Read The Purple Gang: Organized Crime in Detroit, 1910-1945 for Free Online

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