Hells Angels Officer Shot at Pettigrew Funeral
A sergeant-at-arms for the Hells Angels was shot to death this weekend at a San Jose, Calif., funeral where thousands were witnessing the burial of another Hells Angels member, Jeffrey “Jethro” Pettigrew.
Pettigrew was gunned down last month at a Nevada casino.
Steve Tausan, 52, a bail bondsman and officers with the San Jose Angels, was killed Saturday.
Nicknamed “Mr. 187,” the call number which California the penal code attaches to murder cases, Tausan had once been tried and acquitted in the 1997 beating death of strip club patron.
As one of the thousands among the mourners at Oak Hill Memorial Park Saturday, Tausan was attending the funeral of his fellow Angel, Pettigrew, a municipal backhoe operator and the former president of San Jose’s Hell’s Angels chapter.
“It was a large crowd. About 4,000 people were at the funeral. We’re at square one, asking to the community to come forward,” said a police spokesperson at the scene.
Tausan told the San Jose Mercury News earlier this week that he had received death threats following Pettigrew’s Sept. 23 murder, and that murder prompted a state-of-emergency declaration in Sparks, near Reno. That declaration allowed law enforcement and other city officials to commandeer private property.
Police are saying that the shooting is most likely retribution from members of the Vagos.
Members of the Hells Angels motorcycle club and other bikers gathered for the funeral for Jeffrey "Jethro" Allen Pettigrew, a former city of San Jose employee and Hell's Angels club member at Oak Hill Funeral Home and Memorial Park cemetery in San Jose, California Saturday, October 15, 2011 when a deadly shooting occurred which took the life of Steve Tausan. (PATRICK TEHAN/MCT/Landov)
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