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Pistol Pete’s Payback and Other Historic Vengeances

Khalid Elhassan October 15, 2020 31 min

World War II - Quisling — Quisling with SS chief Heinrich Himmler. Cotton Boll Conspiracy

24. Payback Finds Capone’s Tormentor

As payback for the killing of Dean O’Banion, Hymie Weiss went after the Chicago Outfit’s then-boss, Johnny Torrio. Torrio, who miraculously escaped death when a hitman shot him but failed to finish him because his firearm jammed, was badly shaken. He resigned, handed the reins to his protégé, Al Capone, and left for Italy.

Capone, who reportedly feared Weiss, tried to make peace, but his offers were rejected. After repeated failed efforts by the rival bosses to kill each other, Weiss led a team of gunmen in 1926, that fired over 1000 bullets into Capone’s headquarters. Capone survived, and was determined to end it with a final payback. A few weeks later, on October 11^th, 1926, Weiss was about to enter his headquarters, when a squad of hitmen opened fire from the windows of a nearby second-floor building. Weiss was fatally injured and died in an ambulance en route to the hospital.

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.