16. The Chicago Outfit’s Feud With the North Side Gang Resulted in America’s Most Notorious Organized Crime Massacre
After Hymie Weiss was killed, his successor George “Bugs” Moran carried on the North Side Gang’s feud with Al Capone’s Chicago Outfit. The gangsters’ beef reached a crescendo on February 14, 1929, when seven members of the North Side Gang were stood up against a wall, then cut down by automatic weapons gunfire in what came to be known as the Valentine’s Day Massacre. It began when Capone hatched a plan to lure Moran to a warehouse, with the promise of delivery of cut-rate stolen whiskey, then kill him along with his chief lieutenants.
Just before he reached the warehouse, however, Moran spotted a police car approach the warehouse, and turned around. Four men in police uniforms exited the vehicle, entered the warehouse, and ordered its occupants to line up against a wall for a pat-down. The cops were fake, and as soon as the men turned around to face the wall, the “policemen” opened fire with shotguns and Thompson submachine guns. Six died on the scene, and a seventh, who took fourteen bullets, refused to ID the shooters. He told investigators “nobody shot me”, before he expired.
