Gang War Breaks Out Again As Mob Slays Trapped Men
Wholesale Execution Brings Death To Seven Unarmed Men In Chicago Where Moran Gang Met; Police Commissioner Says "War, Without Mercy"
By H. W. Magee
CHICAGO, Feb. 14. ─ (AP) ─ Chicago gangsters, posing as policemen, invaded the Northside stronghold of the George "Bugs" Moran gang, lines up seven helpless, unarmed victims with their faces to a white brick wall and mowed them down with automatic pistols and machine guns.
The wholesale execution was carried out at 10:30 o'clock this morning, with all the precision of an army firing squad. It was an innovation in Chicago gang history which brought the total gang victims to more than 135 in the past few years. Five men drove up to Moran's headquarters in a garage at 2122 North Clark street after putting through a telephone call inquiring whether certain members of the gang were there.
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They rushed into the garage with drawn pistols and machine guns, informing the seven men they were police officers. Some of them flashed stars and others wore parts of police uniforms. Without ado they herded the victims to a courtyard in the rear.
Men Are Trapped
Overhead gleamed a powerful electric light to make the work of the firing squad easier. Whether the victims realized they had been trapped by a clever ruse will never be known. There was a word from the leader, and the clatter of machine guns and pistols and the massacre was completed.
A few minutes after, the firing squad, still carrying the pistols and machine guns, sauntered out, climbed into an automobile, stowed the weapons in the rear and drove away. Apparently few persons heard the firing.
A woman told a policeman that some one had been hurt in the garage and he entered to verify this prosaic report.
Six victims he found lying where they fell, feet to the wall, their faces turned to the incandescent light overhead. A seventh victim mortally wounded, was found in another room. He lived for two hours but stoically maintained the gangland code of silence.
The garage conducted as a blind for the Northside liquor running syndicate, resembled a shambles. Blood spattered the walls, scores of bullet holes pockmarked the bricks. The victims killed by their merciless executioners without having a chance at escape, sprawled grotesquely on the floor, the hats of some of them still at the same cocky angle affected by gangsters and hoodlums.
Police quickly determined the main facts in the wholesale killing. Some of the victims were identified immediately. Two were Peter Gusenberg, notorious gunman and gangster, and his brother Frank, both involved in the Dearborn street mail robbery a few years ago. Al Weinshank, underworld roustabout and James Clark, Moran's brother-in-law, were two others. A fifth was John May, garage employe. The other two men were identified variously as Arthur Hayes, Arthur Davis, or Frank Foster, all known as Moran followers.
May be Kidnapped
What happened to Moran no one knew. One report was that the gunmen kidnaped two men after shooting the others. A boy said he saw them march two men to their car, both with hands in the air. Another man said he saw a man with blood streaming from his face enter the car with the gunmen. Whether this was Moran, one of his henchmen or one of the executioners wounded by a ricocheting bullet, no one was certain.
Johanna Eubank is a digital producer for the Arizona Daily Star and tucson.com. She has been with the Star in various capacities since 1991. Contact her at jeubank@tucson.com
Johanna Eubank
Online producer
