ST. MARYS, Ga. – Digging deeper into the body camera footage obtained of a high-speed pursuit with a motorcyclist in St. Marys, Georgia, an officer and the motorcyclist’s girlfriend express concern at the scene of the traffic stop before the biker was taken to jail.
Daniel Hubbard was arrested Monday night after deputies said he and another unidentified motorcyclist led them on a chase. He has since bonded out of jail.
During the arrest caught on camera, deputies identify him as a member of the Pagans Motorcycle Club, which has been labeled by the FBI as an outlaw biker club.
The concern is apparent when officers first notice the patches on his vest and tattoos. The officers also run his name through a database.
“I lived in St. Marys when I was in the Navy. St. Marys police came up behind me and my brothers come into town. NCIS had an investigation,” Hubbard explains to the officer.
“Because of the affiliation?” an officer asks, to which Hubbard nods in the affirmative.
Hubbard appears unwilling to reveal too much about his affiliation.
“I’m actually genuinely curious about your motorcycle club. What do you do?” the officer asks.
“[Inaudible] I can’t say anything further,” he replies.
“I understand,” the officer says.
Many members of the gang are known to have racist views and even wear patches or tattoos to reflect racist beliefs.
“Does your motorcycle club have any kind of race issues? Are you good with all races and ethnicities?” the officer asks.
Hubbard’s response is inaudible.
The officer responds, “I’m not being funny. I just didn’t know that if they book you in and there’s like a —”
“Do I have a noose tattooed on my face? Yes. I do,” Hubbard says.
“I was just thinking, I don’t want you to go in there and get into a fight in the jail,” the officer replies.
She adds, “I think you’re smart enough not to pick a fight, but I know you would defend yourself if someone picked a fight with you. So, I’m more concerned with someone picking a fight with you.”
Hubbard’s girlfriend, also at the scene, expresses concern.
“Can he go somewhere else that is isolated?” she asks.
Major Rob Mastroianni is the Camden County jail administrator. He says that although the officer and Hubbard’s girlfriend had concerns, his jail is accustomed to maintaining the peace.
“If we recognize tattoos and things like that, because we do document them, we advise them that as long as they follow the regulations in the facility, there will be no issues. We then monitor them to make sure they do not try and recruit anybody or organize anything within the facility,” Mastroianni said.
Some people who come in to the facility, Mastroianni said, are recognizable.
“Some of them, we recognize just from experience. We do keep what we call a gang book,” he said.
The gang book is a reference guide to help jailers figure out what gang someone is affiliated with. Mastroianni says on many occasions, people who are affiliated with gangs will proudly come out and say which gang they’re affiliated with as a badge of honor. But he also says gang members are warned before they are placed into the general population.
“As long as you don’t make your particular affiliation the knowledge of everybody else. Just like some people do not want their crime to be known by anybody else back there. As long as you don’t tell, we don’t tell,” he explained.
Camden County jailers say they do try to separate rival gang members, but it’s difficult given the small size of the jail, which holds under 150 inmates. By comparison, the Duval County jail holds more than five-times that number.