Final Days
On February 14, 1929, members of the North Side gang gathered at a garage behind the offices of S.M.C. Cartage Company. Inside were Pete and Frank Gusenberg, Albert Weinshank, Adam Heyer, James Clark, John May, and Reinhardt Schwimmer (the latter two men not actually gang members). Five men, possibly members of Capone's Gang, possibly outside "hired guns", most likely a combination of the two, drove to the garage in a stolen police car. Two of the men, dressed as police, entered the garage, pretending they were conducting an ordinary raid, and lined Moran's associates up against the wall. Once the men's backs were all turned, facing the wall, two other men (with civilian clothes) entered the room with machine guns and, along with the "police", opened fire on the seven men, pounding 70 bullets into them in what would become known as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
When police arrived at the scene, Frank Gusenberg, despite having twenty-two wounds by fourteen bullets, was the only victim still alive. He was taken to the Alexian Brothers hospital in Chicago, Illinois. When asked "Who shot you?" Frank replied, "Nobody shot me," ruining the opportunity to bring the murderers to justice.
Although the killers wiped out a large part of Bugs Moran's mob, they missed Moran himself. Some say that upon seeing the squad car, he drove past the garage he was planning on entering. Others say he was merely late arriving.
Read more about this topic: Frank Gusenberg
Famous quotes containing the words final and/or days:
“It is in the nature of allegory, as opposed to symbolism, to beg the question of absolute reality. The allegorist avails himself of a formal correspondence between “ideas” and “things,” both of which he assumes as given; he need not inquire whether either sphere is “real” or whether, in the final analysis, reality consists in their interaction.”
—Charles, Jr. Feidelson, U.S. educator, critic. Symbolism and American Literature, ch. 1, University of Chicago Press (1953)
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—Allen Tate (1899–1979)