Here are few examples of some "Hollywood movie action" from the old days. Enjoy

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In 1960 Outfit capo and main representative for the whole West Side group Sam "Teets" Battaglia flourished in his “secret” love life. One of Battaglia's associates Ralph DelGenio owed lots of cash to his boss and during his “questioning”, DelGenio gave Battaglia information that his son Frederick was dating a local girl and that they stole the cash and maybe the girl knew where the money was hidden. After the murder of Ralph, his son Frederick went to prison in Texas on robbery charges, so Battaglia decided to pay a visit to the girl.

When Battaglia met the girl for the first time, he already forgot about the money because he was looking at a 28 year old 5 feet tall blue-eyed blonde bombshell and fell in love immediately. The name of the girl was Darlene Fasel Kalivoda. She was the daughter of a very wealthy River Forest industrialist who disowned her because of her association with hoodlums. She became Battaglia’s mistress for many years to come. Battaglia employed her as a receptionist and secretary for Leo Rugendorf at the Twin Food Company and also bought her a nice house on North Harlem Avenue in Elmwood Park. Miss Kalivoda also became Battaglia's constant companion on journeys gambling joints around Melrose Park as he picked up the day's take.

In June 1961, one day the pair was driving in their 1960 maroon Oldsmobile towards Bloomingdale, Illinois. They were returning from an outing at Battaglia’s Free Meadows farm. While approaching the small town, Battaglia pressed hard on the accelerator and the car darted in and out of the holiday traffic. Police Chief George Mueller of the Bloomingdale police took notice of this and began a pursuit of Battaglia on Lake Street. While he was chasing Battaglia, the cop radioed to Sgt. Richard Loy for assistance. The pursuit continued for more than a mile before the cops managed to curb Battaglia’s car at Lake and Bloomingdale road.

Battaglia stepped out of his car and instantly started cursing and yelling at the cops. Chief Mueller said to Battaglia that he was speeding, and Battaglia replied “You’re a liar!” Furthermore Battaglia called the cops "a couple of keystone cops", whilr miss Kalivoda sat calmly in the car while Battaglia continued to curse at the cops and also refused to show his driver license. After a while Chief Mueller had enough of Battaglia’s behaviour and said “You’re going to jail” and Battaglia again replied “Try and put me there.”

So the cops started to push Battaglia across the street to Bloomingdale’s one room police station and locked him up in a single cell. Battaglia cursed and fumed there for more than an hour while the cops wrote out charged for driving 70 miles an hour in a 50 mile zone, resisting arrest, disorderly conduct, and disobedience of a police officer. Police Magistrate James Bell fixed Battaglia’s bond at $417. The still cursing Battaglia opened his wallet and produced the $417, and Chief Mueller estimated that at least $2,000 remained. Battaglia with some parting shots of profanity stomped out of the police station and drove away at a normal rate of speed. So this “adventure” ended ignominiously for the pair because of Battaglia’s terrible temper, but because of that kind of temper, three months later Battaglia’s reputation as one of the toughest gangsters was shattered to pieces by an ordinary Chicago police sergeant.

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On August 22, 1961 police sergeant Francis Nash and his partners detectives John Zitek, Maurice Guerin and Frank Kenny set out to look over a mob conference between Giancana, Battaglia and other Outfit chiefs. The meeting was said to have been arranged by Giancana to discuss measures to head off police investigations of eight recent gang murders which have been linked with the Outfit’s juice operators. The meeting was in adjournment by the time Nash and his squad arrived at Giancana’s residence. So the police squad checked few more suburban gang hangouts and then headed back to Chicago thru Oak Park. When they arrived in Oak Park, the cops saw Battaglia and Rocco Salvatore sitting in a car near Battaglia’s residence. When the two hoodlums spotted the police squad they sped off with their car with the detectives in pursuit. The chase went at high speed for more than a mile until Salvatore slammed his car to a stop in an alley near Elmwood Av. and Division St. in Oak Park. Nash’s squad was close behind.

Suddenly out of the car came Battaglia and in his own style, he started to curse at the cops. He approached Sergeant Nash and attempted to tear his shirt and challenged him to a fight. Battaglia attacked with two wild haymakers, which missed and then Nash pushed him away with a light left jab. Battaglia, who outweighed Nash by 20 pounds, fell to the ground and cried out “Don’t hit me, don’t hit me again, you’ll kill me!” Meanwhile, Salvatore ran down the alley shouting “Robbers, robbers!” It was a very hilarious situation. A near resident who witnessed the situation called the cops who took the four policemen and the two hoodlums into the Oak Park police station. Story goes that at the police station Salvatore said to his boss that they should retaliate but Battaglia replied “Forget about the whole thing. I don’t want any trouble over this. I don’t want any part of those Chicago coppers.”

