The Purple Gang: Organized Crime in Detroit, 1910-1945 (5 page)

Bernstein
drove Sam Lerner back over to the Sugar House in what Lerner would
later describe as a black Ford sedan at about 8:00 that evening.
Bernstein formally introduced Lerner to Harry Fleisher and Phil
Keywell and said that "these are the boys who he could
straighten things out with." Sam Lerner testified that before
Bernstein introduced him to Fleisher and Keywell the two mobsters had
seemed to be reluctant to talk business with him. Once Bernstein had
spoken to them they immediately let Lerner know exactly what they
wanted. Fleisher explained to Lerner that he and Keywell needed a
little money. When Lerner asked them how much they needed, they
suggested that Lerner give as much as he could. Lerner told the two
men that he was much too frightened to think straight that evening
and asked if he could meet them the following afternoon at 1:00 at
the Sugar House to make his first extortion payment.

Later
that evening Lerner got into an argument with Isadora Kaminsky alias
"Uncle," another Sugar House gangster, over the extortion
demands. Both Kaminsky and Lerner belonged to the fraternal
organization, the Knights of Pythias. Lerner told Kaminsky that he
thought it was appalling that a fellow fraternity brother would
refuse to help him with his trouble. Kaminsky, unmoved by Lerner's
plea for help, had simply replied "You'll have to straighten it
out with the boys."

The
next day, when Lerner went back to the Sugar House to negotiate with
the gang he met Phil Keywell. Before long Harry Fleisher arrived.
Lerner told the court that he had agreed to pay the two men $25 a
week at that time and $25 immediately. Lerner stated that he had
formalized this agreement with Jack Wolff whom he knew to be the
gang's bookkeeper. He then gave Phil Keywell a check for $15 and $10
in cash. Lerner agreed to meet the men weekly at Isadore Seligman's
home to make the extortion payments.

Rather
than go to Seligman's home the following Saturday to make his
payment, Lerner went to the Sugar House in an attempt to talk to
Henry Shorr and possibly resolve, the problem. Shorr had since gotten
back into town from New York. When Lerner explained to Shorr what had
happened Shorr gave Lerner a choice. Lerner testified that Shorr had
said that he could call Phil Keywell and work something out with him
or that he would personally go with Lerner to Detroit Police
Headquarters to file a formal complaint. Shorr had then made a phone
call according to Lerner, supposedly to police headquarters. Lerner
thought that whoever Shorr had talked to suggested that Shorr bring
Lerner down to Inspector Garvin's office at police headquarters.

Garvin
was the head of the Detroit Police Departmerit's Crime and Bomb
Squad. This squad had gone by several different names as it evolved.
It was first known as the "Black Hand" Squad, created, as
the name implies, to deal with the "Black Hand" extortion
gangs of that period. During the twenties the squad was renamed and
reorganized as the Crime and Bomb Squad, and later as the Special
Investigations Squad. The main duty of the Crime and Bomb Squad was
to combat the organized and growing mobs of the Prohibition era
Detroit underworld.

Inspector
Garvin had risen rapidly in rank within the Detroit Police
Department. Appointed to the force in 1914, he had been promoted to
Inspector by 1927. At 37 years of age, Garvin was the youngest man
ever to hold the rank of Inspector within the Detroit Police up to
that time. His meteoric rise through the ranks was not without
controversy.

There
is evidence which tends to suggest that Inspector Garvin may have had
a peculiar relationship with the Purple Gang. The first question that
comes to mind is: why would a known mobster, a man identified as one
of the leaders of both the Oakland Sugar House and Purple Gangs,
suggest to one of the gang's extortion victims that he see a Police
Inspector to file a complaint against gang members, and then
accompany the victim to police headquarters? There would be other
examples over the years of what appeared to be some kind of collusion
between Garvin and various Purple mobsters.

According
to Lerner, when Henry Shorr picked him and his wife up at Isadore
Seligman's home he brought with him two men who identified themselves
as detectives. They all drove to Detroit Police Headquarters
together. When they arrived it was discovered that

Inspector
Garvin was out. A week later Lerner filed his complaint with the
Prosecutor's Office and the whole thing ended up in court.

The
case against Charles Leiter was dismissed by Judge Cotter due to lack
of evidence, a well-worn phrase. The court held Fleisher, Kaminsky,
Davis, Keywell, and Jack Wolff over to stand trial in the Lerner
case. The five men were found guilty of attempted extortion and
placed on probation. This sentence was little short of amazing
considering that by 1928 most of these men had lengthy police
records.

Hijacking
was a jackpot for organized crime. The rampant killings of anyone
with a load of liquor was the risk incurred by independent
rumrunning. Men and sometimes women were routinely attacked by
well-armed and organized gangs of hijackers like the Purple Gang. The
independent operator in the rumrunning business was fair game for
both the U.S. Coast Guard and hijacking gangs, so by the later
twenties organized crime in Detroit forced most independent
rumrunners out of business.

The
Purple Gang was broken down into factions, according to their
services. The Little Jewish Navy was the one that ran stolen liquor
from Canada in several privately owned speedboats. Almost all of the
Purples' liquor was stolen from some other gang.

Local
distributors for hijacked liquor were a rare find for a gang. One
early distributor was a hard-boiled import, a St. Louis gangster
known as Johnny Reid, who's 1926 murder brought the Purple Gang into
an alliance that led them into dominance.

Chapter
3

The
Murder of Johnny Reid

"A
power to be reckoned with was the slight, almost frail Reid, but his
removal from the underworld with a charge of hot lead . . . will not
by any means bring about an armistice in the guerrilla warfare that
has made the staccato of gunfire a familiar sound in . . . Detroit."

