GANG LAW

Rotorua Morning Post, Volume 1, Issue 194, 9 April 1932, Page 7

GANG LAW

YOUNG BOOTLEG LEADER MURDERED BY ' ' 5 " RIYALS. Yincen Coll, the 23-year-old leader of a bootlegging gang in the Bronx, on whose head a rival gang was said to have put a price of 50,000 dollarsj was murdered at 1 o'clock one rnorning in a "drug store" ih New York recently." " 1 Coll was in a telephone booth when four men drove up to the stoie in a large motor car. One remained at the wheel' and two others stationed themselves on the pavement as lookouts. The f'oUrth rilan walked briskly into the store and, drawing a diminutive machine gUn from uhdet his Coat, advised two' clerks and four eustomers 'to "take this quietly." Without any other preliniinary he fired 12 shots ' through the glass door of the telephone booth, killing Coll. He then walked briskly out again, and 'a moment later the car dashed off.

A policeman, attracted by the noise from his post 50 yards away, gave chase to the gunmen's car in a taxicah. He flred two shots at the car before he was outdistanced, but whether they found a mark or not is not known. ' ' The police had reason to believe that Coll, who was unarmed, was betrayed by " his * dwn""trbdyguard and shot by gunmen imported from Chicago by rival gangsters. Just a Week before, gunmen htmting for Coll killed three of his follow'dfs aiid s'eriously wounded several others, including twd women, attackirig them all unawares at a dinher party in a flat. Until January, 1930, Coll was a memher of a gang with which hi3 gang is now in Conflict. Five murders in the past two years have been attributed to him, but the police had always been unable to' fasten guilt upon him becaiise of the tetrorisation of their witnesses.