St Valentines Day Massacre Rough Draft

There is very little known about the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre as it is one of the biggest unsolved crime mysteries in history. One of the biggest questions about this topic is, was Al Capone the reason that the St. Valentine’s day massacre happened? Some say yes and some say no, and in reality, we can only speculate because one of the biggest rules at the time is the code of silence. The code of silence means all gang-related activity has to stay silent.

Let’s start from the beginning. Al Capone got started when he “inherited the position of a mob boss from his previous boss, Johnny Torrio, when he was wounded in an assassination attempt in 1924 and retired”(7). By this time he was already very well known by other gangs and police in the Chicago area. Due to the 18th amendment that made alcohol illegal at the time, when becoming the mob boss, he had his eyes set on taking over bootlegging, gambling, and prostitution in all of Chicago. This started huge gang warfare all over Chicago.

“One of Capone’s longtime enemies, the Irish gangster George “Bugs” Moran, ran his bootlegging operations out of a garage at 2122 North Clark Street” (4). So on February 14, 1929, a couple of Capone’s men disguised as police officers went into the garage on 2122 North Clark Street. Seven of Moran’s men that were in the garage thought they were getting arrested so they went to the wall and put their hands up. That is when Capone’s men took out their machine guns and shot 70 rounds into the seven men and fled the scene in a getaway car that was painted to look like a patrol car. When the Chicago police came to the scene, there was one man alive. “ The only one alive was asked by police to tell them who had shot him. ‘Nobody shot me,’ he whispered before succumbing to the fourteen bullet wounds he received — faithful to the end to the gang’s code of silence”(2).

Moran almost had the same fate but he arrived at the garage only minutes after the shooting happened. “No one was ever charged with the killings, but the St. Valentine’s Day massacre was so bold and loud that Moran himself broke the code of gangland silence when he barked to the newspapers, ‘Only Capone kills like that” (6). This was interesting because when reporters asked for a comment, Capone states, “The only man who kills like that is Bugs Moran” (4). A month later, two of Capone’s henchmen were arrested but were killed before they could be tried in court. They were found on the floor of a car near Gray’s Lake in Douglas Park blunged and shot several times. Were they killed by Capone to hide something about the massacre? We won’t ever know.

“Though the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre marked the end of any significant gang opposition to Capone’s rule in Chicago, it can also be said to have marked the beginning of his downfall” (4). In 1931 he was arrested due to evasion of federal income tax and was sent to Alcatraz in 1934. He was released from Alcatraz in 1939 and passed away in his estate in 1947.

With this information, we can strongly say that Al Capone was the reason why St. Valentine’s Day Massacre happened. Why Capone did this, it might have been revenge or it might have been to try to kill George “Bugs” Moran and take over Chicago. “This was the classic case of a crime that to this day is unsolved. “‘That’s the №1 rule: If you don’t talk, there’s no way that anything can be proven,’ especially in those days before surveillance cameras. Dead men, as they say, tell no tales” (1).

Bibliography:

1. Cox, Ted. “Memory Of St. Valentine’s Day Massacre Can’t Be Erased By Lost Address.” Block Club Chicago, Block Club Chicago, 11 Feb. 2020, https://blockclubchicago.org/2020/02/11/memory-of-st-valentines-day-massacre-cant-be-erased-by-lost-address/.
2. Enlarge Gun, My Al Capone Museum, https://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/museum/exhibits/1920s_exhibit/enlarged%20gun.htm
3. Hansen, Edward. Chicago Gang Wars in Pictures: X Marks the Spot. Spot Pub. Co., 1930. https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=uc1.31822043021732&view=1up&seq=1
4. History.com Editors. “St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.” History.com, A&E Television Networks, 9 Nov. 2009, www.history.com/topics/crime/saint-valentines-day-massacre.
5. Jen, Indiana. “St. Valentines Day Massacre.” CNM Libraries EResources Authentication, 2013, https://advance-lexis-com.libproxy.cnm.edu:8443/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:57RT-CT11-F03R-N4S0-00000-00&context=1516831.
6. “Remember The Massacre This Valentine’s Day”. NPR Weekend Edition Saturday (NPR), February 14, 2009, Saturday. https://advance-lexis-com.libproxy.cnm.edu:8443/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:7V15-JM40-Y8Y1-H005-00000-00&context=1516831. Accessed November 22, 2020.
7. “This Week in History | Valentine’s Day 1929”. The Ranger News: University of Wisconsin — Parkside, February 16, 2018, Friday. https://advance-lexis-com.libproxy.cnm.edu:8443/api/document?collection=news&id=urn:contentItem:5TWR-T641-JBSN-30Y7-00000-00&context=1516831. Accessed November 22, 2020.