The Devil's Disciples Motorcycle Club was a Canadian outlaw motorcycle club based in Greater Montreal. Originating in late 1965, the club achieved a short-lived prominence in Montreal and was, for a time, the most powerful motorcycle gang in the city before disbanding in January 1976 as a result of a biker war with the Popeyes, a rival outlaw biker club that would eventually become the first Hells Angels chapter in Canada. The Devil's Disciples gained additional infamy for their assassination attempt on famed French singer-songwriter Johnny Hallyday as well as an internal conflict amongst its members which led to several murders.
There are several motorcycle clubs which bear the name "Devil's Disciples" but are unrelated to the Canadian group, most notably the similarly spelled American club and well as another club of the same name in the Republic of Ireland - which does not use an apostrophe in its spelling. In addition, there is an active English club known as the Devils Disciple MC which are collectively referred to as “the Devils Disciples”. During the period in which the Devil's Disciples MC of Quebec existed, there was also a one-percenter outlaw motorcycle club in Boston which had the exact same name and spelling as the Canadian club. Unlike those other clubs mentioned, however, the Canadian and Boston groups maintained a close friendship with one another.
History
The Devil's Disciples Motorcycle Club was founded a as a self-proclaimed "purely French" club sometime during the 1960s. The group's logo and center patch depicted a variant of the infamous Nazi Reichsadler (sometimes incorporating the Swastika), although the group was not white supremacist nor neo-Nazi. Instead, they used the symbol as a means of shock value - much like many other one-percenter clubs. The Devil's Disciples were also one of the first Canadian outlaw motorcycle clubs to sport the "1%er" patch on their vests - a trademark of American biker gangs.
During the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s, the Devil's Disciples grew to be one of the most prominent one percenter clubs in Quebec, as the province was considered to be a hotbed for motorcycle gangs during the time. The club dealt large amounts of drugs around St. Louis Square - specifically amphetamines, methamphetamine and PCP. The area soon became the city's largest open-air drug market as a result of such. The gang had a longstanding feud with the infamous Dubois Brothers, a criminal organization that was also a participant in the area's drug trade.
War with the Popeyes
From 1968 to 1970, a turf war broke out between the Devil's Disciples Motorcycle Club and the Popeye Moto Club for control over Montreal's drug trade. The conflict is often referred to as the First Quebec Biker War to distinguish it from the later and more notable Quebec Biker War between the Hells Angels Motorcycle Club and Rock Machine which lasted from 1994 until 2002.
In 1968, during the beginning of the gang war, Devils Disciples member Clermont Lemire was sentenced to seven years in prison for raping a 20-year-old woman who he had picked up Papineau St. and taken to the club's headquarters on Casgrain St. where the act occurred. Four additional members of the Devils Disciples were alleged to have been involved in the rape incident.
Sometime around May 1968, a group of 10 Popeye members formed a roadblock with their motorbikes to prevent 8 members of the Devil's Disciples from passing when a chance meeting between both gangs occurred outside 820 Taschereau. 18-year-old Devil's Disciples member Jean-Yves Picquet was stabbed to death by members of the Popeyes while attempting to get through. The stabbing resulted in the arrest of 5 of the bikers.
Later in June of the same year, a total of over 100 bikers belonging both to the Popeye Moto Club and the Devil's Disciples clashed in a large-scale fight in which chains and clubs were used as melee weapons. Four of the combatants ended up being hospitalized as a result of the fighting. 60 of the bikers involved in the incident were arrested by police.
In May 1970 three Devil's Disciples fatally stabbed a Popeye MC member Pierre Boucher. They were arrested and tried for the crime sometime subsequently.