Hells Angel shootout ‘as Vegas gamblers played on’

A court heard how a motorcycle gang leader killed a high-ranking rival Hells Angel in a terrifying shootout in a Las Vegas casino.

Gamblers dived under tables as shots were fired when the Vagos gang clashed with the San Jose Hells Angels in the Sparks casino — but others continued playing, Washoe district court in Nevada heard.

“Some of them were still playing slot machines,” former casino security director George Messina said in his evidence.

“Some of them were trying to get their money out of slot machines. Some of them were hiding.”

Vagos leader Ernesto Gonzalez, 55, is accused of shooting Hells Angels boss Jeffrey “Jethro” Pettigrew in the feud in September 2011. But Gonzalez will testify later that it was in self-defence to protect another member of his gang and not an orchestrated assassination plot.

Gonzalez’s lawyer, David Houston, said he had opened fire because he feared Pettigrew was kicking another Vagos member to death.

Gonzalez, from San Francisco, was president of the Vagos chapter in his native Nicaragua at the time of the shooting, in which at least two Vagos members were also injured.

The prosecution alleges that the international president of the Vagos, Pastor “Tata” Palafox, gave the go-ahead for the killing and that Gonzalez had stepped forward to volunteer.

But defence lawyer Mr Houston said that the same surveillance video which prosecutors claim proves Gonzalez carried out the hit will actually show he tried to shy away from the trouble.

The trial was continuing today and is expected to last at least two more weeks.