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On February 16 1967, Ed Hanrahan the United States attorney in Chicago was bringing in the indictment at 2 p.m. and he told his agents “Find Battaglia and if you let him get away, it'll be your funeral.” The feds had to be very careful because they knew that Battaglia was one of those old time “Apalachin meeting” bosses, meaning if he caught a glimpse of them, they were obviously going to be involved in a high speed chase.

On that same day, Battaglia and his driver Joe Rocco were on their way to his farm in Pingree Grove. Battaglia stopped at a roadside telephone on the way to his 400-acre farm and called a lookout crew which he had at 25th Avenue and Lake Street in Melrose Park and was told he was being followed by a suspicious car. This time it was the IRS agents' turn to be surprised.

Of all the 11 cars, each containing two agents that were tailing Battaglia, all avoided the intersection in Melrose Park except for one unit containing agents not familiar with the case. Someone had forgotten to tell them Battaglia had a lookout there and so Joe Rocco, Battaglia's driver, took evasive action. The agents didn't know it until later, but under the hood of the Ford station wagon, Rocco drove a souped-up Thunderbird engine. Up one street and down another he sped, through one suburb after another. The agent in the IRS lead car had picked up police cars from Schiller Park, Melrose Park, and Northlake. He was speeding along North Avenue at 90 miles an hour but the Northlake police car was gaining on him.

Battaglia and his driver sped through a toll plaza near Rockford without stopping to pay the toll. Four cars in radio communication were right on his tail and they sped through at 80 miles an hour speed without stopping. The gangsters started playing games with the agents by cutting thru to the opposite lanes at emergency crossings and heading the opposite direction. As they all went south they passed other state police cars, notified by the toll plaza, which were heading north. Battaglia was finally tired of the game and his driver left the toll road and drove sedately into Marengo, where the agents telephoned Hanrahan, learned the indictment had been returned, and put Sam Battaglia in handcuffs. Newspaper stories of Battaglia's indictment and arrest said merely that he was apprehended in Marengo by federal agents after a high speed chase on the toll road.

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There are also some earlier examples when the situation was the opposite, meaning gangsters were chasing cops.

For example, in September 1930 the States Attorney announced that West Side Outfit mobster William "Three-finger" White will be called again in front of a jury regarding the murde of Officer Pflaume, for which White was previously released on all charges. The main witnesses again were policemen James McBride of Bellwood and Charles Jones of Berkley.

On October 30th, 1930 policeman McBride was driving to the States Attorney’s office to assist Prosecutor Harry Ditchburne in gathering the evidences for the new trial of White. Suddenly another car approached McBride with Fur Summons on the wheel and Claude Maddox on the passenger seat with a sawed-off shotgun in his hands. A high-speed chase occurred for almost a mile and when the hitmen got near McBride's car, Maddox fired a shot at Officer McBride thus hitting his head and so the gangsters took off.

McBride was heavily wounded, half of his face was in blood, his jaw was shattered and his vocal cords were also affected but miraculously he survived the attack. He was taken to the intensive care unit at West Lake hospital in Melrose Park. With the help of “unknown” witnesses, few hours later Maddox and Summons were arrested and brought to station for questioning. Later both of them were taken to the hospital were Officer McBride laid in critical condition. McBride identified Maddox as the shooter but couldn’t identify Summons. After leaving McBride’s bedside, Maddox and Summons were taken to the Melrose Park police station and later were locked up at the states attorney’s office by Ditchburne and few other detectives.

The attempted murder of policeman McBride was regarded as the most glaring defiance to law enforcement officials. Special guards were placed around the hospital were McBride was staying and also around the states attorney office were Maddox and Summons were locked up. It was clear that McBride was shot at the instance of Jack White in order to hamper the prosecution in the new murder trial. One hour after Maddox’s arrest, he was taken to the court of Judge Joseph David and forfeited his $10,000 bond and was set free until the trial.

Cheers

This was a very interesting expose TD. And different.

another great write up TD. i havent been on the boards much lately, its good to come back to somef resh content to read on my day off.

Chicago is so fascinating a lot has to do with Al Capone though. He is such an icon lol.

Toodoped - Good stuff, as always. I actually joined this forum because I had read every single post you've made here re: The Outfit and it's some of the best Outfit content I've read anywhere. Your research is second to none.

Random question: Do you have any idea what happened to Rocco "The Parrot" Potenza? He was a Giancana guy in the 50's/60's and then kind of just disappeared. I can't find an obituary or anything else on what happened to him. He was a northwest suburbs guy. Any ideas?

@vegasbuckeye thanks bud and also thanks for your support. Stay tuned since lots of stuff are comin in the following month or so.




@ChiCubs thank you too for the kind words, something which means a lot to me. So thanks again and stay tuned.

