DENVER – A lawyer for a biker club that had a member killed during a knife and gun fight at a Denver motorcycle show last week said on Thursday the man had been trying to disarm a drunken rival and that his comrades were acting in self-defense.
Stephen Stubbs, who represents the Mongols Motorcycle Club, described Victor Mendoza, 46, as a dedicated father and husband and said he had been unarmed on Saturday when he was gunned down.
The brawl broke out at the Colorado Motorcycle Expo between the Mongols, deemed an “outlaw” gang by federal authorities, and the Iron Order Motorcycle Club, which counts among its members many law enforcement and military personnel.
Four people were shot, one fatally, one was stabbed, and several more also suffered injuries, police said. Multiple firearms were found at the scene.
Flanked by two men who he said were Mongols but would not identify, Stubbs addressed reporters at a Denver hall in what he said was the club’s first-ever news conference.
Rejecting Iron Order assertions its members were defending themselves, the Mongols’ attorney said Mendoza sacrificed his life attempting to save others.
“If you’re an unarmed man who’s charging some intoxicated lunatic … that is waving a gun at a crowd of people, that is definitely self-defense,” Stubbs said.
“Shooting an unarmed person that tried to disarm you, after you unlawfully brandish a gun, cannot be self-defense.”
A lawyer for the Iron Order, John Whitfield, disputed Stubbs’ account of the incident.
“That’s not even close to what happened,” Whitfield told Reuters by telephone. “It’s going to be quite obvious that this was self-defense by the Iron Order.”
Whitfield has said a few Iron Order members were surrounded by at least 30 Mongols, and that the fight began when a Mongol made a racial slur toward a black Iron Order member.
Whitfield said Iron Order members were cooperating with investigators. Police have said the Mongols are not.
Stubbs told reporters he was confident that “independent witnesses” would tell authorities the truth, and that the matter would be handed “appropriately.”
No arrests have been made and witnesses are still being interviewed, Denver Police Commander Ron Saunier said this week.