informed Torrio he was quitting the rackets and was heading West as soon as he could sell off an illegal brewery for a half-million dollars. Torrio jumped at this opportunity to be rid of the unpredictable O'Banion and eagerly put up the money. Almost instantly after the deal was closed and Torrio took possession, federal agents swooped down and seized the brewery and charged Torrio with violation of the Prohibition law. Torrio discovered O'Banion had learned in advance of the upcoming raid and dumped off the property on Torrio. Even when Hymie Weiss, O'Banion's loyal lieutenant, urged him to make amends to Torrio, the gang chief rejoiced contemptuously, "Oh, to hell with them Sicilians."
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Now all-out war was inevitable although Mike Merlo, a power in politics and the head of Unione Sicilana, the now bootlegger-corrupted fraternal organization, kept the peace for a time. Then in November Merlo died of natural causes and Torrio was free to act. O'Banion knew an attack was coming but figured his enemies would wait until Merlo was in the ground. He was wrong.
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Deanie ran a florist shop on North State Street, directly opposite the church where he had once been a choir boy. The place was partly a dodge to provide him with a legitimate front, but it also satisfied his love for flowers. And O'Banion got a perverse joy out of making a small fortune from selling his blooms for the many gangland funerals. He did a land-office business for the Merlo affair, some of his creations selling for thousands of dollars. On the evening of November 9, he got a special order by telephone for a custom wreath to be picked up the following morning. At the appointed time three men appeared. "Hello, boys," O'Banion greeted them. "You from Mike Merlo's?"
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The man in the middle nodded and grabbed O'Banion in a firm handshake. It was an old trick but O'Banion, given the solemnity of the occasion, fell for it. He could not escape the handshake and reach the guns he had on him at the time. The other two men pulled out guns and started firing. O'Banion took a bullet in each cheek, two through the throat at the larynx, and two in the right breast.
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They gave O'Banion one of the most flower-bedecked funerals Chicago had ever seen. Naturally the murder was never officially solved, although the killers were later identified as Albert Anselmi and John Scalise. The handshaker was Frankie Yale, a big-shot gangster imported from New York especially for the job by Torrio and Capone.
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The death of Deanie did not end the war, as the remaining O'Banions sought savage revenge for their chief's death. Weiss and Drucci who in turn succeeded to leadership met lead-filled ends, and Johnny Torrio as well was nearly assassinated. Recovering from his near-fatal wounds, Torrio decided he'd had enough of Chicago and retired back to Brooklyn, taking $30 million with him in consolation. In the meantime Capone took charge and continued the war to win control of Chicago, masterminding the infamous St. Valentine's Day Massacre which wiped out all the top North Siders except for Bugs Moran.
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The importance of the fight with the O'Banions was that it kept Capone off-balance for years. He too thought of organizing crime nationally, but, unable to do what had to be done in Chicago, he was forced to leave that promising field open for the New York mobs under Lucky Luciano and Meyer Lansky.
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O'Brien, John Patrick (18731951): New York mayor
Following the resignation of the corrupt if charming Jimmy Walker, John P. O'Brien was elected to serve out the remaining year of the mayoral term. It was a stunning victory for organized crime.
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O'Brien, known for his mediocre talents as a surrogate court judge and his unswerving loyalty to Tammany Hall, was clearly under the thumb of two Tammany leaders, James J. Hines (then controlled by mobster Dutch Schultz, a member of the new Luciano-Lansky national crime syndicate) and Albert C. Marinelli (then directly dominated by Lucky Luciano). When reporters inquired if the mayor was going to name a new police commissioner, he said, "I haven't had any word on that yet."
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In 1933, O'Brien was succeeded by Fiorello La Guardia, and underworld payoffs to the police commissioner's officeduring the reign of the supposedly reputable Grover Whalen it came to $20,000 a week delivered in a plain brown bagceased. Under La Guardia's first police commissioner, Major General John J. O'Ryan, who served briefly, and the incorruptible Lewis J. Valentine, who held the post for almost 11 years, the police department was to have its longest run of honesty in the city's history.
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O'Connor's Gunners: Chicago police machine-gunning unit
In 1927, William O'Connor, the new chief of detectives in Chicago, went out on a limb. Gang wars were terrorizing the city, but the press and his constituents were unconvinced that O'Connor could stop the shooting. What the situation called for, Chief O'Connor decidedand convinced corrupt Mayor Big Bill Thompson was necessarywas an elite unit, an armored car force that could match the gangsters bullet for bullet.
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