CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- About 150 Hell's Angels roared down the road ahead of the hearses to bury two members -- Thunder and Yank -- who were found shot to death last week.
The fearsome-looking motorcyclists, gathered Thursday from New York, Massachussetts and Connecticut for the funerals, caused no trouble, police said, although when it was over they handed out citations for failing to wear helmets.
Under a police escort, the Angels fired up their bikes and thundered out of the parking lot of the Morgan & Son funeral Home at Marshville, N.C., along Main Street and 30 miles to the Sunset Memory Garden Cemetery just inside the Charlotte city limits.
There they buried Franklin 'Thunder' Finazzo, 40, leader of the Charlotte chapter and a man considered by police to be one of the 10 most powerful members of the worldwide organization, and Tyler Duris 'Yank' Frndak, 31.
The two Angels were found shot to death and stuffed in the trunk of a car last Saturday.
Police have made no arrests in the killings, but suspect it was part of the Angels' rivalry with another gang, the Outlaws, who have lost six members and associates in similar killings over the past two years in the Charlotte area.
The gangs reportedly are fighting to control drug traffic and prostitution in the Charlotte area.
Police in the Carolinas suspect the gangs were involved in 15 unsolved homicides since July 4, 1979, when three Outlaws and two associates were shot to death in a Charlotte clubhouse.
