Dillinger's derringer nets $95,600 at auction

DALLAS (AP) -- A gun once carried by bank robber John Dillinger has brought $95,600 at a Texas auction.

FBI History Famous Cases John Dillinger

During the 1930s Depression, many Americans, nearly helpless against forces they didn't understand, made heroes of outlaws who took what they wanted at gunpoint. Of all the lurid desperadoes, one man, John Herbert Dillinger, came to evoke this Gangster Era, and stirred mass emotion to a degree rarely seen in this country.

Dillinger, whose name once dominated the headlines, was a notorious and vicious thief. From September, 1933, until July, 1934, he and his violent gang terrorized the Midwest, killing 10 men, wounding 7 others, robbing banks and police arsenals, and staging 3 jail breaks -- killing a sheriff during one and wounding 2 guards in another.

John Herbert Dillinger was born on June 22, 1903, in the Oak Hill section of Indianapolis, a middle-class residential neighborhood. His father, a hardworking grocer, raised him in an atmosphere of disciplinary extremes, harsh and repressive on some occasions, but generous and permissive on others. John's mother died when he was three, and when his father remarried six years later, John resented his stepmother.

In adolescence, the flaws in his bewildering personality became evident and he was frequently in trouble. Finally, he quit school and got a job in a machine shop in Indianapolis. Although intelligent and a good worker, he soon became bored and often stayed out all night. His father, worried that the temptations of the city were corrupting his teenaged son, sold his property in Indianapolis and moved his family to a farm near Mooresville, Indiana. However, John reacted no better to rural life than he had to that in the city and soon began to run wild again.

A break with his father and trouble with the law (auto theft) led him to enlist in the Navy. There he soon got into trouble and deserted his ship when it docked in Boston. Returning to Mooresville, he married 16-year-old Beryl Hovius in 1924. A dazzling dream of bright lights and excitement led the newlyweds to Indianapolis. Dillinger had no luck finding work in the city and joined the town pool shark, Ed Singleton, in his search for easy money. In their first attempt, they tried to rob a Mooresville grocer, but were quickly apprehended. Singleton pleaded not guilty, stood trial, and was sentenced to two years. Dillinger, following his father's advice, confessed, was convicted of assault and battery with intent to rob, and conspiracy to commit a felony, and received joint sentences of 2 to 14 years and 10 to 20 years in the Indiana State Prison. Stunned by the harsh sentence, Dillinger became a tortured, bitter man in prison.

His period of infamy began on May 10, 1933, when he was paroled from prison after serving 8 1/2 years of his sentence. Almost immediately, Dillinger robbed a bank in Bluffton, Ohio. Dayton police arrested him on September 22, and he was lodged in the county jail in Lima, Ohio, to await trial.

Honoring a murderer and a cop killer

(http://www.southtownstar.com/news/tridgell/1686145,072709tridgell.article)

July 27, 2009

By Guy Tridgell

C oming to a bar near you: Bloods and Crips Night. Don the colors, flash some signs and tip a few 40-ouncers in honor of some of the most notoriously violent street gangs.

Hey, it’s all in good fun.

Or play like the Latin Kings for an evening. Bring your handgun replicas and pretend to shoot each other.

Those zany gangstas.

Wouldn’t it be fun to dress and act like them just for a night?

The only problem to pulling off such an event is overcoming the outcry.

It would be called tasteless.

It would be called insensitive.

And the criticism would be right on the mark.

But where were those same howls of protest while celebrations were taking place across Chicago and the suburbs for one of the worst criminals in our history last week?

John Dillinger died 75 years ago July 22, gunned down outside a Chicago theater. The anniversary and the “Public Enemies” movie this summer have raised his profile from the grave.

Restaurants and bars hosted Dillinger nights on the date of his death. Customers wore the wardrobe of the 1930s and brandished fake Tommy guns. Theaters showed the movie Dillinger watched before he was shot.

Who were they really honoring?

A man who committed his first robbery by pointing a gun at a grocery store owner before hitting him in the head with a pipe.

A bank robber whose gang engaged in a shootout that left one FBI agent and three innocent bystanders dead.

A killer who shot a cop just over the state border in East Chicago, Ind.

Dillinger terrorized people - not unlike the gangsters of recent vintage.

Let’s put it into today’s context.

At the start of the summer, Kevin Walker and Shawn Gaston, two black gang-bangers, were charged with murdering Chicago cop Alejandro Valadez on the South Side. A horrible crime that rocked the community.

