In the year 1929, there was a mass murder event in Chicago, Illinois in the United States of America. The main event occurred on February 14, 1926, and was known as the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. Unarmed gangs from Chicago carried out the crime. At the time of the incident, there was fierce competition over who would be in charge of regulating illegal liquid traffic, and the United States had strict rules against such conduct among traffic employees. The massacre was conducted by al Capone gangsters who identified themselves as policemen and got a chance to get in a garage at 2122 North Clerk Street which was operated and managed by one among the people of George “Bugs” Moran crew (Heather 40).
The gangsters arranged their opponents along the wall and shot them dead in a cold war, which was very hurting and brought a lot of worry to the residents who had remained unhurt due to one reason or another. Among the victims were the gang members Adam Heyer, Frank Gusenberg, Pete Gusenberg, John May, Al Weinshank and James Clark. A visitor by the name Dr. Reinhardt H. Schwimmer was also shot in the incidence which was very inhumane. The incidence was brought to light by the mass media since initially the locals did not know of the killings and could only continue with their daily duties as usual. The whole world was also in a position to acquire the information, and they were very touched such that they even came to the USA to mourn together as well as symbolizing the Prohibition Era in Chicago.
The prohibition error was characterized by a movement of women who fought seeking for the destruction of liquor as well as the closing of saloons through actions, street demonstrations, and primary petitions. The movement was later strengthened by the formation of several civic groups purposely to organize and run the prohibition efforts till the end. Anti-Saloon League is a good example of a civic group whose offices could be found everywhere throughout the United States of America. Churches also supported such groups, and they together worked closely towards accomplishing the same goal of destroying of liquor and closing of saloons in the United States of America.
Among the well-known participants in the prohibition was Percy Andreae who seemed to be very influential to the extent of organizing for a campaign for the saloons against the liquor illegalization. Religious forces which ought to attach themselves to a policy that they cannot satisfactorily fulfill resulted to the prohibitionists seeking for the movement which they later strengthened and they could be seen improving from day to day. The prohibition movement had begun in the 1840s but was officially implemented in 1920, and it lasted for 14 years up to 1934. The reasons as to why the movement formed sought for the closure of saloons is because they were being used as violence dens where corruption deals were made, drug and substance abuse was lively witnessed, gambling and prostitution among other immoral behaviors.
The campaigns towards the prohibitions started for a low level of a county, rose to the state level and later spread regionally and worldly though it became a challenge to control the consumption of alcohol. By the year 1905, at least three countries had passed the law prohibiting alcohol consumption. They later increased to nine by 1912 and 26 out of the 48 states had passed the law by 1916. The presidential elections carried out in 1928 was expected to bring a lot of change in the fact that the Democrats had to promise to repeal the prohibitions if only they could have the chance of ruling the nation. This did not come to happen since they lost the position to Herbert Hoover who supported the prohibition publicly and this led to the massacre of 1929, where the gangsters did it making efforts to end the ‘noble experiment.’
The shootings done by the gangsters drew the attention of many people and resulted in the public outcry in Chicago where innocent souls were killed for no genuine reason. Capone’s public works represented by the soup kitchens in the poorest suburbs were very willing to help prevent the massacre, but unfortunately, it was beyond their control. The central government of the United States did not hesitate to give a trial of resolving and putting a stop to the harmful gangsters and bring their leaders together for a dialogue to embrace and administer justice of the highest order to stop the problem once and for all. It was very challenging to make this aspiration a reality as it is evident that this is something which the city and the state authorities could not manage to do.
The St Valentine’s Massacre described as the most cold-blooded massacre ever to be witnessed in the United States of America since the beginning and in the history of the city’s underworld. This was according to the New York Times after they saw 160 empty machine gun shells lying on the ground across the floor where a river of blood of innocent souls had been made immediately after the smoke, and the dust from bricks had settled. Such kind of experience had never been witnessed in the United States of America. Gunshots could be heard from a far distance and are compared to the gigantic typewriter by one of the New York Times reporters.
The Chicago police did not seem to surrender since they wanted to end the superiority of the gangsters to nothing. William F. Russell who was the then police commissioner assured the reports that they were ready to fight a war to the end without fear but only for the sake of declining the oppression of innocent citizens. He also admitted that the war against the gangsters was very serious to the extent that he never imagined it would happen. He said that they had nothing else to do than to accept the challenge and soldier on and make it the knell of gangdom in Chicago.
Solving the crime was very difficult since a lot of lives had been lost and they was no way they could be returned to life. The investigation has since been in action for 88 years now, and a clear evidence of who committed has not yet been found. Witnesses have always been too afraid to testify the truth since it is feared that most of the attackers are their family members. The massacre papers have already been retrieved, and the public eagerly awaits the next step which might probably be the final judgment. The information obtained in this case needs to be kept with a lot of confidentiality for future reference (Cardullo 91).
