VANCOUVER – Juel Ross Stanton was a long-time debt collector for the Hells Angels with an unmatched propensity for violence and a long list of enemies, biker expert Insp. Andy Richards said Thursday.
And the notorious biker gang is undoubtedly near the top of the suspect list in Stanton’s execution after kicking out the 41-year-old this past May, Richards said.
Stanton was gunned down about 6:15 a.m. Thursday outside his huge Vancouver heritage home at 202 W. 11th, just hours before he was due in Vancouver Provincial Court on a series of weapons and assault charges.
His hysterical wife screamed obscenities at police as Stanton’s body lay in the house’s back yard.
Richards, who spent 17 years investigating the Hells Angels as a Vancouver Police officer and later with the Combined Forces Special Enforcement Unit, said Stanton was too violent even for the Hells Angels.
"We were shocked when he became a member of the club because he has been such a loose cannon for so many years and his propensity for violence has been almost second to none," said Richards, who is now with the Port Moody Police Department.
"He was certainly very, very volatile and very high maintenance from a club perspective. He drew a lot of unwanted police attention and a lot of unwanted public attention on the Hells Angels."
While Richards said investigators will be taking a close look at the HA, there were many others who wanted Stanton dead.
"He cut a wide swath for many, many years in the Lower Mainland. He would have a very lengthy list of enemies," Richards said.
But he said the public should not fear an escalation in Vancouver’s gang war.
"If it was an inhouse thing with the club, it is done, it is over. I don’t think anybody is going to retaliate against the club. I don’t see much coming from this," Richards said.
Criminologist Darryl Plecas, of the University College of the Fraser Valley, agreed.
"People should not be thinking that this is anything close to being the start of any gang war," he said. "Hells Angels are not that stupid..That is not their style."
Stanton had been a full-patch member of the East End chapter for about a decade after an earlier stint with the now-defunct Regulators biker club.
But his criminal history across Metro Vancouver dates back to his teens when he, his brother Norman and his mom Marion got arrested in a theft ring.
"I had several face-to-face contacts with him over the years, both in uniform and in plain clothes. He was extremely volatile and aggressive," Richards said. "It didn’t take much to set him off – just being stopped by the police – would be enough to set him off and he would loose it."
Vancouver Police Const. Jana McGuinness said police have no suspects and are appealing for witnesses to call 604-717-2500.
" Officers did a search over the next hour of the whole area. They have not turned up any suspects at this point."
The large renovated house had several security cameras and McGuinness said police were hoping to secure the video from them.
"We have taken a number of people out of the residence down to the police station for interviews," McGuinness said. "This is a very disturbing incident for this neighbourhood."
Stunned neighbours said they heard up to 11 shots and saw a dark car with tinted windows racing from the scene, turning east on 12th at Columbia.
Most neighbours did not want to be quoted by name. Several have complained to the Vancouver Sun over the last two years of harassment and intimidation by Stanton and his HA friends who would show up at all hours.
McGuinness said Vancouver Police often had a car parked out in front of the house to alleviate the concerns of the neighbourhood.
Megan Stewart awoke to the sound of several gunshots followed by anguished screams and headed outside to see what was going on.
"There was a group of people standing on the deck of the house and you could see one man’s boot lying on the ground through the fence. So
"There was one woman who was saying: ‘Aren’t you so effing happy this happened to us’ to the officers. ‘You must be so happy this happened to us.’
"To be fair, she was distraught," Stewart said. "It is a high-stakes, stressful situation."
Stanton was charged in April after several complaints of vicious assaults at the Ivanhoe pub on Main Street.
Vancouver Police were so concerned about his behaviour and intimidation of patrons at the time that they paid a visit to East End Hell’s Angel president John Bryce to warn him Stanton was out of hand.
"We did tell him that Mr. Stanton’s behaviour was unacceptable on a number of different levels and as far as I can tell, they chose not to do anything about it," Insp. Brad Desmarais said in April.
Stanton was ordered released on 21 strict bail conditions that prevented him from displaying any Hells Angel clothing, logo or even his biker tattoos publicly. Nor could he have Hells Angel images on his vehicles or properties (until then, he often displayed a banner of the HA deathhead from a window of his house.)
Stanton was even banned from being in the company of other Hells Angels or associates, except for his own son Dillon, who at the time was a hang-around with the club. His association was severed along with that of his father’s.
Club spokesman Rick Ciarniello did not respond to repeated requests for an interview Thursday.
The charges against Stanton were put over until Aug. 26, Crown Teresa Mitchell-Banks said. In cases where an accused dies, the charges are "abated" or dropped.
Stanton owns a construction company called Juel Forming, but Richards said he really earned his living as a violent collector.
"He was by trade a debt collector. That’s how he made his living and he used his patch when he became a member of the club to collect debts and extort people whether the debts were real or imagined," Richards said. "He took bullying and violence to a whole new level in the club."
He said it will be a difficult case to crack like other unsolved murders or disappearances involving those linked to the Hells Angels.
"As you know, gangland homicides are very difficult to solve and this murder will have all those same hallmarks," Richards said.
He said the Hells Angels are laying low.
"They don’t typically get involved in the very public, overt shoot-outs that we have seen between other higher-profile groups, but they are still the largest, most-organized game in town for sure," Richards said.
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