Gangs At War

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 988, 3 June 1930, Page 9

Gangs At War

FIERCE MACHINE-GUN FIGHTS Thirteen Killed in U.S.A. POLICEMEN SEAIN BY BOOTLEGGERS VLERCE gang warfare lias broken out in tlie eastern and » middle-western States of U.S.A. Eleven gangsters and two policemen were killed by bullets, over the week-end. Setting a machine-gun on the window-sill of an hotel in Chicago, a rival gang poured a hail of lead into the enemy forces, some of whom were seated at a table in the room.

United P.A.—By Telegraph—Copy right i Heed. 10.5 a.m. NEW YORK, Mon. i Altogether 11 gangsters and two i policemen were killed over the week- j end ill one of the worst recrudescences I of gang warfare ever recorded In the east, and middle-western States. Chicago led all the rest with three killings this morning-, when a machinegun was trained and fired through a small suburban hotel window by one of the rival beer-running factions, pouring 300 slugs at five people seated at a table. Two of the remainder, one of whom was a woman, were gravely wounded. Those killed were Sam Pellar, Michael Quirk, who had twice been acquitted j of murder, and Joseph Bertsche, a j safe-blower recently released from { gaol. Three other men who drove the !

wounded people 60 miles to Chicago University Hospital refused to give their names. Chief-Detective Stege is: not sure whether the crime was the outcome of a war between the Moran and Capone gangs. However, he expects retaliations. There were two other gang murders on Saturday. Five other underworld characters, including a woman, were wounded in today’s outbreak. From Detroit it is reported that two police officers were slain by bootleggers and three men killed by gangsters. A message from Passaic, New Jersey, reports that three notorious beerrunners were shot dead, while Boston reports that two gangsters were seriously wounded by macliine-gun fire from an automobile.