Valentines Day is a Day of Love and Death
By: Cassie Whitt
On February 14, 1929 a man named Al Capone vacated his fifth floor suite at Lexington Hotel in Chicago , which he used as his official headquarters. He was the most infamous crime buff and this event was one of the most spectacular mob hits in gangland history, it known as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre. There was a building called the S-M-C Cartage Company that was located on Clark Street . The events that led to the massacre began on the morning of the 14th. A group of men had gathered at the warehouse for a meeting., set up by a gang member from Detroit who told Moran that a truck was on its way to Chicago . One of the men Johnny May was an ex-safecracker who had been hired by George "Bugs" Moran as an auto mechanic. He was working on a truck that morning, with his dog tied to the bumper, while six other men waited for the truck of stolen whiskey to arrive. The men who where waiting, went by the names of Frank and Pete Gusenberg, who were supposed to meet Moran and pick up two empty trucks to drive to Detroit. James Clark, who was Moran's brother-in-law, Adam Heyer, Al Weinshank, and Reinhardt Schwimmer, who were very optimistic individuals who befriended Moran and hung around the liquor warehouse just waiting for chance of rubbing shoulders with gang members. While the seven men waited inside of the warehouse, they had no idea that a police car had pulled up outside, or that Moran had spotted it and didn’t say a word. He quickly got under the car and took cover. Five men got out of the police car, three of them in uniforms and two in civilian clothing. They entered the building and a few moments later, the sound of machine gun fire broke the silence of the morning. May's dog, still tied inside of the warehouse, was barking and howling and when neighbors went to check and see what was going on... they discovered a bloody murder scene. Moran's men had been lined up against the rear wall of the garage and had been shot with machine-guns. The men disguised as cops killed all seven of them but missed Bugs Moran. When the men fired the machine guns for a second round, Moran left quickly. The murders broke the power of the North Side gang and Moran correctly blammed Al Capone. No one will probably ever know who the actual shooters were, but one of them was probably Machine Gun McGurn, one of Capone's most trusted men. This incident just proves that a day that is usually filled with love and gifts can turn into something more deadly.
