Happy 90th anniversary....

[The1930sRust]

...mechanized gang violence? I did some research many, many years ago, and this was the first mention of a Thompson being used in street gang violence I could come up with. Could be wrong, but seems I found mention of this date in some book or article. Pretty neat to read...

 

http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1926/02/10/page/1

 

http://archives.chicagotribune.com/1926/02/10/page/40

 

 

 

I have a nice framed copy of the rag hanging over my desk...

 

R.

[azboater]

Great Piece Of History!

Thanks For Sharing!

 

The book you refer to is this:

Lethal Passage: The Story of a Gun By Eric Larson

 

Excerpt from Page 131:

The first recorded use of a tommy gun in crime occurred in Chicago on September 25, 1925, when Frank McErlane, a Chicago bootlegger, set out to assassinate a competitor named Spike O'Donnell. Police were stymied by the volume and the orderly arrangement of bullet holes left in a storefront by the attack. McErlane used the gun again just over a week later when he blasted the headquarters of another bootlegger. Here too no one was killed. A few months later, on February 9, 1926, McErlane used the gun again; this time the weapon made front-page headlines. The banner headline in the next morning's Chicago Tribune read, "Machine Gun Gang Shoots 2."

That day, Al Capone went to a Chicago hardware store and ordered three.

Edited February 10, 2016 by azboater