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Vincent Drucci
Vincent Drucci (born Ludovico D'Ambrosio; January 1, 1898 – April 4, 1927), also known as "The Schemer", was an American mobster during Chicago's Prohibition era who was a member of the North Side Gang, Al Capone's best known rivals. A friend of Dean O'Banion, Drucci succeeded him by becoming co-leader. He is the only American organized crime boss to have been killed by a policeman.
Drucci was born Ludovico D'Ambrosio in Chicago, Illinois, on January 1, 1898, to Italian parents from northern Italy.[citation needed] After serving in the U.S. Navy, he returned to Chicago and started committing small-time crimes such as breaking open pay telephone coin boxes. He joined Dean O'Banion's North Side Gang, which had taken over the formerly legal breweries and distilleries in that part of the city giving them massive profits from illicit production of alcohol, in addition to shakedowns and other rackets. Often described as mainly Irish-American, after O'Banion's death the North Side Gang was successively headed by Hymie Weiss, Drucci and Bugs Moran who were respectively of Polish, Italian and French descent, while the most influential members who never became leader were Louis Alterie, of Spanish parentage, Samuel Morton who was from a Jewish background, and the German Albert Kachellek.
Though a leading member of the relatively small gang, Drucci acted as enforcer and was actively involved in numerous violent incidents; on one occasion when ambushed in the street by gunmen with a Capone trademark driveby, he charged at the assailants and tried to give chase in a hijacked car.
Laurence Bergreen, in his book, Capone: The Man and the Era, describes Drucci:
He had a streak of recklessness and daring, and he looked the part of a gangster – tough, dark, and menacing, his expression frozen in a tragic mask topped by wild unkempt hair (and) a face to haunt the dreams of his enemies.
He was known by the nickname "The Schemer", in part because of his penchant for inebriated rumination about outlandish plans; in reality he operated by intimidation in activities such as extortion of money from legitimate businesses. One female shop owner who refused to pay was beaten up by a husky woman under Drucci's orders. Drucci, whose practical jokes including making salacious comments to couples on the street while dressed as a priest, performed in a 1923 pornographic film called Bob's Hot Story.
Drucci was believed to have been responsible for a November 30, 1926 incident at a Chicago North Side garage. In what the Chicago Tribune described as a "serio-comedy", Drucci, along with North Side Gang members Bugs Moran, Frank Gusenberg, and Pete Gusenberg, are alleged to have entered the garage where two Chicago police officers were securing fifty cases of seized beer. Claiming to be a federal agent, Drucci ordered the others to handcuff the officers and confiscate their guns, showing no interest in the seized beer, and left with the officers still handcuffed. The incident humiliated the Chicago police department, which was already more sympathetic to the North Sider's rivals the Capone organization.
The North Siders found themselves undercut on the price of alcohol by rivals the Genna crime family, which was allied to the Italian American South side gang led by Johnny Torrio, who had pretensions of citywide overlordship. O'Banion at first tried to get Torrio to rein in the Gennas. When Torrio failed to do so, O'Banion started hijacking the Gennas' shipments. The Gennas wanted to kill O'Banion but Sicilian politician Mike Merlo, head of the Chicago chapter of Unione Siciliana and an underworld power broker due to his political influence, vetoed the killing. On November 10, 1924, days after Merlo had died of an illness, Torrio men John Scalise and Albert Anselmi arrived at O'Banion's Chicago flower shop ostensibly arranging floral tributes for Merlo's funeral, and murdered O'Banion. The North Side gang then moved against the Gennas and the South Side gang in retaliation. As a result of O'Banion's death the leadership fell to Hymie Weiss, who initiated a string of retaliatory attacks on the Gennas and Torrio.
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Vincent Drucci
Vincent Drucci (born Ludovico D'Ambrosio; January 1, 1898 – April 4, 1927), also known as "The Schemer", was an American mobster during Chicago's Prohibition era who was a member of the North Side Gang, Al Capone's best known rivals. A friend of Dean O'Banion, Drucci succeeded him by becoming co-leader. He is the only American organized crime boss to have been killed by a policeman.
Drucci was born Ludovico D'Ambrosio in Chicago, Illinois, on January 1, 1898, to Italian parents from northern Italy.[citation needed] After serving in the U.S. Navy, he returned to Chicago and started committing small-time crimes such as breaking open pay telephone coin boxes. He joined Dean O'Banion's North Side Gang, which had taken over the formerly legal breweries and distilleries in that part of the city giving them massive profits from illicit production of alcohol, in addition to shakedowns and other rackets. Often described as mainly Irish-American, after O'Banion's death the North Side Gang was successively headed by Hymie Weiss, Drucci and Bugs Moran who were respectively of Polish, Italian and French descent, while the most influential members who never became leader were Louis Alterie, of Spanish parentage, Samuel Morton who was from a Jewish background, and the German Albert Kachellek.
Though a leading member of the relatively small gang, Drucci acted as enforcer and was actively involved in numerous violent incidents; on one occasion when ambushed in the street by gunmen with a Capone trademark driveby, he charged at the assailants and tried to give chase in a hijacked car.
Laurence Bergreen, in his book, Capone: The Man and the Era, describes Drucci:
He had a streak of recklessness and daring, and he looked the part of a gangster – tough, dark, and menacing, his expression frozen in a tragic mask topped by wild unkempt hair (and) a face to haunt the dreams of his enemies.
He was known by the nickname "The Schemer", in part because of his penchant for inebriated rumination about outlandish plans; in reality he operated by intimidation in activities such as extortion of money from legitimate businesses. One female shop owner who refused to pay was beaten up by a husky woman under Drucci's orders. Drucci, whose practical jokes including making salacious comments to couples on the street while dressed as a priest, performed in a 1923 pornographic film called Bob's Hot Story.
Drucci was believed to have been responsible for a November 30, 1926 incident at a Chicago North Side garage. In what the Chicago Tribune described as a "serio-comedy", Drucci, along with North Side Gang members Bugs Moran, Frank Gusenberg, and Pete Gusenberg, are alleged to have entered the garage where two Chicago police officers were securing fifty cases of seized beer. Claiming to be a federal agent, Drucci ordered the others to handcuff the officers and confiscate their guns, showing no interest in the seized beer, and left with the officers still handcuffed. The incident humiliated the Chicago police department, which was already more sympathetic to the North Sider's rivals the Capone organization.
The North Siders found themselves undercut on the price of alcohol by rivals the Genna crime family, which was allied to the Italian American South side gang led by Johnny Torrio, who had pretensions of citywide overlordship. O'Banion at first tried to get Torrio to rein in the Gennas. When Torrio failed to do so, O'Banion started hijacking the Gennas' shipments. The Gennas wanted to kill O'Banion but Sicilian politician Mike Merlo, head of the Chicago chapter of Unione Siciliana and an underworld power broker due to his political influence, vetoed the killing. On November 10, 1924, days after Merlo had died of an illness, Torrio men John Scalise and Albert Anselmi arrived at O'Banion's Chicago flower shop ostensibly arranging floral tributes for Merlo's funeral, and murdered O'Banion. The North Side gang then moved against the Gennas and the South Side gang in retaliation. As a result of O'Banion's death the leadership fell to Hymie Weiss, who initiated a string of retaliatory attacks on the Gennas and Torrio.