with ripping off one of the undercovers, we’d be plagued by people trying to rip us off for the balance of the summer. Our effectiveness as a unit would be compromised, and that had him pissed off.
“I say we go back in—but this time in force,” Coutu continued. “We drive right up to the crowd, take out clubs and threaten them wholesale for ripping us off. We’ll act like we’re crazy motherfuckers and see what gives. We want them to think that they fucked with the wrong people.”
Rick’s plan was insane. Six members of the task force would hit Lake Avenue, two each in three undercover vehicles. The area was mostly residential, with run-down two-story wood-frame houses on narrow pieces of property surrounded by rusty chain-link fences and a handful of storefronts—liquor stores, barbershops and restaurants that sold cheap fried chicken and pizza. We’d be carrying props—40-ounce bottles of malt liquor and bottles of cheap wine, all wrapped in brown paper bags.
Once at the location, we’d jump out of our cars, clubs in hand, and challenge the crowd, threatening them loudly and angrily for not making good on the earlier drug deal. Before things got too out of control, plainclothes detective Rusty Swanick would pull up in one of the unmarked police units to bust us. The six undercovers would scatter, dispersing through the crowd and down side streets—making it impossible for the detective to grab more than one of us.
The only question that remained was who was going to get taken down and roughed up by the plainclothes cop. I was the unlucky one picked by Swanick. The two of us had never clicked, and now he was going to have some fun at my expense. In fairness to Swanick, he was a good, tough cop. He knew his neighborhood and was respected on the street. He was a stocky six-footer with what at the time was called a singles-bar mustache. In this not-so-well-conceived plan, he would have to get it right or my partners and I could be in real danger.
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