On December 2, 1972, a violent confrontation shattered a quiet Saturday night at the ’49er Saloon in Acton when members of the Vagos outlaw motorcycle gang stormed inside and opened fire, leaving five injured, including one man kidnapped and slashed with a knife.

The incident reportedly began as a daytime dispute when, earlier that afternoon, Acton gas station owner Tommy Driscoll refused service to several Vagos members.

According to Jo Anne Darcy, who co-owned the ‘49er Saloon with her husband, Curtis, Driscoll stopped at the café around 3 p.m. and remained for some time. Darcy later learned he had been carrying an antique gun.

She asked him to lock it in his truck and not bring it inside. Driscoll complied, returned to socialize with patrons, and left, only to come back around 8:30 p.m., taking a seat at the bar and chatting with customers.

By 9 p.m., Darcy was closing the grill when she heard shouting behind her. Turning around, she witnessed the start of the attack as a patron was struck in the head with a glass pitcher and immediately set upon by Vagos members.

Within seconds, shots rang out.

Darcy recalled hearing Driscoll yell, “Hey, what do you think you are doing?” before a gunshot sounded from his direction, reportedly from his own weapon after gang members wrestled it away from him. From that moment, “all hell literally broke loose,” she wrote The Acton Rooster years later.

Multiple Vagos members opened fire, sending bullets whizzing past patrons and staff. Curtis Darcy attempted to call the sheriff, but a bullet passed so close to his ear that he felt the air move. Another patron who attempted to use the pay phone was stopped at gunpoint, and the bikers ripped the phone from the wall.

Detail of Antelope Valley Press reporting

As chaos spread, the bar staff moved through the gunfire, evacuating terrified customers out the back door and tending to the wounded with towels and blankets taken from the Darcys’ nearby home.

By the time the shooting ended, four men had been hit: Donald L. Reppen, 23, was shot three times, Douglas Fryer, 30, grazed in the head and struck with a pitcher, Charles Sherrick, 56, shot in the hand, and Thomas Driscoll, 56, shot in the chest and arm.

All survived.

As most of the Vagos fled, two gunmen, Thomas Seaton Gibson, 26, of Valinda, and John Allen Musgrove, 24, of Sylmar, held the remaining patrons at gunpoint, waiting for a way out. When regular and occasional bar band drummer Ron Wiley, 35, unknowingly drove into the parking lot, the bikers seized their opportunity.

Wiley was kidnapped at gunpoint, forced to strip, threatened with death if he cooperated with authorities, and brutally slashed across the chest and back. The cuts, up to 10 inches long, required 146 stitches, according to his later court testimony. Wiley was found by an Acton resident after wandering injured out in the cold November night.

Sheriff’s deputies, who took nearly 45 minutes to arrive, according to Jo Ann Darcy, arrested 11 Vagos members on suspicion of assault with intent to commit murder. In court, Wiley testified to the attack, revealing three long scars to Judge Jack B. Clark of the Newhall Municipal Court.

The Newhall Signal, December 1972. (SCV History)

The bikers were ultimately convicted.

Jo Anne Darcy later learned that upon their release, the attackers reportedly “had the gall to return to the scene of their crime,” though by then, the Darcys had already left Acton.

No one was killed in the attack, but the violence delivered a fatal blow to the ’49er Saloon’s business. The Darcys eventually moved on, Curtis and Jo Anne both later becoming influential public figures in the Santa Clarita Valley, with Jo Anne eventually serving as mayor.

Decades after the attack, Tommy Driscoll’s daughter, Debby Driscoll, publicly responded to Jo Anne Darcy’s written eyewitness account, adding details from her family’s experience.

According to Debby, Driscoll suffered multiple gunshot wounds that night, including a graze to the forehead, an entrance and exit wound to the abdomen, and two shots to the shoulder. She also stated that gang members slashed her father’s arm badly enough that he permanently lost full use of it.

She further noted that her father did not “hate bikers” in general, as he had biker friends, but that the Vagos, in particular, had a reputation in the region for violent behavior. According to her, Curtis Darcy had called Tommy that evening, asking him to return to the saloon to help manage the situation, knowing law enforcement response times to Acton could take up to an hour.

“It’s in our past,” she wrote. “It was tragic, but living in Acton could be at times. I still loved it and my father.”

To read yesterday’s Today in SCV History, click here.

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