Seattle cop charged in Sturgis bar fight; so is Hells Angel

A Seattle police detective who claims he shot a Hells Angels member during a South Dakota bar fight in self-defense has been charged with aggravated assault and perjury.

Detective Ron Smith was charged Thursday after a two-day grand-jury hearing by the Meade County, S.D., Circuit Court. He is also charged with a misdemeanor count of carrying a concealed weapon without a permit.

Smith, 43, declined to comment on the charges Thursday. He said he was planning to hire an attorney.

In a recent interview with The Seattle Times, Smith said he shot Hells Angel Joseph McGuire on Aug. 9 after McGuire and a group of bikers jumped him inside the Loud American Roadhouse during the annual Sturgis Motorcycle Rally.

An aggravated-assault charge was filed against McGuire, 33, of Imperial Beach, Calif.

If Smith and McGuire are convicted of aggravated assault, they each face up to 15 years in prison. A perjury conviction is punishable by up to five years' imprisonment.

Smith had traveled to the rally with fellow members of the Iron Pigs, a motorcycle club made up of police officers and firefighters.

Also charged Thursday with misdemeanor counts were four Iron Pigs who were with Smith at the bar. They are Scott Lazalde, 38, of Bellingham; James Rector, 44, of Ferndale, Whatcom County; Erik Pingel, 35, of Aurora, Colo.; and Seattle police Sgt. Dennis McCoy, 49, of Seattle. Lazalde and Rector are longtime members of U.S. Customs and Border Inspection and stationed in Blaine. All are charged with carrying a concealed weapon without a permit. A conviction on the misdemeanor could result in up to one year in jail and a $2,000 fine.

Meade County State Attorney Jesse Sondreal filed the charges Thursday morning.

While Seattle police have a policy of firing officers charged with a felony, department spokesman Jeff Kappel issued a statement that read, "the department continues to gather and receive information, the officers will remain on administrative leave."

Smith and McCoy, who were both in the bar when the shooting happened, have been placed on administrative leave, Kappel said. Three other officers who traveled to the rally but were not in the bar when the shooting occurred were called back to work Thursday. They had been placed on leave after the shooting, Kappel said.

The Seattle Police Officers' Guild released a statement Thursday afternoon saying they "are certain that once all the facts are known, the involved SPOG members will be vindicated and absolved of any wrongdoing."

Lazalde and Rector remain on the job, a Customs and Border Patrol spokesman said.

"As an agency, we haven't received anything official yet, and when and if that occurs, we have an internal-review process," Mike Milne, spokesman for Customs and Border Protection, said.

Smith said he helped establish the Seattle chapter of the Iron Pigs in 2001 as a "fraternal organization for officers." Smith and other members go on regular rides, including a trip to the Sturgis event.

Sondreal said that the grand jury heard from 10 witnesses on Wednesday and an additional 25, including Smith, testified on Aug. 10.

Sondreal said in an e-mail that the grand jury found that Smith lied while testifying before them the day after the shooting.

"The grand jury must've decided that Mr. Smith, having taken an oath to testify truly, in a state proceeding, stated intentionally and contrary to the oath, a material matter which he knew to be false," Sondreal wrote.

While Meade County Sheriff Ron Merwin said earlier this month that federal law gives Smith and other officers the right to carry a firearm into the bar as long as they weren't intoxicated, Sondreal said grand-jury members interpreted the law differently.

Dean Kinney, co-owner of the Loud American Roadhouse, said that the Iron Pigs who had patronized his bar during the motorcycle rally were easygoing and kept to themselves. He said that on the night of the shooting, none of them appeared to be armed.

"We were not under the impression that any of the Iron Pigs had guns," Kinney said. "An undercover officer on duty would be another story."

Kinney said there were nearly 400 people inside the bar when the shooting occurred. He said security staff told him that the Hells Angel and members of the Iron Pigs were "jawing back and forth" before the shooting. Kinney said that a surveillance tape was rolling inside the bar when the fight broke out but police confiscated it.

"We don't know more than anyone else about what that video showed," Kinney said. "At this point, the grand jury knows a great deal more about it than we do at Loud American. We have to trust the system."

Smith admits that he had been drinking on the night of the shooting but said he wasn't drunk.

In an earlier interview, Smith said he may have been targeted by the motorcycle gang. He testified in a high-profile federal racketeering and murder trial last year that sent several former and current members of the Hells Angels to prison. All four defendants in the case went to prison for terms ranging from seven years to life without parole for convictions on conspiracy and racketeering charges.

Court records and police testimony show that the detective has clashed with another Hells Angel.

Authorities filed charges in 2005 alleging that Anthony James Magnesi, a member of the Washington Nomads chapter of the Hells Angels, had threatened Smith over the phone.

Magnesi, in turn, recorded one of their phone conversations and gave it to the police department's Office of Professional Accountability (OPA), claiming it was Smith who had threatened him.

An internal investigation was opened, and the incident was referred to Smith's supervisor as a training issue, according to OPA officials.

The misdemeanor criminal charges filed against Magnesi were dismissed.

Jennifer Sullivan: 206-464-8294 or jensullivan@seattletimes.com