The Rise and Fall of Al CaponeEssay Preview: The Rise and Fall of Al CaponeReport this essayAlphonse Capone was born on January 17, 1899, in Brooklyn, New York to Gabriele and Teresina Capone. He grew up in a rough neighborhood and was a member of two gangs; the Brooklyn Rippers and the Forty Thieves Juniors. Alphonse did well at school until the 6th grade when he was expelled for retaliating against a teacher who hit him. He was fourteen at the time. He became part of the Five Points gang in Manhattan and worked in gangster Frankie Yales bar, the Harvard Inn, as a bouncer and bartender. While working at the Inn one night, local gangster Frank Gallucio was drinking with his sister at the Harvard Inn. Capone approached the girl to compliment her, and Gallucio took offense to him started a fight. Gallucio pulled a knife and cut Capones face three times. That is how “Scarface” came to be.
In 1918, Capone met an Irish girl named Mae Coughlin at a dance. On December 4, 1918, Mae gave birth to their son, Albert Francis. Al and Mae married that same year on December 30th. Capones first arrest was on a disorderly conduct charge after Capone hospitalized a rival gang member. Frankie Yale sent him to Chicago until things cooled off. Capone arrived in Chicago in 1919 and moved his wife and son, and several members of his immediate family into a house at 7244 South Prairie Avenue.
Once in Chicago, Capone went to work for Yales old mentor, John Torrio, who also became godfather to his son. Torrio saw Capones potential, his combination of physical strength and intelligence, and took him under his wing. In January 1920, the 18th Amendment of the Prohibition Act came into force, which made the brewing, distilling and distribution of alcohol completely illegal. The era of Prohibition was underway, and Chicagos criminal underworld, including Johnny Torrio who was prepared to make bootlegging alcohol a very profitable business. Around the end of 1920 Capones father tragically died, but Capone was doing well in Chicago venture and did not go astray. At just 22 years of age Capone became Torrios partner in his Chicago businesses, and was Torrios number-two man helping to mange the bootlegging, saloons, gambling houses, and even the brothels. Capone now had greater responsibilities and was given the opportunity to expand the operation to the Chicago suburb of Cicero.
Once Torrio took his mother back to Italy to live, Capone became the acting boss. The men liked, trusted, and obeyed Capone, calling him “The Big Fellow.” In Cicero, Capone gained significant political victory, but at the price of his brothers life. The 1924 primary election was key to Capones dominance in Cicero, and on Election Day, Capones men threatened voters and kidnapped the opponents of the candidates that they were backing. City police armed seventy-nine officers with shotguns and put them on the streets in civilian clothes to protect the voters. As police were driving down the street, one of them identified Frank Capone, one of Als older brothers. Frank drew his revolver and was then fired upon by police and killed. Al had still won the election Cicero but was grieving for the loss of his brother. His temper stayed under control for a few weeks but when Joe Howard, a small-time thug assaulted a good friend of Als, Capone quickly tracked him down and shot him dead. This brought a lot of publicity down on Capone, but he still managed to get away with murder because several witnesses had “faulty memories.” Until that point, Capones temper had been pretty much under control. Now with this incident, and the media attention it brought, he was now infamous in the city if Chicago.
Capone quickly proved that he had a gift for organizing and expanding the citys vice industry between 1925 and 1930. Capone controlled speakeasies, bookie joints, gambling houses, brothels, and had an income of $100,000,000 a year. He even acquired a sizable interest in the largest cleaning and dyeing plant chain in Chicago.
There was a florist and North Side gang leader by the name of Dion OBanion. Hewas causing Capone and Torrio problems with the law, and his troublemaking culminated in a set-up that eventually led to Torrios imprisonment. But OBanion was to pay the price for setting up Torrio when he was assassinated in his flower shop in November 1924. Right afterward the North Side gang appointed Bugs Moran as their new leader, and he swore revenge for OBanions death, then in January 1925, he shot Torrio four times in an attempted assassination. After recovering in the hospital, Torrio was jailed for nine months for a Brewery Raid and while serving time he decided to retire and hand everything over to Capone.
