The Valentine's Day Massacre

Valentine’s Day is a time to get ooey-gooey and show those we care about just how much we love them – in a public and costly manner. But here’s a question: What if you’re a rich gangster, how do you show your love? Why, murder, of course!

Let me qualify gangster: I’m not talking about those wannabes who walk around with their “piece” doing “drive-bys” and graffiting gang symbols on the side of the local No Frills. I’m talking real gangsters. I’m talking long trench coats and mobbed-up cops. I’m talking Al Capone.

Valentine’s Day fell on a Thursday in 1929, and Chicago was a turbulent place. It was Bugs Moran vs. Al Capone, and for years, bodies just kept turning up. Maybe that meant seven members of the Moran gang were relieved to see two police officers enter the warehouse at 10:30 on Valentine’s morning. The seven members obliged the police officers, and lined up against the wall – surely they were used to the treatment. But when two more men in trench coats entered, one can only imagine what went through the gang member’s heads. All seven were killed where they stood.

After the shots subsided, the gangsters performed an amusing deception. Witnesses reported seeing two men in trench coats emerge the warehouse with their hands up. Behind them, two “police officers” contained them at gunpoint. All four then got into a waiting car and fled the scene.

Because of the date, the incident was quickly coined “The Valentine’s Day Massacre”. Frank Gusenberg was the only man found still alive when the real police arrived, although he was clutching to life. Frank eventually died from 14 bullet wounds just three hours later from in hospital, but when he was found alive in the warehouse and asked the identity of the shooter, Frank managed, “I’m not gonna talk”. How romantic.