Bradley Shane Beatty (May 14, 1971-May 11, 2008) 15yr. member of the Brotherhood M/C

Bruce David Jatko II

"B.J." / "HOOK"

By Jennipher Dickens
WINTON, NORTH CAROLINA - He was a biker, a wrestler and a daredevil.
He was also a father, a brother, a son and a friend.
Bruce David Jatko II, also known as "B.J." or "Hook" to his close friends and family, died October 20 after sustaining massive injuries in a tragic incident following a motorcycle wreck the preceding night.
B.J. was 31 years old and left behind three children, his parents, two brothers, and a beloved girlfriend and her two children.
Born in Fayetteville, Arkansas, on a snowy January afternoon in 1977, his life started off eventfully and ended that way as well.
His mom, Linda, recalled, "He was two weeks overdue and born during a blizzard.  We arrived at the hospital with a police escort the night before because his father was drunk due to a case of the nerves and panicked and called the police department."
The family relocated to Virginia six months later and then moved to Gates County, North Carolina in 1991 and on to Murfreesboro in Hertford County in 1997.
For the last eight years, B.J. was immersed in the biker world.  His family says that he loved to ride and went everywhere on his white and silver 2005 Harley Davidson Dyna Super Glide Custom 1450.
A long-standing member of a local Motorcycle Club in Ahoskie, he served as secretary for the tightly-knit group of about a dozen. His club President and founder describes him as a caring soul who would do anything for anybody.
"He would ride anywhere for anybody... he was a great guy".
At B.J.'s funeral, 94 bikers representing seven different clubs from across the region showed up to pay their respects.
His mom, Linda, said they conducted the service as B.J. would have wanted it.
"He loved to ride through Murfreesboro and make a lot of noise, so that's what we did as part of his service.  The procession of bikes was over half a mile long," she noted.
B.J.'s brother, Danny, added, "When we drove by you could see people in their yards with video cameras just filming."
His father, Bruce, recalled that the procession of bikes actually rattled the windows in stores and buildings lining the street.
"All the bikes would rev their engines to make it louder.  B.J. would have loved that," he stated.
The procession was led by B.J.'s brother Bryan, also a biker, who rode B.J.'s Harley alongside of his club President.
His mother Linda said B.J. died and was buried exactly as he would have wanted to be.
"B.J. always said that if he had to go, he wanted to go on his Harley, and he wanted it buried with him... we buried a piece of it with him, and now we plan to restore it and put up a building beside his grave to store it."
Bryan added that he planned to take the Harley out every so often to keep it running properly.  
B.J. himself was always fanatical about keeping his bike in mint condition.
"He would never go for a run unless it was spotless.  He didn't give a crap about his truck; there was trash all over the place in there, but that bike was always perfectly clean," his mom said.
B.J. loved children and they loved him right back.  He had a set of 9 year old twins, a boy and a girl, and an 8-year-old girl.  His girlfriend Jen, also a biker, has a girl and a boy the same ages.
The couple lived together in Winton on the Chowan River in the Tunis subdivision.
Friend and former co-worker Marty Stephens first got B.J. involved in the motorcycle world, even though Brian had been a biker for years already.
"One day it was just like he fell in love with bikes and everything to do with them," Bryan remembered.
B.J. would travel far and wide to attend charity events, memorials and funerals for fellow bikers.
He was heavily tattooed, but Linda says each tat had a special meaning for her son.
"All the way from his neck to his wrists on both arms, and even inside his ears and on his stomach were covered in tattoos... but they all meant something special," she said.
Linda remembers B.J. as a child was always a daredevil, getting into everything.
From the time he was a baby, it was clear to his family that B.J. was his own uniquely adventurous person.
He was walking at eight months old and started climbing and getting into all sorts of mischief shortly after that.  At a year old, he took great pleasure in riding his toy dog on wheels down the stairs in the family home.
"It scared me to death at first but he would get to the bottom and laugh and say he wanted to do it again," Linda remembered with a smile.
At two years old, he would meet his father at the door every night with a miniature beer glass and a can of beer.
"Bruce would open his beer and pour a tiny little sip into B.J.'s very own beer glass... it was a nightly ritual.  He wouldn't even go to sleep until his dad got home from work," Linda recalled.
In the sixth grade, he became a wrestler and was much admired by his coach because his left-handedness made it difficult for his opponents to figure out his moves.
After the family relocated to Murfreesboro, North Carolina shortly after that, he and his brothers took up karate.
It was after practice one night that B.J. was messing around on a palma horse and broke his leg.  He was put in a cast and just days after the cast was taken off, rebroke it in a gym in the exact same place.
In high school, he fell on his head while hanging upside down from a rope swing in a tree after the branch broke and dropped him head-first onto the ground.
Still, nothing prevented B.J. from experiencing life to its fullest and enjoying each and every day.
Halfway through his senior year in high school, he dropped out to take a job at the shipyards.  His father had just been laid off and he would bring home his paycheck and hand it straight to his mother.
"He was so sweet... we never even asked but he would come right home from work and just hand over his whole check," his mom said.
B.J. met his girlfriend Jen at Jimmie's, and the two instantly clicked.
"She had a biking background and they hit it off right from the beginning.  They were very much alike, and they were so happy together," Linda said.
His father and mother were both quick to note that despite the bad reputation bikers get, the reality is that the biker world is a close-knit and caring one.
"I have found out since B.J. got into all this that bikers get a very bad rep but they are a close-knit family and they do a lot of good things for other people," Linda noted.
Bruce added, "Bikers are stereotyped very badly to be the assholes of the world because of what people see in the movies and they shouldn't be; it's not like that at all."
B.J. earned his nickname as "Hook" during his long career as a roofer. He slipped while working on a roof one afternoon and caught himself before falling.
"The other guys were teasing him about needing to be hooked to the roof so they started calling him Hook and it stuck," his brother Danny noted.
A local club even serves a drink called The Hook that B.J. invented.
"He liked Wild Turkey 101, and invented his own drink... red bull and wild turkey.  They serve it at Jimmie's in Murfreesboro now.  It tastes kind of like Jolly Rancher watermelon candy," Danny said.
A wake was held October 23 at his clubhouse near Ahoskie.  Nearly 200 people showed up to view B.J. decked out in his favorite attire - black leather vest, club shirt, jeans, slip-on shoes with skulls all over them, a Rebel flag bandana wrapped around his head and sunglasses perched on top.
"That's just the way he would have wanted it," said his mom.
The next day, more than 200 people also attended the funeral, held at his parent's home outside of Murfreesboro where the family buried him in the backyard.
The family now has plans to fully restore the Harley to its prime condition as it was before the accident, and keep it as a memorial to B.J.
He will be greatly missed by all who knew him.

Garry Kent Crumpler

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