The FBI Says Evel Knievel Was An Ass-Kicker Who Played By His Own Rules… Which Makes Him Cooler Than Even Our Dad

Kanye West is pretty lucky that he was only sued by Evel Knievel for using his likeness in the video for “Touch The Sky.” According to files just released by the FBI, Knievel was known to crack skulls all over the country, from San Francisco to New York. The daredevil, who died last year in Florida, was bad ass enough to warrant a 290-page file from the Feds. Of those, 202 of them were heavily redacted so organizations like the AP couldn’t come after those blocked out for quotes to just have them say no, fearing a Ghost Rider-esque death from a beyond-the-grave Knievel. Here are snippets of some of the juicer crimes Knievel was under investigation for…

• One man told agents he received a threatening phone call, and shortly after was beaten by a Knievel associate who left him hospitalized. The man was interviewed by the FBI, but could remember his assailant’s black loafers better than his facial features. “They gave me mug shots at one point in time and I couldn’t pick him out,” he said. “It was a dark room, he had dark glasses on him. All I know is he was big. I could describe his shoes better than anything.”
• Knievel’s file shows investigators believed he was involved with other violent acts — a threat in Phoenix, an attack in a Kansas City hotel room and a vicious beating in San Francisco. All were allegedly carried out by Knievel associates, according to subjects quoted in the file.
• His most well-known run-in with the law was a 1977 attack on movie studio executive Shelly Saltman, whom the daredevil beat with a baseball bat in the parking lot of 20th Century Fox. Saltman promoted Knievel’s infamous attempt to jump Idaho’s Snake River Canyon and then wrote a book about the experience, angering Knievel by portraying him as “an alcoholic, a pill addict, an anti-Semite and an immoral person.”

Damn, again with the racism. We don’t know why, but we can idolize a doped-up and drunk daredevil (it makes the jumps more exciting). But once you bring in the fact they a particular disdain for a group of people, the bad-assness gets thrown out the door. It’s what separates the Babe Ruths from the Ty Cobbs in history.
AP Exclusive: FBI file details Knievel’s dark side [AP]
Image [AP]