Would we ever see a citywide celebration saluting the men and their lifestyle?

I don’t think so.

But with Dillinger, a good-looking white crook, parties are thrown.

“He clearly was a criminal. He clearly broke the law. He would take the lives of others to preserve his own,” Chicago History Museum senior curator John Russick said. “For some reason, we are continually fascinated with these types of criminals.”

Russick recalled an exhibit the museum hosted a few years ago about Leopold and Loeb.

Visitors were taken by the story about the two rich, young men who wanted to kill someone just to see if they could get away with it.

Russick said nearly everyone remembered Leopold and Loeb murdered a child back in the 1920s.

Almost no one could remember the boy’s name or anything else about him.

His name was Bobby Franks. He was 14 years old. His body was left in a drainage pipe on Wolf Lake on the Southeast Side.

“He just disappeared from the whole story,” Russick said.

Dillinger did come from a different time.

In the Depression, the public hated banks for squandering their money and foreclosing on their homes. Dillinger exacted revenge by robbing those banks.

The police who Dillinger battled with weren’t the most respected bunch, either. The honor of the badge stuff came later.

Dillinger, most importantly, also happened to be dapper, handsome and white.

We apparently like our criminals dapper, handsome and white.

But peel away the nice suit, and you still have someone who broke a lot of laws, killed a few folks and left several traumatized ones along the way.

Why is that worth celebrating?

Guy Tridgell can be reached at gtridgell@southtownstar.com or (708) 633-5970.

The American Spectator

Depp Out of His Depth

By Andrew Cline on 7.1.09 @ 6:08AM

Today, the latest Hollywood film to glorify criminality opens. In Public Enemies, Johnny Depp plays John Dillinger, and to hear Depp tell it, Dillinger was no bad guy at all, but a genuine American hero.

“The title of the film is ‘Public Enemies,’ but I don’t see John Dillinger as an enemy of the public,” Depp told the Los Angeles Times. He noted that J. Edgar Hoover was the man who sent federal agents after Dillinger, and remarked, “I mean, who’s the real criminal?”

Well, Hoover had plenty of faults, but running a gang that murdered law enforcement officers and stole hundreds of thousands of dollars wasn’t one of them. But to Depp, the bank robbing at gunpoint was a Dillinger virtue.

On The Late Show with David Letterman last week, Depp lauded Dillinger as an American Robin Hood. He made the point, which is also made in the film’s trailer, that Dillinger robbed only from the banks, never from the people.

Apparently Johnny Depp, one of the greatest actors of our time, has never seen It’s a Wonderful Life, one of the great films of all time. It’s a Wonderful Life teaches us that the money held in banks belongs to the people. When Uncle Billy lost the Baily Building and Loan’s deposit, thus creating the panic that leads George Bailey to his fateful decision on the bridge, Depp never seems to have noticed where Uncle Billy was. He was in a bank.

Yes, it was the evil Mr. Potter’s bank. But that’s where the Bailey Building and Loan deposited its money. Had John Dillinger robbed Mr. Potter’s bank of all its cash, where would the Bailey Building and Loan have been then? Broke, unless Mr. Potter had insurance against bank robberies. If he didn’t, and Dillinger wiped out the bank, the Bailey Building and Loan would be out its money. Some folk hero.

Johnny Depp and the film’s writers and producers seem to think that banks own the money in their vaults. But of course, as Jimmy Stewart taught us, they don’t. That money belongs to the people who deposited it. It’s invested, it earns interest while doing good things like building homes, and some of that interest is returned to the depositors, aka, the people.

The sheer economic ignorance of this portrayal of Dillinger as Robin Hood is eclipsed only by the foolishness of asserting that Dillinger was heroic because, as Depp told the Times, “People at certain points just had to take up arms, did they not?”

Yes, the answer to the Depression was to rob banks. Brilliance on stilts. The problem with banks in the Great Depression was that they had too little money to lend, and Depp’s solution was to send marauding gangsters around the country to take what was left and spend it on fast cars and fast women.

And according to Depp, Dillinger is an OK guy because not only did he heroically redistribute wealth from the banks to the car dealers, liquor stores and prostitutes of greater Indiana and Illinois, but he might not have killed anyone in the process. Although Depp admits that Dillinger “fired weapons at” people, he says no one can prove the great man actually killed anyone. Perhaps not. But the FBI can show that the gang Dillinger led murdered 10 men and wounded seven others.