Since 1929, the St Valentine’s rivalry has become a symbol of violent rivalry in Chicago from the fact that well-equipped and united gangsters organized the action. Being in unison challenged the police very much as it is well known that being in unison is the strength. The Chicago gangsters had been making a lot of money from the sale of alcohol and other abusive substances, and this is where their fight with the police began. The state was against the manufacture of the illegal substances, but the gangs did not want to stop their only income generating activity (Binder et al. 2010).
The members of the gang initially gathered at a base where the ship was expected to bring the alcohol and other illegal substances for business purposes. The Moran men were ordered to line up along a wall by two men who had dressed as the American police, but it was later confirmed beyond no doubt that they were gangsters. Other two men accompanied the two ‘policemen.’ The North sidemen did not hesitate to do what they were commanded by their master to do, and they assumed that they would be freed upon arrival of the master. The gangs mercilessly shot the defenseless seven Chicago soldiers for no good reason. This incident marked the ever bloodiest case in the history of the United States of America, caused by gangsters. Eyewitnesses testified that the killers walked out of the building courageously and departed in a vehicle which looked similar to a detective car (John 41).
The so-called St. Valentine’s Day massacre in 1929 marked the bloody climax in Chicago where the bootlegging operation was carried out from the garage on the North Side of Chicago. During the killings of the seven members of the Moran’s operation, 70 rounds of ammunition were fired, and this made the Chicago police to arrive at the place with immediate effect. The police officers, fortunately, managed to get one of the gang members by the name Frank Gusenberg, barely alive though he could not talk. They were very unlucky to interrogate him on the fatalities and the whole happenings in the scene since he died just a few minutes after their arrival (Michael 1333).
Only a few witnesses could be found in the vicinity, and they were all terrified and unable to give reliable information to the police officers. After a long struggle, the police could now interrogate some of the witnesses, and it was evident that the killings were made by a group of four men, two of them dressing like police officers and the other two seemed to be a bit casual. The men dressed like the police entered the garage and pretended to arrest the men who used to work there. The workers could also not resist the arrest since they thought and assumed that it was an order from above and that they had to obey their master.
The first suspect in the murder was the Capone’s gang who after some questions denied the allegations and claimed that he was at his home in Florida during the time of the incidence. This man was a career criminal who ran to hide together with his North Side gang in Chicago during the bootlegging era of the 1920s. The gangster survived two major murders directed to him in the 1920s for he had made a lot of professional killings. On the attempt, there was seen six cars driven by unknown people who on reaching Cicero hotel in Illinois, where Capone and his colleagues were having lunch, showered the building with more than 1000 bullets hoping one would get to Capone and finish him.
Anyone to shoot and kill Capone was to be rewarded a $50,000. When he knew of the plan, he ordered all the Moran soldiers to be destroyed, and therefore he waited for the delivery of bootleg whiskey which was expected at Moran’s headquarters. He purposely wanted to kill the Moran, but unfortunately, the move was no well calculated. Moran arrived late and found the police entering his house. He waited outside thinking that those who had entered his establishment were being arrested by the police only to realize that they were not the real police and had killed all his soldiers in the building. Moran felt very irritated by the incidence since his two best killers had been murdered. They were Frank and Pete Gusenberg. Pete was still alive when the actual police and he could not say anything until the time he died of serious bullet injuries (AHMED & Yaakoub 43).
The Moran’s gang was feared for the tactics they applied to conquer their enemies, and in this incidence, no one could imagine how they were brutally murdered. Bugs Moran was not present, and he was the only leading member of the gang absent during the massacre. The fatal assault significantly weakened the Moran’s gang to the extent of losing their power in Chicago. Though it has never been brought to light which made the killings, there has been a wide assumption that the massacre was contributed to by the Al Capone’s South Side gang. Up to date, no one has been prosecuted for the case, and the murderers have not yet been brought to light. The case has never been officially resolved (Jesse 143).
Works cited
Cardullo, R. J. "Farce, Dreams, and Desire: Billy Wilder’s Some Like it Hot Re-Viewed." Teaching Sound Film. SensePublishers, 2016. 89-98.
Fleury, John. Bloody Valentine: The Bloody History of the Saint Valentine's Day Massacre. Absolute Crime, 2013: 41.
KADI, Ahmed AHMED, and Yaakoub LALAOUI. American Gangs of the Roaring Twenties, Al Capone, and Chicago Mobs. Diss. 2016: 42-45.
Lurigio, Arthur J., and John J. Binder. "The Chicago outfit: Challenging the myths about organized crime." Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice 29.2 (2013): 198-218.
Schwartz, Heather E. Gangsters, Bootleggers, and Bandits. Lerner Publications, 2017: 13-43.
Snyder, Jesse DH. "What Prohibition Teaches About Guns and Abortion: How Alcohol Can Save Individual Rights." Hastings Women's LJ 28 (2017): 143.
Willrich, Michael. "Homicide in Chicago 1870–1930." (2013): 1333-1334.
