The location was the city of Chicago...
and the year was 1929.
It was at the height of the Prohibition...
when it had become illegal to import, produce or buy alcoholic beverages in the United States.
The date was the morning of February 14th...
Valentine's Day
...a day for romantic gestures.
Though, the four men walking down North Clark Street hardly seemed to have gotten to the spirit of the occasion...
they were grim faced with a determined look.
Two of them were uniformed police officers with revolvers drawn...
the other two were in suits and ties armed with Thompson Sub-Machine Guns.
Maybe these two were plainclothes detectives out fighting organized crime...
that was so rampant in Chicago at the time.
The fact that they all had weapons drawn showed they meant business...
as they burst into the car garage at Number 2122.
The well-known hangout of the Moran's North Side Gang...
the dominant Irish-American criminal organization.
Then, just a few minutes later...
there was a sound of rapid gunfire
...and then all went quiet.
About a minute later the policeman emerged with two prisoners with their hands up at gunpoint
So a successful raid capturing two gangsters after a short gunfight. Well, it was not all that
It seems for inside blades seven men each with multiple gunshot wounds six were dead and one would die a few hours later in hospital
It had been a very one-sided
Gun battle as all seven had not even had a chance to draw their weapons having been caught totally by surprise
They had all been ordered to line up against the wall
Guns taken away in arrest and were then sprayed with machine-gun fire in cold blood even as they lay on the floor
Two of the men were finished off with shotgun blasts
It is thought that the two men armed with the submachine guns fired a total of 17 rounds
Five of the dead were members of Moran's gang and the other two were associates one an optician and one a mechanic
His dog was the only survivor
from observation
you wouldn't notice that the two men being led out of the garage by the uniformed police officers were the same two men who had
Entered earlier carrying submachine guns. So what was going on?
It has been universally accepted that it was a hit by Al Capone's
Organization vying for power in a protracted turf war between the two gangs the police investigation also
Concluded that the two uniformed officers were Impostors
The sole survivor of the massacre Frank gusenberg a more en gang enforcer Lay Dying and hospital from 14 bullet wounds
When questioned about who did it he replied no one shot me keeping the code of silence
Not surprisingly
He passed away three hours later from his injuries the actual target that day had been George bugs Moran himself
Scarface Al Capone had been behind the death of Hymie Weiss the previous North Side gang leader in 1926
He was machine gunned down in a street by Al Capone's men
So it seems that history was about to repeat itself
Moran had been due for the meeting at the garage - supposedly finalize the purchase of a stolen shipment of Canadian whiskey
But he had second thoughts when he neared the garage as he saw a police car slowly circling the block
So he decided to go with one of his henchmen to a nearby coffee shop instead in order to figure out what to do next
And luckily escaped the fate of the men inside the garage
Capone's lookouts had mistaken one of Moran's men for Moran himself because he was wearing the same type of coat he wore
And was similar in height and build this set things in motion
Moran would later comment on the massacre saying only Capone kills like that
Al Capone was apparently at his home in Florida at the time of the violent crime
He would say to reporters mockingly. The only man who kills like that his bugs Moran
No one was convicted for the murders and the massacre was not officially linked to Capone
But the photos of the victims shocked the nation and increased his notoriety
Over the course of the next few years many criminals and gangsters had been linked with the murders
Even the machine guns used in the massacre were recovered but no one was charged
For Moran his gang activities never recovered from the st
Valentine's Day Massacre and the loss of some of his top men he faded into obscurity
Within a few short years as other gangs muscled in on their gambling operations
Which was their main source of income after the repeal of prohibition
Moran died from lung cancer in 1957 at the age of 63 a penniless man
many years later in
1935 the FBI arrested a small-time criminal called Byron Bolton in a shootout under interrogation
He tried to turn and form it and claimed he knew what happened at the st
Valentine's Day Massacre, but his story was full of inconsistencies
Compared to the known facts the FBI therefore took no further action and the massacre is still classed as an unsolved crime.
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