Saint Valentine's Day Massacre
Alphonse Capone (1899–1947) was born in Brooklyn, New York, the son of recent Italian immigrants Teresina and Gabriele Capone. Born to poor parents that came to America seeking a better life, Alphonse Capone was 4th son of eight children and he lived a typical immigrant lifestyle in a New York tenement. Al was a part time criminal for much of his teenage years in Brooklyn. This would change when, at the age of 20, he would follow his criminal mentor and friend Johnny Torrio to Chicago.
In Chicago, Al would help Torrio build an empire of prostitution, smuggling alcohol, and gambling. Torrio was far less violent then Al and thus the Mob would often keep a low profile and violence quiet. This changed drastically after Capone inherited the Empire after Torrio left back to Italy after a failed assassination attempt on his life. As the new head of the mob, Capone flashed his success quite publicly by spending money lavishly and purchasing a large suite in the Metropole Hotel in downtown Chicago. He was always in the press and he used it to gain public sympathy with his gregarious and generous personality. As anti-Prohibition resentment grew, he became some kind of Robin Hood figure becoming known as a dissident who worked on the side of the common people.
This image would slowly change as his attempts to stamp out his rivals and enemies became more violent and brutal. The final breaking point for the public was when Al’s top killer, a man named “Machine Gun Jack” along with a few other of his cronies dressed up as police to invade a rival organization’s place of operation on Valentine’s Day. This was done in an attempt to assassinate a rival Gang Boss, “Bugs” Moran. Moran was able to escape but Capon’s men gunned down seven unarmed men with machine guns in cold blood after lining them up against a wall. This firing squad death incident rocked the Nation and City of Chicago. The Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre, as it became known as, turned Al Capone into “Public Enemy Number One” in the U.S. The media turned on him and the negative attention it brought to him would eventually lead to his down fall and arrest.
