Third injured man in Morrill's Corner shootout identified
Kris Haken, an Outlaw in New Hampshire and wounded veteran, was previously imprisoned for shooting a teen bystander during a biker brawl
It’s been over a month since a shootout at Morrill’s Corner in Portland took the life of one woman and sent three men to the hospital, and Portland police are still refusing to disclose the identities of the injured victims. Meanwhile, among locals who know the fatal attack stemmed from bad blood between rival outlaw motorcycle clubs, fears of retaliatory violence have been mounting.
The Bollard’s discovery of the identity of the third injured victim is unlikely to quell those concerns or stop people from asking why the cops are keeping key details secret. It also exemplifies the abject failure of law enforcement’s approach to “biker gang” violence.
Kris Haken, 45, a member of the Outlaws motorcycle club who lives in New Hampshire, was treated and released from a Portland hospital the night of July 30. In a story for our September print issue, “Biker Club Beef Led to Morrill’s Corner Shootout,” we erroneously identified that injured man as Travis Frechette, the son of Susan McHugh, a concert promoter from Gray who died after being shot that night. The other injured men are McHugh’s husband, Troy McHugh, and infamous Portland “gang” leader Bill Holmes, a former Outlaw who’s been involved with FSU (Fuck Shit Up), a ragtag posse that made headlines in Portland 30 years ago for their drunken teenage street fights.
Police have arrested and jailed Aaron Karp, 47, an Outlaw who worked at a tattoo and piercing shop across Forest Avenue from the parking lot where the July 30 attack occurred. In the Aug. 9 court order caging Karp for murder without bail, Haken’s name is listed along with Holmes’ and Troy McHugh’s (whose surname, handwritten, is misspelled in the filing) as persons with whom Karp is to have “no direct or indirect contact” in the event he is released.
The Bollard reported that the July 30 incident began at Brookside, a restaurant and bar in Westbrook, where Holmes assaulted a member of Higher Calling, a Christian-based motorcycle club affiliated with the Outlaws, allegedly for wearing a club patch on the premises. Shortly after that assault, Holmes and others, including Susan McHugh, were attacked by a group of 10 or more people in the parking lot of a Meineke auto-repair shop. At least 18 shots were fired and people were beaten with hammers, fists and boots, according to sources and video footage.
Haken made headlines in the spring of 2010 following an outlaw-biker brawl at a pizzeria in Manchester, N.H. Sources said that fight started when a man named Fernando Daraujo, then 40, was sitting with about a half dozen people at a table while wearing an Outlaws shirt. A Hell’s Angel at the bar noticed Daraujo’s shirt and left the restaurant, but about 20 minutes later, roughly 20 Angels and members of an affiliated club, Milford & Co., showed up to rumble.
“The Outlaws really didn't start fighting. They were edgy but did not start the fight,” Petros Kostakis, a co-owner of the pizzeria, told the New Hampshire Union Leader.
“Basically, [the Hell's Angels] said, 'You guys need to come outside or it's going to happen right here in the bar,’” another (anonymous) source told the newspaper. This source said an Angel then threw a punch and all hell broke loose. “Nobody knew what was going on. There were things flying everywhere, people flying everywhere," the witness told the Union Leader.
Kostakis, who told the paper he was “scared for my life, scared for my employees," fired several handgun shots into the air in the parking lot to disperse the warring crowd. Additional gunshots, more hand-to-hand combat, and an alleged stabbing attempt also took place.
Haken, a U.S. Army veteran who reportedly was a prospective member of the Outlaws at the time, got into his girlfriend’s vehicle, grabbed a 20-gauge shotgun and fired in the direction of three high school students who were uninvolved in the dispute and trying to escape the melee. One teen was hit by pellets in the hand and leg and seriously injured.
The cops, prosecutors and judge all piled on Haken, who got what The Telegraph, a Nashua, N.H., newspaper, called a “rare maximum sentence” after pleading guilty to second-degree assault and reckless conduct: 10 to 20 years in state prison. Haken’s lawyer, in a bid to reduce the sentence, pointed out that his client, then 32, suffered from post-traumatic stress disorder resulting from tours in Iraq and Afghanistan. Haken expressed remorse for the shooting in court, as well.
But in what The Telegraph also described as a “relatively rare occurrence,” Manchester Police Chief David Mara testified at the hearing and said “a long sentence would send a message that Manchester won’t tolerate gang violence,” according to the county attorney. It was a tough case to prosecute, an assistant county attorney told the newspaper: “Nobody wanted to testify because it involved the Hell’s Angels and Outlaws.”
The pizzeria brawl led to eight indictments, in total, against motorcycle club members. Cops also hit Daraujo, the man wearing an Outlaws shirt, with two charges for selling cocaine unrelated to the fight. And Kostakis, the panicked pizzeria owner who fired his gun to try to stop the rumble, was arrested and charged with reckless conduct.
The judge in Haken’s case did agree to shave two and a half years from his sentence if the wounded soldier “adheres to getting treatment for his disorder along with other programs ordered by corrections officials,” a county attorney said. And it appears Haken did adhere to those conditions. Sentenced in October of 2011, he was posting on Facebook in the summer of 2017. In addition to posts with Outlaw brothers (including members in Maine), his page is dedicated to family, pets, vacation footage and fundraisers for people in need.
In an Aug. 6 press release, Portland police said the injuries requiring hospitalization on July 30 were all “from this altercation” at Morrill’s Corner. If, in fact, Haken was hurt as a result of inter-club violence, that clearly indicates the failure of law enforcement’s anti-gang strategy here, whereby a long prison sentence intended to send a strong “message” that such violence is intolerable, followed by years locked in a cage at gunpoint, will persuade a wounded war veteran to abandon his biker brothers and pursue a quiet, law-abiding life. The mental-health treatment and “programs” offered in New Hampshire’s prison system also appear to have been ineffective.
Haken’s social-media profiles indicate he’s studied at the University of New Hampshire-Manchester and worked for a waste-services company in Portsmouth. His Facebook page says he’s also a “Digital creator.” Haken did not respond to a Facebook message seeking comment.