TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — A violent biker gang that is involved in illegal drug trafficking and considers women to be "below dogs" is growing in New Jersey at an alarming rate, state investigators said Wednesday at a public hearing.

Pagan's Motorcycle Club, or the Pagans, which now has about 300 members statewide and roughly 900 countrywide, has grown from 10 to at least 17 chapters in New Jersey since 2016 and is aiming at becoming dominant along the East Coast, according to testimony from the State Commission on Investigation.

The commission outlined detailed allegations against the gang — including showing surveillance video depicting an attack on a rival biker gang member at a gas station in full daylight — during a more than two-hour public hearing.

Investigators said the gang is involved in illegal drug trafficking, particularly of meth, as well as extortion of local businesses.

A member of the Pagan’s Motorcycle Club, who goes by the street name “Hellboy,” was sentenced Monday to four years in prison for the brutal beating of a Hells Angels associate at a Newark gas station in 2018.

Robert DeRonde, 55, of Rahway, had pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated assault for beating the victim, Jeffrey Shank, with a baseball bat at the Exxon station on Elizabeth Avenue on April 24, 2018. Shank suffered multiple broken collar bones as a result of the beating, prosecutors said.

According to the criminal complaint, Shank had just left the Hells Angels’ clubhouse on Clinton Avenue when he stopped for gas. As Shank waited to get his gas pumped, three men pulled up to the gas station and assaulted him.

A North Bergen man wearing Pagans Motorcycle Club clothing was arrested in Newark early Wednesday after he was spotted firing a gun, police said.

Larry M. Ortiz, 28, also tried to escape police by speeding away from officers on his motorcycle, but eventually crashed in Elizabeth, Newark police said in a statement.

Newark police responded to the 100 block of Sherman Avenue around 12:30 a.m. after officers were alerted by the city's gunshot detector system, Newark Public Safety Director Anthony Ambrose said.

Officers saw a man on a motorcycle drive away from the scene, and witnesses told the officers that a man on a motorcycle fired a gun on Miller and Vanderpool streets, which run parallel, police said.

No injuries were reported to police.

Officers then located a man on Frelinghuysen Avenue and Empire Street who fit a description given to them. Police said the man ignored the officers' demands to pull over.