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Facts About These Notorious Law Breakers and Their Criminal History

Khalid Elhassan May 20, 2020 34 min

Al Capone - Bugsy Siegel — 1930s mobsters. Eugene Cannevari Collection

6. Deadlier Than Al Capone?

A rare photo of Bumpy Johnson, left, on the street. Pintrest

Bumpy Johnson almost certainly murdered and ordered the murder of more people than, e.g.; John Gotti, Jesse James, Billy the Kid, and perhaps even Al Capone. He certainly ran his criminal empire for far longer than any of them ran theirs. The fact that he was black, and so were most of his victims, is a factor in explaining why he is not as famous as other iconic American criminals. His exploits did not resonate far beyond Harlem.

Another factor is that there was something cold and reptilian about Bumpy. Most famous criminals were hot and passionate. Bumpy Johnson, by contrast, quietly made his victims disappear, like Al Capone’s successor Frank Nitti – another crime boss who ran his criminal kingdom for decades, and garnered relatively little public attention.

Written by

Khalid Elhassan

A lifelong history buff, I developed a particular passion for WW2 history as a child, when I spent hours listening to my grandfather, enraptured, as he recounted his wartime experiences in the British East African Campaign and with the British 8th Army in North Africa.

I graduated with a history BA from George Mason University, then went on to get a JD from the University of Virginia School of Law. After lawyering for a decade, I moved to sunny Rio de Janeiro and a less demanding career, opening a tourism agency in Copacabana.

A big chunk of my free time is spent blogging (you can follow me on Quora https://www.quora.com/profile/Khalid-Elhassan ) or freelance writing, mostly about my favorite subject, history.