Even though he had been doing business with Capone, corrupt Chicago mayorWilliam “Big Bill” Hale Thompson, Jr. decided that Capone was bad for his political image. Thompson hired a police chief to try and run Capone out of Chicago. Once Capone looked for a new place to live, he quickly found that he was unpopular in much of the country. But he finally ended up buying an estate at 93 Palm Island, Florida in 1928.
There were many attempts on Capones life, but they were never successful. Capone had an extensive spy network at his fingertips, and they were all over Chicago. He had contacts that ranged from newspaper boys to policemen, so that any plots were quickly discovered and squashed. Capone however, was very skillful at isolating and killing his enemies when they became a threat or too powerful. A typical Capone murder consisted of a few of his men renting an apartment across the street from the targets residence and gunning him down when he stepped a foot out of the door. All of Capones operations were quick and complete and Capone always had an alibi.
Capones most notorious killing was the St. Valentines Day Massacre. On February 14, 1929, four of Capones men entered a garage at 2122 N. Clark Street. The building was the main liquor headquarters of bootlegger George “Bugs” Morans North Side gang. Two of Capones men were dressed as police, because of that the seven men in the garage thought it was a police raid. They proceeded to drop their guns and put their hands against the wall as if they were being arrested. Capones men, using two shotguns and two machine guns fired more than 150 bullets into the victims while they were unarmed. Six of the seven killed were members of Morans gang; the seventh man was an unlucky friend. Moran, who was most likely the intended target, was across the street when Capones men arrived. He stayed
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While all four other men was in the garage, a police car came along. No one had bothered to call for help. Instead, Moran, a private at the time who did not own a gun, grabbed the gun and shot three of the seven. When the police arrived he and six other Capones men turned to use the window in the garage as a lookout. While Moran’s handgun remained in the garage, four men, one of whom was a police officer, attacked Capones’ car at several points during the chase, killing them all. Moran then pulled the gun out from under the car and then pulled it out again. The three other men came in and shot his first three victims.
An Officer with the New Jersey State Police and the Jersey State Fire Marshal’s Department (NYPD) conducted an interview with Moran on October 18, 1929, to assess his training and experience at the fire department. A report on this event was prepared:
The four police officers described the shooting on a typical morning. One of them told the interviewer they “heard a gunshot,” and at some point during the interview, their eyes were locked. They did not know who shot the five suspects; the others were told they feared a “frightening explosion”. The following morning, they met two other members of the Morans gang in a parking lot outside the garage, who asked what “it was like” to shoot them with their guns. One of them said that since the police officers were being interviewed during the shooting, they did not want to interview anyone named Moran. This indicated that Mr. Moran did not know anyone named Moran, and that he was not doing any self-defense. The four officers stated that their reason for being interviewed on this account was to interview all suspects. They also asked about Moran’s past on the bar and the barkeeper’s relationship to the men. Moran told them the barkeeper and his friends were there to talk about the shootings; in fact, it seems that the barkeeper tried to convince Moran to go out and drink the beer from the bar that day. When Mr. Moran asked if the barkeeper saw a gun in his possession, the two men and two bystanders had the idea but could not. The two policemen later stated that what Moran had told them was untrue; they were still not sure if they truly believed that. The three witnesses stated that about three minutes before the beginning of the shooting, the police officer asked Moran to come inside and they went inside. Moran complied. Mr. Moran said there was a loud noise in the street and he thought that he heard a gunshot. The three men and two bystanders approached him on the sidewalk, and Moran said he heard a “frightening explosion.” Moran then noticed three “foulish” men in the alley before the gunfire ceased. The three witnesses later said Moran’s gun was pointed at three of the men before the shots started. Moran was not shot by the police officers. He did not want them to talk to anybody he could see. Moran