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| Renaud Jomphe |
| Renaud Jomphe was born in 1959 and grew up in Verdun. He hooked up with the Cazzetta brothers and was a founder of the Rock Machine motorcycle club. By the early 1990s, Jomphe ran a thriving drug trafficking network and had earned the label "the King of Verdun". The biker was highly respected by all other members. He was described as a natural leader and a mentor. Unlike most criminals, Jomphe was a negotiator and considered violence as a last resort. That's why when the gang's leader, Salvatore Cazetta, was jailed for drug trafficking, Jomphe was considered the ideal choice to take over as leader. When 11 year old Daniel Desrochers became a victim of the Rock Machine/Hells Angels turf war, Jomphe told the Journal de Montreal's Michel Auger that "we don't attack, and we certainly don't kill, children". He also labelled the Hells Angels as a "bunch of goons on a power trip". |
| The day after the interview, a motorcycle shop co-owned by Jomphe was shot up by rivals. The store's manager was injured and a customer was killed. Neither victim was connected to a gang. Renaud Jomphe became a victim of the biker war on October 18, 1996. The Rock Machine leader was seated with member Christian Deschenes and associate Raymond Laureau in a booth at the rear of Restaurant Kim Hoa on Wellington Street when a man approached the table, fired several shots, and fled out the back door. Jomphe and Deschenes were killed while Laureau was wounded in the shoulder. Rock Machine turned informant Peter Paradis, who was also at the restaurant at the time of Jomphe's murder, proclaimed in court that Jomphe's cousin, Michel Germain, was responsible for the ambush. According to Paradis, Germain sold them out to their Hells Angels enemies. Renaud Jomphe's funeral ceremony was held on October 24, 1996. The night before, police arrested a member of the Rowdy Crew biker gang, a Hells Angels puppet club, loitering near the funeral home so thefamily cancelled the church services. Instead, Jomphe's body, followed by 5 limousines and 11 Cadillacs carrying yellow-and-black floral arrangements, was taken to a east-end crematorium. |