Dillinger’s gang broke him out of prison by shooting a sheriff and leaving him to die on the jail house floor not far from his wife, whom the gang had locked in a cell. Dillinger, who had to walk past the expiring sheriff, wasn’t troubled by the killing. Maybe sheriffs, like bankers, aren’t of “the people,” and therefore deserve what’s coming to them.

In the film, Dillinger is dramatically told that he can’t escape from a jail in which he’s being locked up. Depp’s Dillinger says, “Well, we’ll see about that.” Later, he heroically escapes. Dillinger was put in that jail to await trial for the murder of an East Chicago, Indiana police officer. Someone in Dillinger’s gang shot and killed the officer during a bank robbery. It might have been Dillinger. That killing followed the Dillinger gang’s murder of a police detective in Chicago.

In addition to killing sheriffs and police officers, Dillinger’s gang regularly took hostages and couldn’t have cared less if they lived or died. They opened fire against law enforcement officers with hostages in tow several times.

Legend has it that Dillinger was given up to the FBI by, as John Cusack hilariously says in High Fidelity, “his girlfriend!” His actual girlfriend had already been arrested. The woman who gave up Dillinger was a prostitute, Anna Sage, the former madam of Polly Hamilton, a waitress and prostitute whom Dillinger had picked up and was seeing.

Here was a man who stole the people’s money from the bankers who were trying, during the Depression, to invest it in economically stimulative activities, led a gang that murdered law enforcement officers without a second thought, and to top it all off was cavorting with prostitutes. And for all that he is gloriously portrayed by one of our time’s best actors, who tells all the world that the character he plays is no criminal at all, but a hero of the people.

Sure, John Dillinger’s life is top-notch movie material. But can’t we for once do a film about gangsters without glorifying their murderous thievery? OK, twice. There was The Untouchables. The mind marvels at how many gangster glorification films there are and how few films tell the stories of the men and women who risked, and sometimes lost, their lives to protect the public from the psychopaths and murderers Hollywood so often treats as heroes.

Andrew Cline is editorial page editor of the New Hampshire Union Leader.

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/07/01/depp-out-of-his-depth/print

The Officer Down Memorial Page Remembers .

Led by John Dillinger, the Dillinger Gang was a notorious group of mid-west bank robbers. Associates of the gang were responsible for the fatal shootings of 13 law enforcement officers in 1933 and 1934.

Two infamous members of the gang, John Dillinger and Baby Face Nelson, were shot and killed by law enforcement officers in separate incidents.

The other gang members were either murdered by criminals, shot and killed by law enforcement officers, executed for their crimes, or sentenced to time in prison.

Patrolman William Patrick O’Malley
East Chicago Police Department
Indiana
End of Watch: Monday, January 15, 1934

Incident Details
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: Monday, January 15, 1934
Weapon Used: Gun; Unknown type
Suspect Info: The Dillinger Gang

Patrolman William O’Malley was shot and killed while responding to a bank robbery at the First National Bank. The robbery was being committed by members of The Dillinger Gang.

Sheriff Jess L. Sarber
Allen County Sheriff’s Department
Ohio
End of Watch: Thursday, October 12, 1933

Incident Details
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: Thursday, October 12, 1933
Weapon Used: Rifle; Machine gun
Suspect Info: Executed in 1934

Sheriff Sarber was shot and killed when several members of the Dillinger Gang attempted to break John Dillinger out of the Allen County Jail. Sheriff Sarber was killed when the men opened fire with a Thompson machine gun.

One of the gang members was convicted of murdering Sheriff Sarber and executed on October 17, 1934.

Detective Henry C. Perrow
San Antonio Police Department
Texas
End of Watch: Monday, December 11, 1933

Biographical Info
Age: 56
Tour of Duty: 15 years
Badge Number: Not available

Incident Details
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: Monday, December 11, 1933
Weapon Used: Gun; Unknown type
Suspect Info: Shot and killed

Detective Henry Perrow was shot and killed after cornering a suspect in an alley. A shootout ensued and Detective Perrow was fatally wounded.

It is believed that the suspect was a member of the Dillinger Gang. The suspect was shot and killed on June 4, 1934, in an unrelated shootout.

Detective Perrow had served with the San Antonio Police Department for 15 years.

