Meagan Fitzpatrick, CanWest News Service
Published: Friday, June 16, 2006
WINNIPEG — Three Manitoba men, including a former police constable, are facing first-degree murder charges in the spring mass murder of eight Bandidos Motorcycle Club affiliates in southwestern Ontario.
The arrests, which started late Thursday in Winnipeg and finished Friday morning, came after months of speculation that there was a tie between the shootings and the Manitoba chapter of the Texas-based bike gang, second in size and influence only to the Hells Angels.
Former police officer Michael Sandham, 36, Dwight Mushey, 36, and Marcello Aravena, 30, all from Winnipeg, are charged with eight counts each of first-degree murder.
All were co-operative when apprehended, police said Friday.
The trio were flown to Ontario and were scheduled to make their first court appearances on the charges Friday night in St. Thomas, Ont. A fourth person, a woman, was also arrested but not charged.
Five other people are already facing charges in Ontario in the April 8 murders, described by provincial police as an “internal cleansing” of the province’s chapter of the Bandidos.
The gang’s affiliates had all been shot, with some of their bodies stuffed into four abandoned vehicles, in the rural community of Shedden, located about 200 kilometres outside Toronto.
Sandham previously worked with Manitoba’s East St. Paul police before turning to the Bandidos, where he’s a full patch member.
Mushey is also a full patch member, while Aravena is a prospect of the club. It isn’t known what role the Winnipeg trio may have allegedly played in the killings.
“They’re charged with first-degree murder … the law speaks for itself,” said OPP Det. Insp. Paul Beesley at a joint news conference Friday with their Winnipeg counterparts.
Along with the arrests, police seized a sport utility vehicle during the raids on three separate locations in the city. It will be sent back to Ontario for forensic tests, Beesley said.
Published: Friday, June 16, 2006
WINNIPEG — Three Manitoba men, including a former police constable, are facing first-degree murder charges in the spring mass murder of eight Bandidos Motorcycle Club affiliates in southwestern Ontario.
The arrests, which started late Thursday in Winnipeg and finished Friday morning, came after months of speculation that there was a tie between the shootings and the Manitoba chapter of the Texas-based bike gang, second in size and influence only to the Hells Angels.
Former police officer Michael Sandham, 36, Dwight Mushey, 36, and Marcello Aravena, 30, all from Winnipeg, are charged with eight counts each of first-degree murder.
All were co-operative when apprehended, police said Friday.
The trio were flown to Ontario and were scheduled to make their first court appearances on the charges Friday night in St. Thomas, Ont. A fourth person, a woman, was also arrested but not charged.
Five other people are already facing charges in Ontario in the April 8 murders, described by provincial police as an “internal cleansing” of the province’s chapter of the Bandidos.
The gang’s affiliates had all been shot, with some of their bodies stuffed into four abandoned vehicles, in the rural community of Shedden, located about 200 kilometres outside Toronto.
Sandham previously worked with Manitoba’s East St. Paul police before turning to the Bandidos, where he’s a full patch member.
Mushey is also a full patch member, while Aravena is a prospect of the club. It isn’t known what role the Winnipeg trio may have allegedly played in the killings.
“They’re charged with first-degree murder … the law speaks for itself,” said OPP Det. Insp. Paul Beesley at a joint news conference Friday with their Winnipeg counterparts.
Along with the arrests, police seized a sport utility vehicle during the raids on three separate locations in the city. It will be sent back to Ontario for forensic tests, Beesley said.
