The St. Valentine's Day Massacre

14 February 1929 in Chicago. Inside The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, History’s Bloodiest Mob Hit. Thought I would include this today, and get a headstart.

There had been an ongoing gang war between the Irish/German Northside gang run by George "Bugs" Moran, and the Southside gang run by Al "Scarface" Capone. The final straw seems to have been Moran putting a $50,000 price on Capone's head.

On Feb. 14, 1929, Frank Gusenberg was rushed to a Chicago hospital with 14 gunshot wounds. But when the police asked who shot him, he had a surprising answer: “No one shot me.”

Gusenberg, a well-known local gangster, was either determined to adhere to the criminals’ code of silence or terrified of whoever he knew to be behind the attack. Three hours later, he was dead.

But of course he was shot, and it would become clear who was behind the shooting.

Around 10:30 a.m. on Feb. 14, 1929, four men approached Moran’s warehouse at 2122 North Clark Street. Two were dressed as police officers. The other two looked like well-dressed civilians, in suits and ties, while the driver wore an expensive chinchilla and a gray fedora. They were there on business — but not the kind of business that usually unfolded in broad daylight.

Seven members of George "Bugs" Malone's North Side Gang were shot by those 4. They were lined up against the wall, and shot execution style.

So many of Moran's top men died in the Massacre that he lost the ability to control his gang's territory. And Capone would be jailed in 1931, but not for the massacre. It is officially an unsolved crime. It was also the last confrontation between the two Chicago mobsters.

The garage at 2122 N. Clark Street in Chicago was torn down in the 1960s. Today the spot is a parking lot. (Or it was several years back.) Some of the bricks from the building were saved before the demolition. The photo above, from WikiMedia Commons, is of one such brick, which is at the National Museum of Crime and Punishment in Washington, D.C. Click the image for a larger view, and more information.

Of course Capone's imprisonment didn't mark the end of The Outfit. I know it was active in the 1980s and 1990s - there were FBI operations designed to combat it. Operation Gambat, Operation Greylord and Operation Family Secrets come to mind. (Do you need me to Google that for you?)

A side note: There was discussion earlier in the month, either on social media, or in the comments to one blog post somewhere, about how Prohibition wasn't a particularly bad idea. It was. Prohibition gave the mobs, like Capone's Outfit from the South Side of Chicago, and Malone's North Side Gang, a real, steady income, providing whisky to the speakeasies. Not to mention that it expanded federal law enforcement, and made the casual ignoring of the law something that a lot of people did, at least from time to time.