On Monday afternoon, the management for both the Lobo and the Fun House--a punk venue on Fifth Avenue near Seattle Center--sent an e-mail to a few people in the music community about the fight. "An incident happened at the Lobo over the weekend... I gave [Mike] & his crew one chance to not cause trouble when they went to see shows," the note read. "[But] this weekend they beat up two of my friends outside of the Lobo. I've talked with Mike and told him that he or any of his boys are to never set foot in the Fun House or the Lobo."
"Mike and his crew" are the skinheads people in the local music community have been quietly talking about for years, privately sharing stories about who's gotten into fights with the men, who's been threatened by them, and who avoids clubs they might be at, to stay out of their way. They aren't neo-Nazis or white-power racists--the guys who call themselves skinheads describe their crowd as akin to 1960s-style British pub thugs, or "real skinheads"--but people are afraid of them. The rationale behind the decision to oust Mike and his friends from the bars went beyond the incident on May 15. According to bar management, and people who've had run-ins with the group, Mike and his crowd have a reputation for being at the center of fights, intimidating club patrons, and generally scaring the crap out of people. "I'm not the most popular guy in Seattle," Mike concedes (he didn't want his last name used, to protect his family).
The fight at the Lobo on May 15 was the last straw for the management. In the same note on Monday, the bar's manager said he'd "86'd all skinheads from both... bars," not just those involved in the Saturday-night fight. (He doesn't want to be named either: Though the manager knows he's easily identifiable to Mike and other local skinheads, plus members of the music community, he's worried out-of-town skinheads will peg him as an enemy.) "Their presence was an intimidating factor where as a business person I can't have that in my place," the manager told The Stranger. The overriding concern from folks in the music community is that wherever these guys go, fights often follow, and people are afraid.
"You will probably not find many people willing to talk because basically they are scared shitless of Mike and his crew," explains one guy via e-mail, who requested anonymity. "He's been in the punk scene here for a long time and he and his friends like being rowdy and consider fighting to be part of the skinhead and punk scene."
Another guy spoke to The Stranger about the skinheads over the phone. "I've been harassed by these guys for four or five years," he said. "They're bullies. They're just violent assholes. They go to bars and beat up on drunks. I could name a list of five or six people [beaten up by the skinheads]. There's millions of stories." For example, another guy he knows had a knife pulled on him within the past year.
Mike, who's pegged as the leader--he's usually the only skinhead people know by name, which Mike says is simply because he's the biggest, the oldest, and the one with the most tattoos, not because he's truly their leader--has an extensive misdemeanor record in Seattle, with charges ranging from assault in 1986 to several for shoplifting and theft in the late '80s, to another assault investigation in 1999 (he wasn't charged). "I do have a criminal record that I'm not proud of, but 1986 was a long time ago," he says.
Mike acknowledges that he had a role in the Saturday-night fight, and he takes responsibility for breaking his word to the bar's management--he'd promised to do all he could to prevent fights at the bar. "I failed at that. I'm partially to blame, yeah." But Mike says there are two sides to every story: The fight at the Lobo wasn't started by skinheads, he explains, though they were involved. The police report backs him up, to a degree: "Victim 1... said he made a comment to one of the suspects... and apparently people took offense to the comment." Mike says he and his friends were injured in the brawl too, noting a few broken ribs and bruises. "There weren't just two victims here," he says.
But he knows skinheads have a bad rap in town. While some of it might be deserved ("We've done some awful things, we're not angels, and we're not champions of human rights," he says), he also thinks people misunderstand his crowd. Sure, they'll get into fights, but only with willing participants, he says. "It's always consensual. I don't pick people out. If people want out of a fight, they can get out," he says. Moreover, he's adamant that his friends aren't racists or neo-Nazis. Their skinhead style, he explains, originated in the 1960s in the UK, and was later co-opted by those with extreme politics. "Real skinheads" aren't racists, Mike explains. "Real skinheads stay off the drugs and they're loyal to each other, and they work hard." Another local skinhead, who goes by Dez, explains, with a bit of '60s Brit slang: "What are we about? Clothing, music, working-class values, going down to the pub with your mates, and basically being left alone. Our friendships are very strong and there's nothing better than spending an evening with each other, knocking about (hanging out, to you), and having a good time... just like most people, only we stick out in a crowd so we're easy to spot.
"Are we total Boy Scouts?" adds Dez. "Not at all. Every scene has a bit of aggro involved. Skins are no exception, and are not the sort to walk away from someone starting something."