Regarding your question on Potenza/Potenzo, I think that when Giancana left the country and when Battaglia ended up in prison, Potenzo's interests around Niles and Wheeling were mainly absorbed by the Ross Prio crew aka the North Side crew. During the late 1960s Potenzo was constantly seen having meetings in Niles together with Prio, DiVarco, Arnold and the "Three Doms". I also think that sometime around this period or later (i dont remember the exact year) Potenzo also suffered a stroke which instantly placed him in semi-retirement and he sold most of his joints and interests through one Rocco Montagna.



Thats right H and even though in the eyes of Cosa Nostra he was official and independent boss for several mounths (no more boss of bosses until September 1931), still Capone obviously cleared the way for his successors during the previous years. Capone was so respected, that when he even went allegedly crazy, nobody dared to touch him although he was constantly watched by his peers such as Charlie Fish, Ricca, Guzik and Humphreys.

It can be argued that the name "Scarface Al Capone" is the most widely recognized gangster name in history. Not only here in the United States of America, but throughout the entire world.

There's not another single individual gangster or racketeer, no matter how notorious they might have been, who is more recognizable that the name "Capone."

In my personal opinion, Capone even out guns the name Lucky Luciano in that regard....And thats REALLY saying something!

I agree. You can go in whatever country around the world and everyone knows the name Al Capone. Even my grandmother (God rest her soul) used to tell me stories lol. The Chicago Outfit was still called the "Capone gang" until the 1970s both by the media and also by some informers. Speaking about newspaper men, because of Capone, I think that the Chicago Outfit was THE family that received most of the media coverage. I mean Capone probably gave "birth" to the first paparazzi Lol which obviously was quite bad for the whole crime family.

Everybody knows Al Capone one of the most famous people in the world. From Russia to Colombia. Pablo Escobar had one of his cars LOL.

Lol yeah I saw that photo in some of the Escobar documentaries. Remember when there was no internet? Many legends and myths flew around regarding these guys, meaning their image was way bigger and mysterious in the eyes of the ordinary citizen during those days, then it is today.

Great snippets, Toodoped. I wonder what Frederick thought of Battaglia dating his girl...lol. Also, they're lucky they didn't kill anyone on that high-speed chase though I imagine back then the traffic wasn't like it is now...but still...that's crazy...lol.

Thanks MafiaStudent. It seems Frederick DelGenio was one quite stupid and unemotional individual and since his father's death was allegedly his fault, I dont think that he cared much if his girlfriend was doing "stereo" lol

In addition, besides the Maddox/Policeman McBride example, there are also many additional examples from the 1930s and 40s in which the cops were chased by the gangsters. The Chicago Outfit was probably one of the most "anarchist" crime families in the whole U.S. at the time, meaning some of these guys really hated their government, hence the killings of numerous Chicago politicians and government reps.

Heres another interesting example of "Hollywood" car chasing between cops and gangsters, but this time it also included a medical doctor and a vigilante group made out of ordinary civilians. Those were the old days when ordinary people still defended their own ground from gangsters and all types of criminals.

I dont know if you guys knew that many Jewish members of the old Chicago Outfit started their careers as bank robbers, "Dillinger style". One of those guys was infamous Chicago member Leonard "Blinkey" Patrick.

Back in 1933 Patrick's gang planned a robbery of the State Exchange Bank in Culver, Indiana. On May 29, six gang members got into their car and rolled into Culver. At the wheel was Joe Switalski aka Jack Shea, a former Chicago policeman and former chauffeur of Joe Saltis, the infamous Chicago beer baron. Other members in the car were the gang's alleged leader Danny McGeoghegan, Emmett Kearns aka Edward Murphy, Walter Grabowski, Lenny Patrick and his brother Jack Patrick.

Once they reached their target, five of the gangsters rushed into the bank, leaving their driver in the getaway car. Once in the bank they pistol whipped few pedestrians and bank clerks and forced the rest of the customers to lie down on the floor. The robbery lasted for two or three minutes, but in that short interval, gun fire started out side. Switalski, with his automatic gun, exchanged fire with some vigilante group, formed by local men. A moment later, a bullet cut into the forehead of Switalski and another one into his shoulder.

McGeoghegan rushed out and saw that his buddy was wounded and rushed back into the bank to assemble his associates. They all acted cool and at gun point they took few hostages and used them as shield from the vigilante’s fire. They threw the stolen cash into the car and shifted Switalski, who was bleeding profusely, from under the wheel to the back seat, and Murphy took the wheel. The hostages were ordered to stand on the running boards and the car thundered away to the west in a cloud of dust and gunfire. Outside the city limits, the bandits ordered their hostages to jump.

A local medical doctor, who had witnessed the bloody conflict, jumped into his car and rapidly went after the bandits. But he made a mistake because he came too close and one of the bandits noticed him, jumped on his feet and fired at the doctor’s car at close range, thus stopping him. They ordered him out and cursed him soundly for trying to follow them. An argument occurred between the bandits over leaving the wounded Switalski. McGeoghegan ordered them to leave him with the doctor.

