A single bullet fired outside a Pretoria pub has done more than claim a life and leave another man wounded. It has pulled back the curtain on long-simmering hostilities between two of South Africa’s largest motorcycle clubs, and it has raised uncomfortable questions for the public about safety at ordinary venues, how police handle complaints, and whether international outlaw biker influence is taking root locally.
The shooting happened late on Saturday, 10 October, outside the Little Britain Pub in Pretoria. Baden Watson, a MAC’s Motorcycle Club member and a father of two sons, was killed. Another biker was wounded. Police said a single bullet had been fired. A Crusaders Motorcycle Club member, Brian Smith, was later arrested and has been criminally charged in a case that is still developing.
For ordinary patrons of pubs and restaurants, the incident lands on a familiar anxiety: violence spilling into public spaces. According to the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) in Gauteng, Smith faces murder and attempted murder charges. The NPA alleged that when Smith arrived at the pub, Watson and the man who was wounded approached him at the entrance and asked him to leave because he belonged to a different biking club. Smith then allegedly drew a firearm, opened fire on the two men and fled. In the early hours of the next morning, he handed himself over to police.
That account is contested in one key respect. The morning after the shooting, police spokesperson Captain Johan van Dyk said it appeared an argument had broken out between the suspect and the wounded man. But a post on the Little Britain Pub’s Facebook page this week, citing CCTV footage from three angles, claimed Smith had waited for Watson and the second biker to come out of the venue, and that there was no prior altercation, fight or argument beforehand. A founding MAC’s member, Mannetjies Geyser, likewise said it was confirmed that no altercation took place prior to what he called the unlawful shooting.
Smith made his first appearance in the Pretoria Magistrate’s Court on Tuesday, 13 October, and is expected back in the dock on 20 October, when he may apply for bail. News24 reported that previous brushes with the law against him emerged in court.
Meanwhile, the killing has ignited a parallel battle fought on social media, one that speaks directly to the public’s ability to know what is happening in its own communities. Numerous videos, from CCTV recordings to shaky cellphone footage, have been posted online, showing individuals in MAC’s insignia in intimidatory or violent confrontations with people in Crusaders gear. At least one video shows a man being hit. There is footage of a brawl inside an eatery, and images have circulated of men, apparently Crusaders, with bruised and bloody faces.
Sources who spoke to Daily Maverick anonymously, citing safety concerns, are divided. Some believe the videos do not tell the full story and are being spread to tarnish the MAC’s, which is also the club’s official position. Others see them as exposing violence and intimidation that certain bikers have got away with. Several complaints were lodged with police about related incidents, but what became of them is unclear, prompting claims that matters were swept under the carpet. Questions sent to the South African Police Service this week went unanswered.
Both clubs, in their public responses, framed themselves as guardians of the broader biking community, a community that, by all accounts, is far larger than its most violent corners. South Africa is home to numerous motorcycle clubs, and many have no involvement in the brawls that have rocked only parts of the fraternity. The MAC’s, founded in 1980 with six bikers according to its Facebook page, is now one of the largest brotherhoods in the country. The Crusaders, formed in 2006, counts close to 2,000 members across more than 80 charters.
Geyser’s Friday statement called the circulating videos defamatory propaganda, cautioned that AI capabilities needed to be considered, and referenced active police investigations and expelled MAC’s members who still wore club apparel. He alleged that several such expelled members had been accepted into the Crusaders despite biking protocol, and condemned what he described as a media campaign and disturbing posts by Crusaders members aimed at manipulating the public and inciting uproar. The Crusaders, for their part, did not address the videos when asked. National Vice-President Eddie Jacobsen focused on the shooting, offering sincere sympathy to everyone affected, noting that police had advised the club not to involve itself, and pledging full cooperation with SAPS should it be required.
The tensions are not new. In March last year there was reportedly an incident involving members in Pretoria North, and in December last year a clash at the Jolly Dolphin in the Eastern Cape saw the Crusaders apologise to the venue while alleging that MAC’s bikers had targeted a Patriots member to show dominance through intimidation and bullying. The MAC’s president, Hendrik Brenkman, responded that the situation had once again turned to violence, denied his members had provoked anyone, and warned that targeted assaults on his members were increasing in violence without regard for public safety.
Hovering over all of this is a wider public concern: what influence an international outlaw motorcycle group could have on the local biking fraternity. Daily Maverick has reported suspicions that massive methamphetamine factories uncovered in South Africa, with ties to Mexican cartels, may be linked to criminals in Australia, home to outlaw gangs including the Bandidos, and that a local Bandidos chapter may be setting up shop in Johannesburg. That chapter has not been linked to any crimes, so concerns remain just that. But the country has seen deadly outcomes before: Timothy Lotter, head of the South African chapter of the Satudarah club, was shot dead in Cape Town’s Goodwood suburb in January 2020, and his associate Stephan Venter was murdered by a gunman on a motorbike months later. Both were suspected of involvement in transnational drug trafficking.
For now, the courts will determine what happened outside the Little Britain Pub. What the public is left with is a set of unanswered questions about complaint handling, club accountability and the safety of the spaces where these conflicts play out.