Who are the Waterdogs? Leader says Albuquerque motorcycle club now down to six members

After taking three bullets to the leg during a violent confrontation with members of the Bandidos motorcycle gang on Saturday, a New Mexico man who goes by the name of “Shady” called into a national YouTube podcast to give his side of the story.

First, Shady said the motorcycle club he started nearly a decade ago in New Mexico and named the Waterdogs is not an outlaw gang.

“I’m just a hometown guy with only seven members in my club,” he said of the group that’s based in the Albuquerque Metro area.

Shady, who is the Waterdogs president, insisted the Bandidos were the aggressors and had attacked him in the past, all over a now-2-year-old photo posted on Facebook. The photo showed Shady with at least one member of a rival gang of the Bandidos.

Police have released few details of how the multiple shootings unfolded other than to say three members of motorcycles groups were killed and five were injured Saturday on the main streets of Red River.

Those killed were Randy Sanchez of Albuquerque and a member of the Waterdogs, and Anthony Silva of Los Lunas and Damian Breaux of Socorro, both members of the Bandidos.

After Sanchez’s death, the local club is now down to six members, said Shady, who described Sanchez as his best friend.

One of the six remaining members is facing murder charges after being arrested, along with two Bandidos who are facing drug and weapons charges.

“That was the last thing on my mind, to have any kind of altercation with them,” Shady told the hosts of Insane Throttle Biker News on YouTube. “I just finished fixing up my bike and was trying to put it in the bike show (at the rally). Instead I got shot and my best friend of over 30 years got shot in the head and died.”

Insignia for Waterdogs Motorcycle Club. (YouTube)

Shady, who said he had been in other motorcycle clubs in the past, said of his club’s name, “the water comes from the living water which is Jesus Christ. And the dogs comes from, we’re a bunch of filthy dogs trying to chase after the clean water.”

He told the podcast audience he had had several confrontations with Bandidos recently.

Last Saturday, Shady said several of his members and their wives were walking down Main Street in Red River when some of the wives wanted to go into some of the vendors’ tents. Two Bandidos approached two of his club members, and he called his men over, telling them, “You don’t need to be talking to those guys.”

All of a sudden, he said, eight other Bandidos came at him, tried to circle him and struck him from the right and left.

“They bum-rushed me,” Shady said, and knocked three of his teeth out.

“The next thing I know I was on the ground with these two guys on top of me and they were trying to beat me up. I was just trying to fight my way out from under there…I was just trying to stay alive.”

He said he heard, “guns started popping off in every which direction. Everybody was shooting back and forth until it was over with.”

It wasn’t clear at what point in the gun battle he was shot in the leg.

Shady said he was released from a New Mexico hospital Monday, which he said had been on alert for possible retaliation. He said he was put in a cab that drove him home, but he didn’t identify where he lives or give his real name.

What started the bad blood was a photograph someone posted on Facebook of Shady at a friend’s wedding as he was talking to three other men.

At least one of the men belonged to the Mongols, a major rival of the Bandidos. The Mongols in recent years have been trying to move into New Mexico, according to federal criminal records, a state where the Bandidos have traditionally dominated.

Court documents describe both the Bandidos and Mongols as outlaw motorcycle gangs that have been involved in violent and illegal activities across the country.

However, Waterdogs have not been on federal law enforcement’s radar.

Since the photo appeared on Facebook, “I bent over frontwards and backwards and sideways trying to explain to them (the Bandidos) this picture is not what they think it is,” said Shady, who said he is 48 years old and handicapped.

“We were standing there drinking a beer,” he said of the wedding photo. “It’s not like we were collaborating or trying to get anything over on these guys.”

Shady told the co-hosts he doesn’t know whether he will be criminally charged.

He recalled how his club saved up its money last fall to ride up the California coast and back. “That was my idea of a good time.”

Podcast co-host James Hollywood Macecari told the Journal in a phone interview Tuesday that his Chicago-based show verified “through its connections” that the man calling himself Shady is the president of the club.

So where do the Waterdogs go now?

“Now that we’re down to six,” Shady said, “we have to reevaluate the situation and see if it’s even worth it anymore, you know.”

Macecari told the Journal of the “huge” interest in the shootout in the biker community.

“I think it’s going to calm down as far as the violence is concerned because everybody’s eyes are on them right now. So it’s not over, if you know what I mean. They’re going to give it time, but they lost some guys. I”ve been in this life for 30 years now, and knowing how things react, yeah, it’s not going to be over.”

Source: Albuquerque Journal