Al Capone Life and Death
By: Brandi Sherlund
Intro to Al Capone's story
Al Capone was a Chicago gangster which leads to a Life and Death story...
Copone's Early life
- Al Capone was born in Brooklyn, New York, January, 17, 1899, the son of recent Italian immigrants Gabriele and Teresina Capone. A poor family that came to America seeking a better life, the Capones and their eight children lived a typical immigrant lifestyle in a New York tenement. Capone’s father was as a barber, and his mother was a seamstress.
- By age 14 Al Capone was expelled for punching a teacher which means he brutally abused her; he never returned back to school which led to him having a life of crime.
Capone's Crimes
- By early 1929, Capone dominated the illegal liquor trade in Chicago. Capone had many business partners and rivals including his long-time rival “Bugs” Moran.
- Capone and McGurn decided to kill Moran. On February 14, 1929, posing as police, McGurn’s gunmen assassinated seven of Moran’s men in cold blood in a North Side garage. This became known as the St. Valentine's Day Massacre.
- In response to the public outcry over the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, President Herbert Hoover ordered the federal government to step up its efforts to get Capone on income-tax evasion.
Prison for Capone
- The Supreme Court had ruled in 1927 that income gained on illegal activities was taxable, which gave the government a strong case for prosecuting Capone. On June 5, 1931 the U.S. government finally decided Capone on 22 counts of income-tax evasion.
- But at the last moment, the judge switched to an entirely new jury. Capone was found guilty and sent to prison for 11 years.
- Al Capone got sent to Alcatraz because he bribed the police to let him have freedom in the state prison. He ran a bootlegging business and he had many fancy things in his jail cell, but that lead him to Alcatraz then he lost all of the things he had in jail.
His final days
- After Capone was in Alcatraz for several years he started to get an illness, which was called Bronchponeumonia and syphilis which is a bacterial infection from his life with prostitutes.
- He was sent to a hospital jail for the sickness. Later he died Jan, 25, 1947 from a heart attack.