Los Angeles Times Bombing - Arrest of The Bombers

Arrest of The Bombers

The Times and law enforcement authorities announced that the perpetrators would be caught immediately. But weeks passed, and no arrests were made. The City of Los Angeles posted a $25,000 reward for the capture of the bombers, and the M&M raised another $50,000. On December 25, 1910, a bomb went off at the Llewellyn Iron Works, partially wrecking the plant.

The City hired private detective William J. Burns to catch the guilty parties. Burns had been investigating the nationwide wave of iron manufacturing plant bombings for the past four years on behalf of the National Erectors' Association, and took the City job as part of his investigation. From his paid Iron Workers spy, Hockin, Burns learned that Iron Workers union member Ortie McManigal had been handling the Iron Workers' bombing campaign on orders from union president Ryan and secretary-treasurer McNamara. McManigal and McNamara were borderline alcoholics who liked to drink and hunt at the same time. Burns infiltrated one of their late-winter hunting trips with a spy, and during the trip McNamara boasted of having blown up the Times building. The undercover private eye also surreptitiously took a photo of McNamara. Burns showed the photo to a hotel clerk in Los Angeles, who recognized McNamara as a "Mr. J.B. Bryce" who had checked in the day before the bombing and hurriedly checked out the following morning.

On April 14, 1911, Burns, Burns' son, Raymond, and police officers from Detroit and Chicago went to the Oxford Hotel in Detroit and arrested McManigal and James B. McNamara. Dynamite, blasting caps and alarm clocks were found in their suitcases. The men were told they were being arrested for robbing a bank in Chicago. Since they had watertight alibis for that alleged crime, both men agreed to accompany Burns and the police officers back to Chicago.

In Chicago, McManigal and McNamara were not taken to a police station, but to the private home of Chicago Police Sergeant William Reed and held from April 13 until April 20. Burns apparently convinced McManigal that he knew everything and that McManigal could save himself by cutting a deal with authorities. McManigal agreed to tell all he knew in order to secure a lighter prison sentence, and signed a confession directly implicating Ryan, J.J. McNamara, Hockin and other Iron Worker leaders.

Burns wired California officials and secured extradition papers for McManigal, J.B. McNamara and J.J. McNamara. Burns left for Indianapolis, Indiana, where the Iron Workers had their headquarters. With the assistance of officials of the National Erectors' Association, he convinced Governor Thomas R. Marshall to issue an arrest warrant for J.B. McNamara. On April 22, Burns and two local police detectives burst into an executive board meeting of the Iron Workers and arrested McNamara. J.J. McNamara was taken before a local circuit court. The judge refused McNamara's request for an attorney and, without legal authority to do so, released J.J. McNamara into the custody of Burns. Arrest to departure took 30 minutes. The same day, McManigal and J.B. McNamara were taken by Los Angeles police by train to California. All three men arrived in Los Angeles on April 26.