A Brief History Of The Warlocks Motorcycle Club

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Motorcycle clubs became a thing after the Second World War, when American veterans who were returning from deployment wanted to recreate the sense of camaraderie and brotherhood they'd had in the military. We saw many of these clubs founded in that time period, such as the Hell's Angels, Bandidos, Outlaws, and the Pagans, who are known as the "big four" motorcycle clubs today. They follow strict rules, have a clear organizational structure, obey their own constitutions in some cases, and have a code of honor that is supposed to be unbreakable. For instance, one of the main rules that the Hell's Angels live by is that they will not interact with officers of the law. 

The Warlocks motorcycle club also follows this ideal, as even after allegedly being assaulted with nunchucks in a gang fight with another biker gang, a member didn't press charges because he couldn't "cooperate" with the police, because of his lifestyle (more on that story later). Some of these motorcycle club outfits would eventually turn to criminality because they realized that their organizational structure could be used to shield them from the law, though we should mention that not all motorcycle clubs are gangs. The issue escalated to the point where several three-letter agencies like the FBI, DEA, and ATF had to involve themselves to bring the motorcycle gang problem under control; but many issues persist, even today.

Origins & Formation

Towards the end of the 1960s, an American attack carrier named the U.S.S. Shangri-La was ending its deployment with the Sixth Fleet, and was due to return home. On board that ship were 13 sailors, including one named Thomas Freeman Jr., who all got together and decided to start a motorcycle club when they got back home. After some deliberation, the name "Warlocks" was chosen for the motorcycle club, with the last two words often abbreviated to "MC" on paper. It was also agreed that each of the 13 would found a branch (known as a "chapter") of this new club in the town where that sailor was from. 

Now, not all of the sailors were able to follow through with this commitment, but Thomas Freeman did. Nicknamed "Grub," he started the initial chapter in Orlando, Florida, in 1967 upon his return from deployment. Specifically, the foremost chapter of the Warlock's MC, the "mother" chapter, was founded in Lockhart, Orlando, Florida, where it remains to this day. Grub Freeman was, according to reports, an active member of all club activities right until the year he died, in 2019. 

Readers should note that there is another Warlocks motorcycle club that is based out of Pennsylvania unrelated to this one. Because of the two clubs existing, Freeman's club is sometimes distinguished by calling it the "Florida Warlocks", or "Phoenix Warlocks", paying homage to the club's crest.

Symbolism, colors & motto

Speaking of the club's crest, it is an eagle located between curved text bars, though sometimes the text is omitted. The Pennsylvania-based Warlock's club actually considers the Florida-based one to have "stolen" the name when some of the founding members visited the Philadelphia Navy dock, but of course, this can never be proven. The Floridian club's eagle symbol was designed by an unnamed member of the original 13 sailors from the Shangri-La, and remains in use by Warlocks MC members to this day. 

The other, unrelated Philly-based Warlocks MC uses a harpy in the eagle's stead, which is why that club is called the "Harpy Warlocks" sometimes. As with most other motorcycle clubs, the Warlocks MC does have colors of its own that its members wear. Where the Hell's Angels use red and white, a Warlock's MC member will be found wearing the club colors of red, orange, and gold. The main motto that is attributed to the club is "Warlock's forever, forever Warlock's", which is often shortened to "WFFW", especially online. 

That's why the websites of many different Warlock's MC chapter websites display the word "WFFW" as a banner on some pages. Another one of their mottos is "To find us, you must be good, to catch us, you must be fast, and to beat us, you must be kidding." The same eagle crest, known fondly as the "warbird", is worn on clothing as a biker patch.

Expansion, head counts, and chapters

The Warlocks MC is what is known as a "one-percenter" club, which stems from the year-1947 statement, "99% of motorcycle clubs are law-abiding" by the American Motorcycle Association. In terms of head count, the club isn't the biggest, but it's certainly amongst the largest motorcycle clubs in the U.S., and even the world. Estimates vary, but the member count is purportedly more than 500. It has many chapters in America, including ones in Florida, Minnesota, Georgia, Ohio, and the two Virginias, among others. 

As is expected, the state with the most number of Warlock's MC chapters is the club's home state of Florida, with 11 chapters housed there. Second place goes to South Carolina, with seven chapters, and third place to Virginia, with five. It's also international, unsurprisingly, with foreign-soil chapters being located in Germany, Canada, and the United Kingdom. As part of the Warlock's expansion agenda, a particular Florida chapter of the MC was in negotiations with the Hell's Angels, who were the biggest motorcycle club in California. 

At the same time, the club was also discussing a "patch over" event with the "Boozefighters", who were another local motorcycle club. A patch over is when a club abandons its colors and fully integrates itself into the club into which it is being patched into. However, before things could materialize, the president of that chapter — a man named Raymond Chaffin — was fatally shot at his residence in February of 1991.

Controversies and law-enforcement actions

Chaffin's death had a trickle-down effect. In a close-knit organization like the Warlocks, when a chapter president dies, many of the club members would be expected to show up to pay their respects; and this was evidently a fact that law enforcement was counting on. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (or "ATF") would use Chaffin's funeral as their opportunity where a team would arrest several members of the motorcycle club. This was evidently premeditated, as it was later revealed that an ATF agent led a sting operation in which several arrests were made. Chapter president John Ingrano, was sentenced to almost a decade in prison. 

Other than that one very prominent event, many members of the Warlock's motorcycle club found themselves on the wrong side of the law on more than one occasion. Another very recent incident that made headlines was in July of 2025, when a full-blown inter-gang conflict ensued between the Mongols and the Warlocks before a group ride was scheduled to take place in Daytona Beach. The Mongols surrounded the Warlocks, cutting off escape routes, and several shots were fired during the conflict. This same violence prompted a nearby hospital to go into lockdown, because injured members from both gangs were being taken and treated there. Like many other outlaw motorcycle gangs, or OMGs for short, as the Department of Justice calls them, the Warlocks do make headlines for the wrong reasons, sometimes.

Warlocks in modern times

While the picture painted of one-percenter biker clubs is mostly negative, most of them actually make giving back to the community a rather big deal. This is also true of the Warlocks MC, who have organized many events for charity in the past, particularly for children. For example, in the winter of 2022, a chapter of the Warlocks launched what they dubbed "Operation Toy Train", meant to benefit children at Christmas. It was a toy collection and donation drive that would send collected toys to the "Toys for Tots" program run by the U.S. Marine Corps. The Warlocks raised $7,500, with which they bought various gifts. These were collected, counted, and loaded onto the Toys For Tots train at stations in Sparta and Vernon. 

These events aren't exactly few and far between, as the most recent example of this comes from just two months ago at the time of writing, in September 2025. It was at that time that the (admittedly small and local) Sussex country chapter of the Warlocks donated $2,000 to the local animal shelter, and it isn't the first time they've done that either. A decade-plus old news report also stated that another chapter of the Warlocks has donated more than $40,000 over the years to children's benefit campaigns, especially around winter. There's no doubt that, while certain members do make news for the wrong reasons, this biker club does also do a lot of good.