Downfall
In 1922, before a national convention of the fremasonic Grotto, Looney's thugs provided - i.e. sold - protection for law violators. Prohibition agents, following up on raids made during the convention met with William Gabel, who provided them with canceled checks endorsed by John Looney. Gabel was murdered on July 31, 1922, which prompted a gang war in which 12 people were murdered. Meanwhile, through editorials, the Rock Island Argus lambasted the community for having allowed gangsters to gain control of Rock Island. In return, Looney's paper published articles implicating the Argus in Gabel's murder.
The gang war ended on October 6, 1922 when Looney and his son Connor were talking in their car in Market Square. Two vehicles pulled up behind them and opened fire. John Looney ran to the nearby Sherman Hotel and returned fire. Connor Looney was killed in the vehicle.
On October 26, 1922, all stills, speakeasies, and brothels under Looney's control were closed down, and his house was raided for weapons. Schriver and the former police chief were arrested and later convicted of vice protection conspiracy. Looney was indicted for the murder of William Gabel and for running a theft ring which spanned several states, but Looney fled to Ottawa, Illinois and then to New Mexico.
Looney was apprehended in New Mexico in November 1924. He was convicted in 1925 of "conspiracy to protect gambling, prostitution and illicit liquor traffic in Rock Island".
Looney was later charged and convicted of the murder of Willam Gabel and prosecuted in Galesburg. He was sentenced to 14 years in prison and served 8½ years. Looney died in 1947 at a tuberculosis sanitarium in El Paso, Texas.
Read more about this topic: John Patrick Looney
Famous quotes containing the word downfall:
“Show me one thing here on earth which has begun well and not ended badly. The proudest palpitations are engulfed in a sewer, where they cease throbbing, as though having reached their natural term: this downfall constitutes the heart’s drama and the negative meaning of history.”
—E.M. Cioran (b. 1911)
“Children demand that their heroes should be fleckless, and easily believe them so: perhaps a first discovery to the contrary is less revolutionary shock to a passionate child than the threatened downfall of habitual beliefs which makes the world seem to totter for us in maturer life.”
—George Eliot [Mary Ann (or Marian)