Sergeant William T. Shanley
Chicago Police Department
Illinois
End of Watch: Thursday, December 14, 1933

Biographical Info
Age: 42
Tour of Duty: 20 years
Badge Number: 760

Incident Details
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: Thursday, December 14, 1933
Weapon Used: Handgun; Revolver
Suspect Info: Murdered

Sergeant William Shanley was shot and killed while investigating reports of a suspicious man who had dropped off a suspicious vehicle at a repair shop on North Broadway Boulevard.

Sergeant Shanley’s partner went to a nearby call box to report their location as Sergeant Shanley entered the garage. The garage owner informed him the man would be back at 4:30 pm. When the man returned with a female companion Sergeant Shanley confronted him and asked to see his driver’s license. The man reached into his overcoat, produced a revolver, and fatally shot Sergeant Shanley.

The suspect, John Hamilton, was a member of the notorious Dillinger Gang. He was later found murdered in Wisconsin.

Sergeant Shanley had served with the Chicago Police Department for over 20 years. He was survived by his wife, two sons, and two daughters.

Trooper Eugene Teague
Indiana State Police
Indiana
End of Watch: Wednesday, December 20, 1933

Biographical Info
Age: 24
Tour of Duty: 6 months
Badge Number: Not available

Incident Details
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: Wednesday, December 20, 1933
Incident Location: Illinois
Weapon Used: Gun; Unknown type
Suspect Info: The Dillinger Gang

Trooper Eugene Teague was shot and killed while trying to arrest a member of The Dillinger Gang after receiving a tip that the member would be at the Frances Hotel in Paris located in Edgar County, Illinois.

Trooper Teague waited nearby in his patrol car and upon the arrival of the suspect and two female accomplices, Trooper Teague struck their car with his patrol car. A gun battle ensued as they attempted to escape and Trooper Teague was fatally wounded.

Trooper Teague had served with the Indiana State Police for six months and was assigned to the Headquarters post.

Undersheriff Charles A. Cavanagh
St. Clair County Sheriff’s Department
Michigan
End of Watch: Friday, March 16, 1934

Biographical Info
Age: 47
Tour of Duty: 22 years
Badge Number: Not available

Incident Details
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: Friday, March 16, 1934
Weapon Used: Handgun
Suspect Info: Shot and killed

Undersheriff Cavanagh was shot and killed after responding to a call about a man brandishing a handgun in a grocery store. When he arrived on the scene the two exchanged shots and both Undersheriff Cavanagh and the suspect were killed. The suspect had escaped from an Indiana jail with John Dillinger 13 days earlier.

Undersheriff Cavanagh had served in law enforcement for 22 years. He was survived by his wife and child.

Special Agent W. Carter Baum
United States Department of Justice - Federal Bureau of Investigation
U.S. Government
End of Watch: Sunday, April 22, 1934

Biographical Info
Age: 30
Tour of Duty: 4 years
Badge Number: Not available

Incident Details
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: Sunday, April 22, 1934
Incident Location: Wisconsin
Weapon Used: Gun; Unknown type
Suspect Info: The Dillinger Gang

Special Agent Baum was shot and killed by the notorious outlaw Baby Face Nelson while attempting an arrest near Rhinelander, Wisconsin. He and other officers had obtained information that the gang members were in a lodge at that location. As they arrived the suspects opened fire with a machine gun and fled the area.

Special Agent Baum and two officers took a position two miles away and approached a car one of the officers recognized. However, the car contained Baby Face Nelson, a member of the Dillinger Gang, who opened fire on them.

Baby Face Nelson was killed in a shootout seven months later in which Special Agent Samuel Cowley and Special Agent Herman Hollis were also killed.

Patrolman Francis Lloyd Mulvihill
East Chicago Police Department
Indiana
End of Watch: Thursday, May 24, 1934

Biographical Info
Age: 28
Tour of Duty: 5 years
Badge Number: Not available

Incident Details
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: Thursday, May 24, 1934
Weapon Used: Rifle; Machine gun
Suspect Info: The Dillinger Gang

Patrolman Francis Mulvihill and Patrolman Martin O’Brien were shot and killed at approximately 2325 hours by four men believed to be part of the Dillinger Gang. The officers were patrolling a rural section of the old Gary Road when they stopped to talk with four men standing next to a car. Without warning, the suspects opened fire with machine guns, striking both officers multiple times. The suspects then fled the scene.

Patrolman Mulvihill had served with the East Chicago Police Department for five years. He was survived by his wife and six children.

