BIKERS WITH A CAUSE
LEATHER-CLAD GUARDIANS AID YOUNG VICTIMS
THEY ARE BIG GUYS AND TOUGH LADIES, BUT I DON’T THINK ANY OF THEM ARE AFRAID TO CRY OR SHOW THE LOVE FOR THE KIDS.
HALEY MURPHY
ASSISTANT DISTRICT ATTORNEY
Child abuse, sexual and physical, is so prevalent that Frank Montano doesn’t leave one of his Guardians of the Children motorcycle group events without at least one stranger pulling him to the side.
“They say, ‘Where were you when I needed you?’ and you can see in their eyes,” Montano said. “Especially in the past. Families just swept it under the rug. To every one of us, it’s a life mission to make sure it stops. It will stop. Right here.”
Montano, more commonly known by his road name, Classic, is president of the Rio Grande Chapter of the Guardians, which is “first an advocacy group, second a motorcycle group.”
The local group, one of 38 nationwide that has sprung up in the past 10 years, offers a unique social support program for victims of child abuse as they go through the court system. Leather-clad members often show up in pairs — or in a horde — at hearings, trials or at homes for meetings or safety checks.
Local police, prosecutors and victim families credit them with providing strong support for the victims they take under their care.
In their black leather motorcycle vests with distinctive winged patches, they sit in courtrooms between
a victim’s family and the family of the abuser. Often, that is the same family divided. Emotions run high and intimidation can be intentional.
“We’ll say, ‘When you’re testifying and you’re scared, look at us. We’re here for you,’ ” Montano said. “We don’t do fear. We just don’t. And it doesn’t take long for the child to start feeling that way and be empowered.”
In many cases, attorneys subpoena every family member, which means they can’t be in the room during the trial. That sometimes leaves a child testifying on the stand to a room filled with their abuser and the abuser’s supporters.
“It’s not uncommon for it to split up an entire family,” said Haley Murphy, assistant district attorney prosecuting crimes against children in Albuquerque. “The rest of the family sides with the defendant, so sometimes you’ll have a trial or sentencing where the whole side is packed with people supporting the defendant and only a few the victim. It (the Guardians’ presence) gives them courage.”
Murphy said the group members are sensitive to being helpful and not intrusive. They care, she said.
“They are big guys and tough ladies, but I don’t think any of them are afraid to cry or show the love for the kids in their community,” Murphy said.
‘One call away’
Guardians get involved with a case when prosecutors and police suggest a victim’s family contact the group. If the family requests it, Guardian members meet with the family and, together, they decide whether the group and the family are a good match.
If so, the group adopts the child, which to them is a serious and longterm commitment involving weekly check-ins and attendance through the court process and beyond, up to age 18. That commitment officially involves giving the child a biker vest and his or her own special road name, which the Guardians take as a serious vow of acceptance.
While each local member focuses on only one family, the national network of about 40 Guardians of the Children chapters commits to help any child in need, Montano said.
“I’m one call away from having 300 or 400 people here,” Montano said.
He wouldn’t give the exact number of members in the local group. He said that’s just not done in the motorcycle world. But members who show up to meetings regularly number about 20.
And late on Jan. 2, about 25 showed up in the freezing cold to help Albuquerque police search for 3-year-old Coraline Leon-Alcocer, who was in the back seat of her mom’s running car in a grocery store parking lot when a stranger jumped in and drove it away while her mother was just feet away filling up water jugs.
Montano said an Albuquerque police detective called and told them that a search was on.
Within minutes, Montano called the group’s communication officer, who activated the phone chain, and the city’s Guardians of the Children were at the grocery store lot, teaming up with officers and combing the streets.
Coraline was found safe, albeit cold, in a parking lot. One of the Guardian women was on the scene and can be heard in police lapel camera audio rushing to the girl and with urgent motherly concern asking if she’s OK.
A serious commitment
Guardians of the Children is one of the only, if not the only, co-ed motorcycle group that gives patches to women and navigates the intense social rules of motorcycle culture as a neutral party.
Patching and receiving a road name is a serious commitment, Montano said, and is given only to people who have been involved in the group for at least a year and passed a background check to exclude sexual offenders.
Chapter Vice President Ernest Cuaron, aka Wizard, said the patched women in the group are some of the fiercest advocates for children since many of them have survived physical and sexual abuse as a child. Men in the group, too, have survived.
“We know now that we’re there for you (the child) because no one was there for me,” Cuaron said of some members in the group who have experienced abuse. His wife, a patched member of the group, is a survivor.
“It’s a healing process for her, and she can sit down with these children and say, ‘I’ve been through that,’ ” Cuaron said.
It’s healing for the child, too, said Annette Lujan, mother to a girl who was adopted by the Guardians as she went through a trial against a relative on molestation charges.
The bikers met with her regularly and attended every hearing and day of trial, Lujan said.
“They give her a sense of safety. They’re super down to earth and comfortable to be around,” she said.
And they empowered Lujan’s daughter to speak up, even taking child abuse as her platform in beauty pageants.
“Back in the day, you didn’t say a word or you kind of pushed it under the rug ... nobody wants to face the reality of it, but these people are advocating and now she (the daughter) is advocating,” Lujan said. “It’s just a great organization.”
Her daughter’s case ended in a conviction, but not all of the cases the Guardians take do.
Montano said that doesn’t matter as much as the child’s knowing they are loved and that “someone is there for them.”
“Our win, if you will, is they look them (the abuser) in the eyes and say, ‘You are the one who hurt me,’ ” he said. “We want to be a ray of light that says ‘it’s going to be OK.’ ”