Catching a Killer
PROBL
SOLUT EM/
ION
Nonfiction
AL CAPONE
Could anyone stop America’s
most vicious gangster?
S
THE LAW
on the city of Chicago. The many illegal activities in which
he was known to be involved included bootlegging (the
A top-notch team finally put
Capone behind bars.
illegal sale and distribution of alcohol), gambling, bribery,
racketeering (getting money through the use of force or
E
threats), and drug trafficking—not to mention murder.
carface. Snorky. The Big Fellow. Maybe these
Capone was the head of a powerful organization of
nicknames sound a little silly to you, but don’t
criminals during the era known as Prohibition (1920-
laugh. Each of them once belonged to Al
1933). During Prohibition, it was illegal to produce, sell,
Capone, and you don’t want to make Al Capone
or transport alcoholic beverages in the United States.
liot Ness was going to bring down Al
Capone, or he was going to die trying.
It was as simple as that.
For years, Capone had been robbing,
angry. Bad things happen to people who make Al Capone
People still wanted alcohol, though, and criminal gangs
angry. Really bad things. Found-at-the-bottom-of-a-
like Capone’s quickly took over the alcohol industry.
illegal businesses in Chicago. The whole country
river-with-a-hole-in-the-head kinds of things.
Competition among the gangs was fierce and violent;
knew about it, but no one seemed able to stop him.
Capone’s rivals had a habit of turning up dead.
Herbert Hoover, who became President in 1929, found
During the 1920s, this notorious gangster held a tight grip
reportedly $100,000,000 a year—a stunning amount of
money at that time. The public, as well as law-enforcement
In 1930, Chicago
declared Capone
“Public Enemy
Number One.”
officials, was well-aware of Capone’s activities. For
example, he was widely believed to be behind the brutal
shootings of seven members of a rival gang on February
14, 1929. The St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, as it became
known, made national headlines—though neither Capone
nor anyone else was ever arrested for the murders.
So how did Capone get away with it all?
For one thing, he bribed the police and other public
officials. Capone was also very good at making sure his
name never appeared on any document linked to his
illegal activities. He did not hold bank accounts or sign
checks. In cases of murder, Capone always had an alibi.
He was not able to avoid the law forever, though.
In 1931, he was sentenced to 11 years in
prison. He was released after 8 years, at
which time he was very sick. His reign of
crime was over and he died, quietly, 8 years
after being released.
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SCHOLASTIC SCOPE • APRIL 4, 2011
the situation appalling. He decided it was time for the
Between 1925 and 1930, Capone’s income was
•
federal government to step in and finally stop Capone.
A special unit was formed to close down Capone’s
NESS: ©HULTON ARCHIVE/GETTY IMAGES; WILSON: ©THE GRANGER COLLECTION, NEW YORK;
HOOVER: ©BETTMANN/CORBIS; NEWSPAPER: ©THE HISTORICAL NEW YORK TIMES.
he was alive, Capone was not the type of guy to cross.
killing, and running millions of dollars worth of
CAPONE: ©TOPHAM/IMAGE WORKS; PAPER: COURTESY EVERETT COLLECTION; MUGSHOTS: ©BETTMANN/CORBIS.
Well, OK—Capone has been dead since 1947. But when
Al Capone met his
match in Eliot Ness
(top), Herbert Hoover
(bottom), and Frank
J. Wilson (left).
but another team of federal agents.
At the same time that Ness’s unit was going after
Capone for bootlegging, a team headed by Frank J.
Wilson was gathering evidence against Capone for tax
multimillion-dollar bootleg business and to prosecute
evasion, or not paying taxes. Wilson proved that Capone
Capone for violating the Prohibition laws. Ness was
had made millions and millions of dollars and never
chosen to be its leader. He was a young Bureau of
paid a single cent in taxes—a major crime.
Prohibition agent with a reputation for honesty and
reliability. He also had a lot of guts.
Through painstaking investigative work, Ness and
On October 17, 1931, Capone was sentenced to 11
years in prison. When a new prison opened on Alcatraz
Island in the middle of San Francisco Bay in 1934,
his team began to uncover Capone’s beer and liquor
Capone was transferred there. Alcatraz was designed
businesses—and to shut them down. Capone was
to be the ultimate prison, a place for America’s worst
furious, but he had his ways of dealing with problems
criminals. And that—despite his official crime of tax
like Ness. First, he tried bribing Ness. That failed, so
evasion—was exactly what Capone was.
Capone ordered his henchmen to follow the agents and
tap their phones. He stationed gangsters outside Ness’s
parents’ house. Ness refused to be intimidated. He
•
PROBLEM /SOLUTION
refused even after Capone murdered one of Ness’s best
friends, and even after Capone tried—three times—
to have Ness himself murdered.
Ness severely damaged Capone’s business. What
finally brought Capone down, though, was not Ness,
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