The Lynch report mentioned several of these annual affairs, but the descriptions were not entirely objective. For obvious reasons, policemen rarely witness a crime in progress, so they have to rely on others to tell them what happened.
Newsweek’s version of the Porterville raid was lifted almost verbatim from the Lynch report. Another version of that affair had appeared on September 5, 1963, in the Porterville Farm Tribune. It was an eyewitness account, written within hours of the action by a Tribune reporter named Bill Rodgers, who was also Porterville’s mayor. The headline said: THEY CAME, THEY SAW, THEY DID NOT CONQUER.
Porterville police knew by Saturday morning that the motorcycle clan of California might hit Porterville during the weekend.
. . .By late afternoon there were riders beginning to congregate at Main and Olive, with the Eagle Club as their drinking center. A few riders were in Murry Park. No one that we saw was out of line. By early evening great numbers had begun to arrive and there was a build-up at Main and Olive. Our phone got hot as people wanted to know what the city was doing about the situation. We were urged to call out the National Guard, to order wholesale arrests, to deputize citizens and arm them with axe handles and shotguns.
Around 6:30 P.M. we checked Main Street. The show was starting. Perhaps 200 of the motorcycle clan, including some women and children, were becoming boisterous; some were crowding out into the street molesting motorists and pedestrians; a hundred or more motorcycles were parked on the east side of Main.
We returned to the police station. Torigian and Searle were handling things there, Porrazzo joined them. There was still no violence, or no real reason to make arrests. It was a case of waiting as the situation developed. Decision was made to close Murry Park.
About 8:00 P.M. radio word came that the motorcycle group was pulling out, heading east. It was possible they would stay out of town. But a few minutes later a fight and accident was reported in a club at the city line in Doyle Colony and an ambulance was requested. It was also reported that the clan was moving back into town.
Decision was made at this point to force the motorcycle group out of town. . .
Throughout the evening the city police switchboard was cluttered by calls, some of them legitimate, but many of them from anonymous people announcing they were citizens, demanding protection, insulting the police.
Traffic was bumper to bumper on Main Street; 1,500 local people stood around at Main and Olive to see what would happen. The motorcycle clan, perhaps 300 strong at this point, was living it up drinking, tying up traffic, breaking bottles in the street, using profane and insulting language, putting on what they considered a show.
Police were hampered by the heavy traffic and the mass of spectators. We moved through the area in a loud-speaker-equipped police car asking Porterville people to move out of the area. Result — no one moved, others came in to see what was happening, the motorcycle clan booed.
The Main Street block from Garden to Olive, then from Oak, was closed to traffic; Highway Patrolmen were on the south, city police on the north. The area rapidly cleared of traffic; the clan group figured they had it made, that police were turning a block of Main Street over to them.
By 9:30 P.M. officers of the mutual aid group were assembled at the city police station. Torigian briefed them on plan of action — move south down Main Street in cars; walk the final half block; head the motorcycles south; no one goes north. Highway Patrol units would remain south of Olive and Main. Take no lip or no abuse; either they move out or they go to jail.
A city fire engine was placed in position at the Penney Store; the police with night sticks and shotguns moved out, there were no sirens, just flashing red lights. The motorcycle clan massed in the middle of the street, some of them laid down. Torigian led the officers, talking through a bull horn. You have five minutes to get out of town. Move. Defiance faded. Motorcycles started. There was some resistance, a half dozen were arrested. City firemen wet down the street and moved the hose in on the clan. One rider tried to go north; he was knocked off his motorcycle with the firehose water.