During the inception of organized crime in the 1920s, the motorcade system of killing came into vogue. Whether Hymie Weiss or Bugs Moran—both subsequent leaders of the Irish O’Banion Gang, the prime opposition in Chicago to the Torrio-Capone forces—invented the system is unclear.
Bugs Moran, a cunning if rather pathological killer, was always attracted to spectacular killings and probably deserves the credit. Certainly he headed up more such murder convoys than any other gangster.
Moran and a dozen gangsters, each armed with a fully loaded tommy gun and riding in a half-dozen limousines, swept past the victim’s home, place of business or hangout. As the motorcade slowed, each gunner spattered a thousand or so .45-caliber cartridges in the general direction of the target. Such overkill was generally effective, even if a few innocent bystanders occasionally got caught in the deadly hail of bullets. That was merely an unfortunate sidebar to otherwise spectacular success.
    |
The most publicized murder motorcade of all was one that failed, an attempt to rub out Al Capone at the Hawthorne Inn in Cicero, Illinois, in 1926. A two-story brick structure, the inn had been converted to Capone’s specification into a fortress. Bulletproof steel shutters protected every window, while armed guards were stationed at every entrance. The second floor was reserved for Capone’s private use.
The building, dubbed Capone’s castle, almost became Capone’s deathtrap. On September 20, Capone and bodyguard Frankie Rio were dining in the rear of the Hawthorne’s restaurant when a single car drove past and opened fire with a machine gun. When the shooting stopped, the pair, with the other diners, rushed to the windows and doors to see what had happened. There were no bullet marks. The gunners had been firing blanks.
Frankie Rio understood instantly and knocked Capone to the floor, falling on top of him. Just then a convoy of 10 cars passed slowly in front of the inn, and a seemingly endless number of guns protruding from every one of the curbside windows let loose a deadly hail of fire.
Directly above Rio and Capone, woodwork, mirrors, glassware and crockery splintered. A Capone gunman, Louis Barko, who had rushed into the restaurant when the blank shots were fired, went down with a bullet through his shoulder.
In all 1,000 bullets were fired, and the inn, restaurant, lobby and offices were literally ripped asunder. Thirty-five cars parked at the curb were riddled with bullet holes. Remarkably, no one was killed, although Mrs. Clyde Freeman, sitting in a car with her infant son on her lap, was struck by a bullet that creased her forehead and injured her eyes. Capone footed $5,000 in medical bills to save the woman’s eyesight.
