The Story of Al Capone TV - Al Capone: Scarface TV - Days that Shook the World TV - Valentine’s Day Massacre TV - Al Capone: The Untouchable Legend TV - Great Crimes & Trials TV - The Untouchables: True Story TV - Eliot Ness - Paul W Heimel - Al Capone - Laurence Bergreen - Mobsters TV - America: The Story of the US TV - Senate Investigator - Richard Lindberg - John Dineen - Sam Giancana the documentary TV - JFK: The Scandals Revealed TV - Sam Giancana - Mafia’s Greatest Hits TV - Mad Sam DeStefano - Tony Spilotro - Natural Born Outlaws TV - I Am Al Capone TV - Road to Perdition 2002 - The Public Enemy 1931 - Little Caesar 1931 - The Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre 1967 - Capone 1975 - A Better Way to Die 2000 - Jim Colosimo - Reputations TV - Momo: The Sam Giancana Story TV -
By the time the ’20s ended he was undisputed king of the heap. What put him there was the St Valentine’s Day Massacre. Chicago was divided into spheres of criminal influence. The north side was controlled by Bugs Moran, Capone’s sworn enemy. The Story of Al Capone
Inside the warehouse there was a scene of carnage. The six members of the north side gang lay sprawled among the blood. ibid.
Capone was frequently involved in vicious fighting, and in 1919 decided to get out of New York and join Johnny Torrio in Chicago. ibid.
Chicago in the early twentieth century was already one of the most corrupt cities in the United States. One classic example of this was the 1919 World Series Baseball, when a New York gangsta Arnold Rothstein bribed the Chicago White Sox to lose. Police and politicians all took bribes. ibid.
The Justice Department formed the group known as The Untouchables. This was a squad of agents trusted to be completely incorruptible. ibid.
In 1934 he [Capone] was transferred to the dreaded escape-proof Alcatraz in San Francisco Bay. This spelled the end of the line for the king of the crooks. ibid.
Tests showed that he had syphilis, no doubt passed on to him by one of his past employees. As the years passed, Capone’s syphilis grew worse. He gradually became paralysed and was released in 1939 for treatment. His wife May was unaffected by the disease, which suggests that there had not been marital relations between them for a long time before his incarceration. She looked after him at their Florida home for seven more years when he died of a stroke and pneumonia at least twenty-five years before his time at the age of 47. Capone’s final body count is reckoned to be at least 400 men murdered at his command, and 40 by his own hand. Even today his name is a legend for ruthlessness and corruption. ibid.
Al Capone rose to power with a deadly combination of raw brutality and brains. He wanted the public to love him. But those who dared to cross him knew better. Killing was just part of his business plan. A plan to become the boss of organised crime in Chicago. Al Capone: Scarface, 1995
Johnny Torrio became Capone’s mentor. Torrio moved to Chicago to run things for Big Jim Colosimo. Big Jim controlled a string of gambling dens and whore-houses. Colosimo’s nightclub was where the action was. ibid.
It took five years to bring all the evidence together. On June 5th 1931 the man known as Alphonse Capone was indicted on twenty-two counts of income-tax evasion. ibid.
The story of how frontier lawlessness and prohibition unleashed gang massacre upon America. Days that Shook the World s3e2: St Valentine’s Day Massacre, BBC 2005
St Valentine’s Day 1929: Capone is the mastermind behind a plan to see off his enemies. ibid.
More than a hundred bullets fired. ibid.
14th February 1929: A day of cold-blooded murder: the worst hit in Chicago mob history – four gunmen, possibly working for Al Capone, killed seven followers of Bugs Moran. Valentine’s Day Massacre, National Geographic
Where was boss Bugs Moran? Why didn’t the Morans see it coming? Were the killers real police? Was it a crime of passion? ibid.
Moran v Capone meant the Irish v the Italians. ibid.
According to Bolton, the massacre plan was hatched at a meeting in Wisconsin headed by Capone himself. ibid.
Between 1920 and 1929 the economy was very good in Chicago. Al Capone - The Untouchable Legend, 1998
[Johnny] Torrio is working for the undisputed king of Chicago’s underworld, Big Jim Colosimo. ibid.
Capone is infamous for his brutality. ibid.
Together, Torrio and Capone enter the illegal alcohol trade. ibid.
Bugs Moran – Capone decides to get rid of him. ibid.
Chicago in the roaring twenties ... Gangsters soon meant to mean Al Capone. Great Crimes & Trials: The Story of Al Capone
What put him [Al Capone] there was the Valentine’s Day Massacre. ibid.
This determined Capone to eradicate Moran’s north-side gang once and for all. ibid.
After many courses and bottles of wine the three Sicilians were relaxed; suddenly, at a signal from their boss, the Capone Gang jumped on the trio, tied them up, and Al himself walked behind them with a baseball bat. Cursing them as traitors he beat them with a baseball bat. ibid.
Chicago was wild, large and corrupt. ibid.
Johnny Torrio first used Al as his bodyguard ... Johnny Torrio decided to retire in 1925. ibid.
Capone’s rackets were now pulling in at least $60 million a year, but he spent enormously. ibid.
Capone ironically took refuge in the safest place of all: he chose to go to jail. In 1929 he arranged to be arrested on the faintly ludicrous charge of carrying a gun, and spent ten months inside. ibid.
Capone was charged with twenty-three counts of tax evasion. ibid.
He died of a stroke and pneumonia at least twenty-five years before his time, at the age of forty-seven. ibid.
Al Capone – the gangland overlord who ruled Chicago in the 1920s. The Untouchables – led by Eliot Ness, a fearless crime fighter. A story carved into American folklore. The Untouchables: True Story
For Capone and his outfit the profits were unimaginable for the times. ibid.
To the American public it was Eliot Ness who had saved the day. ibid.
In reality none of the evidence gathered by Ness’s Untouchables was used to convict Capone at trial. ibid.
At the start of 1930 the US Government was involved in a secret plan to bring the notorious gangster Al Capone to justice. ibid.
[Frank] Wilson was following a money trail that led right back to Capone. ibid.
This was not a difficult job. Because the stench of fermenting mash could be noticed sometimes as far as half a mile away. Eliot Ness, diary
Ness was honest. He was intelligent. And his track record showed that he was not going to cave in to all the incentives most prohibition agents had at the time not to do their jobs. Paul W Heimel, author Eliot Ness: The Real Story
One could argue that Ness’s efforts against the Capone outfit were a smoke-screen for the more long-term activities that were going on behind the scenes. Paul W Heimel
You can’t trust nobody. Al Capone
You can get a long farther with a kind word and a gun than you can with a kind word alone. Al Capone, attributions & variations, apocryphal, possibly comedian Irwin Corey
Prohibition has made nothing but trouble. ibid. Al Capone
I am going to St Petersburg, Florida, tomorrow. Let the worthy citizens of Chicago get their liquor the best they can. I’m sick of the job – it’s a thankless one and full of grief. I’ve been spending the best years of my life as a public benefactor. Al Capone
My rackets are run on strictly American lines and they’re going to stay that way. Al Capone
I am just a businessman giving the people what they want. Al Capone
All I do is satisfy a public demand. Al Capone