Patrolman Martin J. O’Brien
East Chicago Police Department
Indiana
End of Watch: Thursday, May 24, 1934

Biographical Info
Age: 44
Tour of Duty: 14 years
Badge Number: Not available

Incident Details
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: Thursday, May 24, 1934
Weapon Used: Rifle; Machine gun
Suspect Info: The Dillinger Gang

Patrolman Martin O’Brien and Patrolman Francis Mulvihill were shot and killed at approximately 2325 hours by four men believed to be part of the Dillinger Gang. The officers were patrolling a rural section of the old Gary Road when they stopped to talk with four men standing next to a car. Without warning, the suspects opened fire with machine guns, striking both officers multiple times. The suspects then fled the scene.

Patrolman O’Brien had served with the East Chicago Police Department for 14 years. He was survived by his wife and three children.

Patrolman Howard C. Wagner
South Bend Police Department
Indiana
End of Watch: Saturday, June 30, 1934

Biographical Info
Age: Not available
Tour of Duty: Not available
Badge Number: Not available

Incident Details
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: Saturday, June 30, 1934
Weapon Used: Gun; Unknown type
Suspect Info: The Dillinger Gang

Patrolman Howard Wagner was shot and killed while investigating a group of men standing in front of the Merchants National Bank in the downtown area of South Bend.

As he approached them more men came out of the bank, having just robbed it, and shot Patrolman Wagner. Upon investigation, it was determined that the men were members of the Dillinger Gang.
.

Special Agent Herman E. Hollis
United States Department of Justice - Federal Bureau of Investigation
U.S. Government
End of Watch: Tuesday, November 27, 1934

Biographical Info
Age: 31
Tour of Duty: 3 years
Badge Number: Not available

Incident Details
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: Tuesday, November 27, 1934
Incident Location: Illinois
Weapon Used: Rifle; Machine gun
Suspect Info: The Dillinger Gang

Special Agent Herman Hollis and Special Agent Samuel Cowley were shot and killed by the infamous gangster Baby Face Nelson near Barrington, Illinois. The agents had forced the suspect’s car into a ditch in an arrest attempt. The suspect came out of the ditch firing a Thompson sub-machine gun, fatally wounding both agents. Both agents were able to return fire, fatally wounding the suspect as well.

Baby Face Nelson, a member of the Dillinger Gang, was responsible for the murder of Special Agent W. Carter Baum seven months earlier.

Agent Hollis had served with the Federal Bureau of Investigation for three years.

Special Agent Samuel P. Cowley
United States Department of Justice - Federal Bureau of Investigation
U.S. Government
End of Watch: Wednesday, November 28, 1934

Biographical Info
Age: 35
Tour of Duty: 5 years
Badge Number: Not available

Incident Details
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: Tuesday, November 27, 1934
Incident Location: Illinois
Weapon Used: Rifle; Machine gun
Suspect Info: The Dillinger Gang

Special Agent Samuel Cowley and Special Agent Herman Hollis were shot and killed by the infamous gangster Baby Face Nelson near Barrington, Illinois. The agents had forced the suspect’s car into a ditch in an arrest attempt. The suspect came out of the ditch firing a Thompson sub-machine gun, fatally wounding both agents. Both agents were able to return fire, fatally wounding the suspect as well.

Baby Face Nelson, a member of the Dillinger Gang, was responsible for the murder of Special Agent W. Carter Baum seven months earlier.

Agent Cowley had served with the Federal Bureau of Investigation for five years.

Chief of Police Franklin Pierce Culp
Fostoria Police Department
Ohio
End of Watch: Sunday, April 23, 1950

Biographical Info
Age: 84
Tour of Duty: Not available
Badge Number: Not available

Incident Details
Cause of Death: Gunfire
Date of Incident: Thursday, May 3, 1934
Weapon Used: Rifle; Machine gun
Suspect Info: The Dillinger Gang

Chief Culp succumbed to gunshot wounds sustained on May 3, 1934, when he and another officer responded to a bank robbery call at the First National Bank at the intersection of Main Street and Tiffin Street. The bank was being robbed by members of the Dillinger Gang.

As the officers attempted to take cover behind an elevator one of the suspects opened fire with a machine gun, striking Chief Culp in the chest. The suspects took several hostages, completed the bank robbery, and then fled the scene.

Link: http://www.odmp.org/officer/10187-patrolman-william-patrick-omalley

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