The robbers continued to a combined woods and swamp near the little town of Ober. While driving through the woods they crashed their car and got stuck between two trees and could not go further. The small party of armed local vigilantes and government people followed the car tracks along the dirt road. They found and arrested the wounded Switalski who in turn was left by the road with the doctor, and proceeded to chase the remaining gangsters around the woods. They cautiously followed the tracks of the bandit's car and in just few hours they found and arrested all of the gang members, including the Patrick brothers and McGeoghegan.

On June 28, 1933 all of the gang members stood for trial and received prison sentences. Most of the gangsters, including Lenny Patrick received a 10 year prison terms, except for McGeoghegan, who received 25 years. Lenny first went to the Indiana State Reformatory and on February 22, 1934 he was transferred to the Indiana State Penitentiary.

During the 1940s, the Patrick brothers and Murphy became official associates of the Chicago mob. Cheers

Did not realize Lenny patrick was around that long. Thought he more so started coming around in the early 50's or so.

It seems that Patrick and his brother made some mob connections while in prison, and when they got released in 1940 or after that, they became associates with Yaras who in turn was connected to the Outfits West Side mob and also made an alliance with old time Outfit capo Dago Mangano. During the 50s and 60s Patrick already controlled his own empire around Lawndale and also Rogers Park on the North Side, and also his third brother Mike Patrick (real name Myron i think) was a bagman for the Outfits cash from the Vegas scheme. In fact, besides being non-Italian, Lenny Patrick knew more about the Outfits hierarchy and structure, than some of the actual made guys. Obviously because Patrick was a "member" of the Outfit for five decades.

Now Im going to show you one high-speed car chasing, but this time it involves only gangsters.

The year of 1928 was also the year when Al Capone literally controlled hundreds of professional shooters and killers from all around the country and had the power to kill anyone around the world, including politicians, but still New York's Frankie Yale was different since he was one of their own and was also a killer in his own right, who in turn controlled his own small army and generated a fortune. In plane words, Capone was backed by other higher ups within the New York Mafia aka the Masseria clan, so he can execute the contract on Yale’s life and again he also needed and inside info regarding Yale’s activities.

As any other high profile mobster, Yale always had a couple of armed bodyguards beside him and often stayed at his headquarters which was the Sunrise Club, located at 14th Avenue and 65th Street, New York. Even though Capone and Chicago's West Side faction had close connections in New York, still they controlled a different city at the time, and obviously weren’t aware of Yale’s everyday routines in NY and my personal belief is that the main person who provided the Capone Mob with the needed information was Louis "Little New York" Campagna. As I previously stated that during those days, Capone controlled many hit teams but his main guys regarding the “murder racket” were Tony Capezio, Vincenzo Gibaldi a.k.a. Jack McGurn, John Moore a.k.a. Claude Maddox and William Heeney. You see, Capezio and Gibaldi were both fearless and murderous gangsters and as for Heeney and Maddox, well these two fellas had connections to many professional killers from around the Midwest, who in turn were labelled by the media and press as the “American Boys”.

Obviously since Yale was no easy target, the boys decided to use few "out of town" killers and called one of their most skilful associates such as former St. Louis gangster Fred Burke, who in turn supplied the guns. The hit team allegedly also included Maddox, Heeney and Campagna. No one knew Burke, Maddox or Heeney around the New York area, which made them the perfect executioners for the job.

The killers stalked Yale for almost a month, just to learn his everyday routines and to possibly confirm Campagna’s inside info. The main info was that Yale had a new young wife by the name of Lucy and together they had 1 year old daughter. They allegedly knew that Yale was very sensitive and carrying towards Lucy so the hit team decided to take an advantage of his weakness.

One Sunday afternoon, on July 1, 1928, Yale was playing cards at his Sunrise Club, located at 14th Avenue and 65th Street, when suddenly he received a cryptic phone call. The caller said something was wrong with Lucy and his daughter and that he should come home fast. In a panic moment, Yale took off with his brown colored Lincoln coupe without his bodyguards. Yale drove up to New Utrecht Avenue, where the hit men in their Buick sedan drove next to him. Yale noticed the hit squad and took off west onto 44th Street, with the Buick close behind him. The chase continued but Yale's car was soon overtaken by the Buick, whose occupants riddled Yale with bullets. Yale lost control of his car and crashed into a stoop of a brownstone at No. 923. He opened the door of his car and fell to ground. One of the hit men got out of their car and pumped few more bullets into Yale’s body.

So the job was done and the assassins left the scene and drove nearly three blocks away where they abandoned their car and left on foot. Later the cops found the abandoned Buick and inside they found a .38 caliber revolver, a .45 automatic, a sawed-off pump shotgun, and a Thompson submachine gun.

Cheers