February 14 to most people is a day to show love to a significant other however, in 1929 Valentine’s Day was the day seven men got murdered in cold blood. In chicago there was many gangs but only two had it out for eachother. The two gangs hatred for eachother had been rooted by power, money, and greed. That resulted in many deaths and the federal government controlling more criminal activity on the streets. The gangs reached the extreme violent limits in the garage on the north side of chicago. In the city there was two top gangs.
“Capones most notorious killing was the st. Valentine’s Day Massacre” (1999 Chicago Historical Society) The first one was Al Capone’s gang and the other one was George Moranas. The two absolutely hated each other, for years they have antagonized each other killed each other’s friends. At one point everything had to come to the end of one of the gang leaders and it happens to be on Valentine’s Day. Al Capone was born in 1899 in Brooklyn, New York. in 1920 during the apogee of prohibition. “Capone had a multi million business in bootlegging, prostitution, and gambling dominated the organized crime scene”. (2016 A&E Television Networks, LLC).
Capone meet a guy named Johnny Torrio in Brooklyn. Johnny ran a gambling operation by Capone’s home when he was a child. When Capone got older he started running errands for Johnny. In 1909 johnny moved to Chicago. In 1917 Torrino introduced Capone to gang member Frankie Yale, who gave him a job as a bartender and bouncer at the Haward Inn in Coney Island. At that bar is where he got his nickname Scarface. “One night, he made an indecent remark to a woman at a bar. Her brother punched Capone, then slashed him across the face,leaving three indelible scars that inspired his enduring nickname” (2016 A&E Television Networks, LLC).
In Chicago that’s where Capone earned his reputation as a plastered alcoholic and as a “loose cannon”. “After hitting a parked taxicab while driving drunk, he was arrested for the first time. Torrio quickly used his city government connections to get him off. “. (2016 A&E Television Networks, LLC). Back in the 20’s criminals were referred to as celebrities. Even to some officers, back then 80%-90% of police officers were on someone’s payroll. The 1920’s is home to some of the most well known criminals in American his George Moran a. k. a “Bugs’ was born in St. Paul, Minnesota on August 22,1891. When he was just the age of nineteen he moved to Chicago.
He got involved with a lot of gangs and “before he was the twenty one he had been in jail three times” (1990-2016 IMDb). Like most of the gangs in the 20’s they all got into prohibition and bootlegging. George Moran’s gang became known as the north side gang. ‘Moran had used many aliases to conceal his real name (Adelard Cunin)” (2009 Myalcaponemuseum. com). Many gang leaders back then had secrets and lied about where they went and always paid in cash so the cops could ever trace them.
Al Capone meet George because they were competing with each other with getting alcohol. They then worked out an agreement until one of Moran’s men O’Bannion, opened his mouth and started calling Capone “Scarface”. “Capone was extremely sensitive about the big knife scar on his face and was known to have killed men who used that nickname in his presence” (1990-2016 IMDb). He then sent his gunman out and slaughtered O’Bannion. Bugs then merged O’Banion’s gang and his together to eliminate Johnny Torrio and Al Capone’s gang from Chicago completely.
The newly formed gang tried to kill to Torrio and Capone every chance they had. “Once when Capone was getting out of his car on the street and another time when he and his associates were out dining in a restaurant” (1990-2016 IMDb). Capone did flee both attacks unharmed but, for Torrio was not so successful. One day Bugs men stumbled upon Torrio’s car and attacked him, leaving him with with five gunshot wounds and from that point on he decided it would be best if he retired and he left Capone in command of the gang.
Capone and Bugs made an agreement but they still antagonized each other. For example Moran would try and steal Al Capone’s bootlegging trucks and then Capone would burn down some of Bugs business that were actual business and that gave him some extra money. “However it wasn’t too long until before this escalated into full-scale violence, and Moran had several of Capone’s friends and associates killed” (1990-2016 IMDb). After all of that Capone definitely without a doubt wanted to kill Bugs. From this point on, Capone came up with a brilliant plan to execute Bugs.
His hit man Jack Mcgurn and another companion dressed up as cops and three men dressed up as civilians. They then proceeded to go to Bugs base of operation which was on Clark Street in Chicago. On February 14,1929 hoping that Bugs gang would be there and himself as well so he could assassinate them. “Capones men were loaded down with two Thompson submachine guns when they brust into rival mobster Bugs garage, lined seven men up agasnt a wall and the “cops” opened firer, shredding their victims with 90 bullets” (www. chiagomag. com may-2010).
They wanted to ensure each victim was killed and nobody survived. However there was one who was barely alive after they were discovered. Their main target Bugs was not there, in fact he was late and as he pulled up he saw the cop car and decided to wait the bust out in a nearby coffee shop. Meanwhile Al Capone’s men that had been dressed up as cops walked out with the three “victims” and acted like they arrested them and left the garage. “Frank Gusenberg, was crawling on the floor toward police Lieutenant Tom Loftus. Gusenberg died within an hour at the Alexandrian Hospital” (www. ytimes. com/learning/general/onthisday/big/ 0214. html). The cops questioned him asking him, how did this? What did the man look like? but, he was too weak to answer or to even talk leaving the cops questioning who had done this? The cops could never connect this to Capone because he had an alibi saying he was at his house in Miami when the massacre had happened. “Moran, when asked by reporters who he thought was behind it, replied,”nobody but Capone kills like that” (1990-2016 IMDb). Moran left Chicago after this happened but he didn’t completely get out of the gangster life.
However seven years after the St. Valentine’s day Massacre the hit man Jack McGurn was shot in a bowling alley by a squad gunman and a valentines card was left near his body. The supreme court in 1927 managed that income gained illegal activities was taxable. “On June 5,1931 the U. S. government finally indicted Capone on 22 counts of income tax evasion” (2016 A&E Television Networks, LLC). Capone got off a minimal sentence and did take a bargaining plea for two and a half a year sentence at Alcatraz prison which is also know as ‘The Rock”. He was released in November 1939.
For his remaining life period he spent his life in Miami but, on June 25, 1947 he died of a heart attack. Moran spent time in slammer as well for petty crimes like mail fraud, breaking Entering and, felony. “He was eventually sentenced to ten years in Leavenworth Federal Prison on a bank-fraud charge”(1990-2016 IMDb). Bugs did die there of lung cancer on February 25,1957 and was entombed in Pauper’s section at the prison funerary grounds. Five years after the assassination of bugs men, the men who were involved in slaughtering all died within the five years and around or on Valentines Day.
There was no outcome for this incident besides, a new law that was put in place and the government got more involved with gangs and manslaughter on the streets. “In 1934 President Franklin Roosevelt signed the National Firearms Act which imposed hefty $200 fine on such gangster weapons”(2016 Chicago magazine). The guns that were banned were called tommy guns and that was the most common gun used by mobsters at the time. The government payed more attention to criminals happening which made him more involved with the time erra. The public saw how bad mob violence had become and put a lot of pressure put onto police enforcement.
