- Posts tagged capone
- Explore capone on posterous
Al Capone - Top 10 Real-Life Mob Bosses - TIME
You can't have a list of mobsters without mentioning the man who sticks in the minds of most people: Al Capone. It seemed for years as if law enforcement couldn't touch him. As head of the Chicago-based Italian-American empire known as the Outfit, Capone was guilty of any number of sins, from gambling and prostitution to bootlegging and narcotics trafficking to robbery, bribery and murder. Though his record is long, Capone gained the most notoriety for the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre in which seven high-ranking members of a rival gang were shot dead. Though Capone himself had arranged to conveniently be vacationing at the time, there was little doubt the job didn't have the boss's approval. But what finally brought the mobster down was one of his most minor offenses: tax evasion. The lesser crime — and lighter sentence it carried — meant one of the most notorious crooks of all time served just seven years, six months and 15 days behind bars.
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2043575_2043788_20... #ixzz1BhxD2BWh
Fresh Air Interview: Jonathan Eig - 'What You Didn't Know About Gangster Al Capone' : NPR
On how Chicago's population felt about the mob
"I think at times Chicago's population felt terrorized, but it wasn't the machine guns that did it. ... There were hardly any incidents in which innocent civilians were killed in these gang wars. It was really the gangsters being killed. And because the police weren't doing anything to stop these guys, the fact that some of them died didn't stir a lot of sympathy among most Chicagoans. The real issue for most Chicagoans was the damage it did to the city's reputation. We already had an image of corrupt politics, we had a mayor who was widely perceived as being one of the most venal in the country's history, and then you've got these gangsters walking down the street with machine guns shooting it out on Michigan Avenue in broad daylight. This is, as you can imagine, not good for business. So the city's business leaders are really the first to raise a ruckus and say, 'Something must be done about this.' "