—
Anonymous

The
liquor hijacked by the Purple Gang presented a problem of
distribution. They'd found a valuable partner when they arranged to
have the stolen cache dispersed by Johnny Reid.

Reid
was active in the underworlds of Missouri, Illinois and now Detroit.
He was closely associated with the Egan's Rats gang of St. Louis and
counted among his friends notorious gunmen like Ezra Milford Jones
and Fred "Killer" Burke. He had probably been attracted to
Detroit by Prohibition, for its opportunity to make an easy black
market buck.

Reid's
former friends, the Rats, produced some of the toughest bank robbers
and gunmen of the twentieth century. His move to Detroit introduced
out-of-state gangsters to the Purple Gang, providing killers happy to
lend their talents to Reid's new colleagues. With imported gunmen,
identification was difficult and the source of gang wars untraceable.

Police
knew Reid from 1919 when he was arrested for murder after an argument
over a woman, but released for lack of evidence. He then became
involved in a second romantic triangle and was shot four times in the
head while visiting the woman. For all of his dangerous associations,
women seemed to be Reid's greatest weakness.

He
recovered quite miraculously after several months in a New York
hospital but lost sight in his left eye. A diminutive, frail man, he
was nonetheless a fearless and dangerous adversary. The fact that he
recovered at all enhanced his reputation as the veteran of many gang
wars.

He
began to employ the ferocious Purple Gangsters as bodyguards and
bouncers. Eddie Fletcher, a prize fighter turned Purple and rising
star in the mid twenties underworld, became Reid's personal
bodyguard. They developed a friendship that developed into a
relationship between Reid and the Purple Gang.

Unbeknownst
to the underworld, Reid's role in the Purple Gang's rise to power
began with his gathering a gang of kidnappers who would wreak havoc
throughout the underworld. He originated the idea of kidnapping other
racketeers. The rationale was that wealthy gamblers and racketeers
could be kidnapped quietly and would pay for their freedom, for fear
of drawing attention.

In
an ironic twist, most members of kidnapping gangs of the late
twenties had been imported to Detroit by the same gamblers and
wealthy racketeers that would become their victims. It all goes to
show that life is short in organized crime and everyone eventually
meets his nemesis. Reid's was Mike Dipisa.

Mike
Dipisa had arrived from Chicago in 1923. He wasted no time
establishing a ruthless reputation in Detroit, guarding gambling
parlors. He branched out into other crimes but was always released
for lack of evidence. Witnesses felt that a memory lapse was better
than a trip to the bottom of Detroit River.

For
several years Dipisa was one of the most shot at characters in the
Detroit underworld, yet amazingly he had never been hit. Even close
friends of Dipisa were afraid to take a walk with him in public for
fear they'd go down during an attack on Mike.

In
June of 1925 an incident occurred which demonstrated one of Mike
Dipisa's stronger personality traits— he was a coward. Dipisa
and several of his men held up a Detroit bookmaker named Jacob
Fricker. In the days following the robbery Dipisa was frequently shot
at when he drove down the street.

Taking
these assassination attempts as a hint that he held up the wrong man,
he quickly messengered back all of Frickers stolen valuables.
Dipisa's reputation was badly bruised.

Dipisa
knew Reid's reputation as a tough character. As a crime leader, he
nonetheless would get personally involved in rum feuds and did not
run from confrontation. Dipisa selected Reid as an extortion target
because if Reid could be made to give in to Dipisa's extortion
demands his reputation would be repaired, other blind pig operators
would pay.

The
confrontation between Dipisa and Reid began in August of 1926. One
hot afternoon, three men from the Dipisa mob entered Reid's blind pig
and announced that Mike Dipisa wanted a cut of the profits. They
dared Reid to do something about it.

Reid
threw the men out. Furious, he contacted some of his friends from
Egan's Rats Mob, a gang that still held great power in St. Louis, and
had nothing to fear in Detroit.

Reid
specifically called in Fred "killer" Burke, a professional
bank robber; and Milford Jones, a professional killer. Six gunmen
arrived, maintained a low profile, and began watching Mike Dipisa.
The first confrontation took place shortly thereafter.

Reid
and his gunmen were cruising the streets in Reid's big touring car,
visiting Dipisa's favorite blind pigs, restaurants and gambling
houses. When the gunmen finally spotted Dipisa in a high-powered
roadster they started shooting. Two police officers walking a beat
saw a dozen shots fired while the cars raced side by side. Amazingly,
nobody was wounded. As the cars disappeared around the corner the
patrolmen commandeered a taxi and raced after the gangsters. Dipisa's
car was forced to the curb and searched but by then no guns were
found.

All
three denied they fired. Dipisa, true to the underworld code of
silence, said they'd been attacked for no reason. He appeared shaken
by the savagery of the attack. It had all been too much for Mike
Dipisa.

When
a second attack followed, he finally sent peace envoys to Johnny
Reid. A temporary truce was called and a meeting arranged. Dipisa
denied that he sent men to strong arm Reid, and claimed there had
been a misunderstanding.

In
the ultimate act of gangland cowardice, Dipisa told Reid that the
gunmen were not his men. According to underworld informers, he denied
involvement with his own friends to save himself. The next day their
bodies were found in some weeds.

Reid
had driven a hard bargain. He would only agree to a truce if Dipisa
would produce the men he claimed were responsible, so that Reid could
dispense his own justice. One of the men had gone into hiding, but
the other two were given up and lured to Reid's blind pig.

When
police arrived on the scene one had lived just long enough to tell
police that they'd been shot by Johnny Reid. When Reid denied any
knowledge and police found no evidence, he was released. Feeling
vindicated, Reid allowed Dipisa an uneasy truce.