Al Capone's Gang Related Crime

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During the 1920’s gang related crime was a serious issue. The leader of all this violence and corruption was a man named Al “Scarface” Capone (“Al Capone”). This organized crime, dehumanization, and corruption, became the ultimate image of Chicago for people throughout the world. He was largely immersed in things like gambling, prostitution, and the illegal sale of liquor. He was not convicted for any of his crimes, even the St. Valentine's Day massacre of 1929, until he was imprisoned for tax evasion (Horan). Al Capone was a very powerful leader and an all around mastermind. Capone was raised around gangs in the city when he moved there from Naples and joined one in his teens called Johnny Torrio’s James Street Boys ran by Johnny Torrio. Later, he moved on to the Five Points Gang, which he graduated from. He got into a gang fight and someone cut his face with a razor hence the nickname “Scarface” (Grossman). When Torrio entered a brothel business he sent for Capone to be a bouncer at the saloon. When Torrio went to Chicago to help …show more content…

Valentine's Day Massacre was one of Capone's biggest, most notorious, bloodletting of all. His biggest rival was Bugs Moran. He had intervened with so many of Capone's deliveries that Capone decided to take him out. He hired killers and they devised a plan to carry this out and get away with it. On February 14, 1929, Moran had a huge shipment of Canadian whiskey coming in and a few of his members of the gang were awaiting the shipment to come in. Capone knew of his and had lookouts across the street. One of them thought they saw Moran himself and told the other members who were nearby. They arrived in a police car and police uniforms and pretended to be raiding the warehouse. They “lined the seven men inside up against a brick wall, and then raked them with machine-gun fire and shotgun blasts” but to bystanders, with the men in uniform, it seemed like it was normal police action during an arrest (Morrow). He was never