Squirrel Attack

Capone was born to Gabriele Capone (December 12, 1864 - November 14, 1920) and his wife Teresina Capone (December 28, 1867 - November 29, 1952) in Brooklyn, New York, at the turn of the 20th century. Gabriele was a barber from Castellammare di Stabia, a village about 15 miles south of Naples, Italy. Teresina was a seamstress and the daughter of Angelo Raiola from Angri, a town in the province of Salerno. The Capones had immigrated to the United States in 1894, and settled in the Navy Yard section of Downtown Brooklyn. At the age of 14, the Capone family moved from the Navy Yard section of Brooklyn to 21 Garfield Street, in Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn. This new home had a huge impact on Al, as this is where he met his future wife Mae Josephine Coughlin, whom he would marry a few years later at St. Mary's Star of the Sea Roman Catholic Church, and gangster Johnny Torrio. Gabriele and Teresina had seven sons and two daughters:

* Vincenzo Capone (1892 - October 1, 1952).

* Raffaele Capone (1894 - November 22, 1974).

* Salvatore Capone (January 1895 - April 1, 1924). Called "Frank". Killed by police after firing on officers.

* Alphonse Gabriel Capone (January 17, 1899 - January 25, 1947).

* Erminio Capone (1901 - ?). Called "John" or affectionately "Mimi". He served prison terms for minor offenses such as vagrancy and illegal possession of alcohol. He changed his last name to "Martin" and reportedly was still alive in 1994.[citation needed]

* Umberto Capone (1906 - June 1980). Called "Albert". He was an employee of the newspaper Cicero Tribune under the ownership of his brother Al. He changed his last name to "Raiola" in 1942.

* Matthew Capone (1908 - January 31, 1967). A Tavern owner.

* Rose Capone (Born and died in 1910).

* Mafalda Capone (January 28, 1912 - March 25, 1988).

[edit] Early criminal record

Capone's life of crime began early. As a teenager, he joined two gangs, the Brooklyn Rippers and the Forty Thieves Juniors, and engaged in petty crime.

Capone quit school in the sixth grade at the age of 14, after he fought with a teacher at Public School 133. He then worked at odd jobs around Brooklyn, including in a candy store and a bowling alley. After his initial stint with small-time gangs, Capone joined the notorious Five Points Gang, headed by Frankie Yale. It was at this time he began working as a bartender and bouncer at Yale's establishment, the seedy Harvard Inn. It was there that Capone was slashed in the face during a fight with a thug, Frank Gallucio, after Capone had made a bold move on the man's sister. Once his face had been stitched up Capone went looking for Gallucio, who appealed to Lucky Luciano to mediate the dispute. Luciano and Yale decided that Gallucio's attack was justified and forbade Capone to exact revenge for the wound that would earn him the lifelong nickname "Scarface". In later years Capone employed Gallucio as a bodyguard when visiting New York.

On December 30, 1918, Capone married Mae Josephine Coughlin, an Irish woman who shortly before their marriage had given birth to his son, Albert Francis ("Sonny") Capone. The couple lived in Brooklyn before moving to Amityville, Long Island, to be close to "Rum row".

Capone was still working for Frankie Yale and is thought to have committed at least two murders before being sent to Chicago in 1919, mainly to avoid the retribution of Bill Lovett, a psychotic lieutenant in the White Hand Gang, who was busy searching for the Italian kid with scars who had hospitalised one of his subordinates. Capone was familiar with Chicago, having been sent there previously by Yale in order to help crime boss Big Jim Colosimo dispose of a troublesome group of black hand extortionists. Capone went to work for Colosimo's empire under Giovanni "Johnny" Torrio, another Brooklyn boy. The move primed one of the most notorious crime careers in modern American history.

[edit] Capone moves to Chicago

Torrio immediately recognized Capone's talents and soon Capone had been elevated to running the Four Deuces bar and had responsibility for much of the alcohol and prostitution rackets in the city of Chicago. With prohibition now in full effect there was a fortune to be made in bootlegging, Colosimo's reluctance to move into this area of crime led to his murder on May 11, 1920 in the foyer of his own nightclub. Frankie Yale was later arrested for the murder but the case collapsed through lack of evidence. Torrio was now in charge and promoted Capone to be his second in command.

The Capone family moved to Chicago for good, buying a small, unassuming house at 7244 South Prairie Avenue in Cicero, Illinois, a Chicago suburb, which would serve as Al Capone's first headquarters.

[edit] Activity in Cicero, Illinois

After the 1923 election of reform mayor William Emmett Dever in Chicago, Chicago's city government began to put pressure on the gangster elements inside the city limits. To put its headquarters outside of city jurisdiction and create a safe zone for its operations, the Capone organization muscled its way into Cicero, Illinois. This led to one of Capone's greatest triumphs, the takeover of Cicero's town government in 1924. The 1924 town council elections in Cicero became known as one of the most crooked elections in the Chicago area's long history with voters threatened at the polling station by thugs. His mayoral candidate won by a huge majority, but only weeks later said that he would run Capone out of town. Capone met with his puppet-mayor and personally knocked him down the town hall steps, a powerful assertion of gangster power, and a huge victory for the Torrio-Capone alliance.

The event was marred, however, by the death of Capone's brother Frank at the hands of the police. It broke Al's heart. Unshaven (a gangster form of mourning), Capone cried openly at the funeral and ordered the closure of all the speakeasies in Cicero for a day as a mark of respect.

[edit] Capone's wealth and power grows in Chicago

The Lexington Hotel, Chicago. Capone's headquarters. Known as Capone's castle. Photographed in the 1990s, it is now demolished

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