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.I got it for a cold.” He told newspapermen that everything was kind“The Farmer Turns Gangster” | 51of hazy: “I took a few drinks and about the next thing I knew thecops had me.” Asked whether he helped free the Michigan City fugi-tives, he said no, the prisoners were a “pretty crummy bunch—badcharacters.” Did he commit the recent bank robberies? “Wasn’t in anyof the places.Would have had to have wings to be at all of them.”In a few days he was on his way back to Indiana, then to Ohio to standtrial for the murder of Sheriff Sarber.59Then on December 14 John “Red” Hamilton, the quiet, olderex-con, easily identifiable because he was missing two fingers onhis right hand from a childhood sledding accident, went to a NorthSide auto mechanic to pick up his car.Along with Dillinger, Makley,Pierpont, Van Meter, and Clark, Hamilton was a core member of thegang, and because they all were suspects in a spectacular bank rob-bery that had occurred the day before (it turned out to be the workof another outfit), the police were on high alert.Hamilton’s car wasidentified from a previous heist, so when they spotted it on the lotthey staked out the mechanic’s shop.Hamilton showed up with hiscurrent girlfriend, Elaine DeKant Dent.Sergeant William Shanley,a decorated World War I veteran, winner of the Chicago Tribune’s“Hero” award, father of four daughters, member of his parish church,approached the two and asked if it was their car.When they said yes,he told them to keep their hands visible.Shanley began to searchHamilton, who pulled a gun from his shoulder holster and shot theofficer twice, fatally.Hamilton barely managed to get away on foot,leaving Ms.Dent behind.He then made his way back to his apartmentand his comrades.60Two days after Shanley’s death, Chicago’s thirteenth police fatal-ity in 1933, the city started its own Dillinger Squad, made up of forty marksmen under the command of Captain John Stege.With newspapers’ help, the Chicago police department now laid crime after crimeat the feet of the Dillinger gang.At the same time the young spe-cial agent in charge of the Bureau of Investigation’s Chicago office,Melvin Purvis, wrote to his boss, J.Edgar Hoover, that he had justattended an excellent conference put together by the Cook Countystate’s attorney to coordinate various agencies’ efforts to break upthe Dillinger gang.Purvis took heart that police and politicians alldeclared their determination to eradicate the scourge.61A week after the Shanley killing the lawmen picked up HiltonCrouch.Crouch had worked with Dillinger before the Michigan City52 | Dillinger’sWildRidebreakout.He had become a partner in a tavern and had not been activewith the gang in recent months, but his arrest got plenty of attention.He confessed to the Massachusetts Avenue robbery, told police thathis share of the take was more than eight thousand dollars, followingthe group’s rule of splitting all earnings equally.As with Copeland,the police shipped him back to Indiana.Three days later local policecaptured Edward Shouse in Paris, Illinois, after a shootout in whichone officer was killed.Shouse too had become marginal to the gang;the others found him untrustworthy, and when he was caught plan-ning to pull a bank job on his own they cut him loose.After his arrest, Shouse denounced his former colleagues, and newspaper reportershad a field day with his comments: “They are all kill-crazy and that’swhy I left them.If you policemen are married men with families I warn you to be careful about trying to take the other boys.They’ll shoot it out to the last bullet and they have plenty of guns and bullets.” Then, just after the first of the year, another Michigan Cityescapee, Walter Dietrich, was captured in a Chicago suburb during abloody shootout between police and gang leader Theodore Klutas [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]