TUOHY COPS AND ROBBERS

"Other people have a nationality. The Irish and the Jews have a psychosis". Brendan Behan

"Ah, Ireland... That damnable, delightful country, where everything that is right is the opposite of what it ought to be" Benjamin Disraeli

"There are only two dialects of Irish, plain Irish and toothless Irish, and, lacking a proper acquaintance with the latter, I think I missed the cream of the old man's talk."

"It's not that the Irish are cynical. It's rather that they have a wonderful lack of respect for everything and everybody." Brendan Behan (1923-1964) Irish dramatist, author, on the Irish

June 9, 1887: The English gunboat The Banterer sailed the Sheriff of County Clare and several deputies to Clare Island to evict twelve members of the Tuohy family from land that belongs to the Crown. The Tuohy’s had been long time tenants on the property. “The scenes witnesses during the eviction” wrote the Chicago Tribune reporter on the scene “were deplorable” and two of the Tuohy women threw boiling whitewash on the sheriffs and were quickly arrested.

October 15, 1887: Peter Tuohy was arrested for assaulting an Officer Ruel in the basement of the Chicago Avenue Police Station after Ruel, arrested Tuohy’s friend Patrick Sweeney. An arrest warrant had been sworn out against Sweeney by a woman named Bridget McKinsey. Ruel found Sweeney on Huron Street and arrested him. On the way to the jail they passed Tuohy who decided to save his friend. As officer Ruel escorted Sweeney into the station basement, Tuohy attacked the cop, punching him in the temple and knocking him down. Then Sweeney joined in. The noise brought eight policemen to the scene. Tuohy was arrested and jailed.

September 16 1891: James Tuohy,24, bartender for political boss Danny Lonigan, shot and killed his brother in law, Constantine Morris, age 35, (AKA Morris the plasterer, an Englishman) in front of Morris’s house on 115 West Jackson Street in Chicago. The murdered ended a long feud between the two men that started when Morris refused to take the a sign with Tuohy’s father name on it from a boarding house once owned by the Tuohy’s and then owned by Morris after Tuohy’s father died. Tuohy went to the boarding house and pulled the sign from the property. When Morris tried to stop him, Tuohy killed him with a single shot. In the past Morris had threatened both of Tuohy’s brothers, Pat and Dan, with a loaded pistol.

1884: There was also a Police Detective named Tuohy (First name not reported) on the San Francisco Police force

San Francisco had a Judge Tuohy (First name unknown) on the bench in 1883. That year he sentenced to gamblers to death for the murder of another gambler.

McKenna, Joseph (1834-1926): US Attorney General and Justice of the Supreme Court.

Billy the Kid: Despite what Hollywood legends might say, Billy the Kid was born William or Henry Mccarthy right here in New York city in the area of where the Twin Towers stand today in or about 1862.
His father, died at age 35 when Billy was still and infant and Billy's mother, Cathrine, took her two sons west to Kansas where Billy grew up in a normal, happy environ¬ment. His mother opened a series of businesses ranging from a boarding house proprietor, washer women and farmer.
One time, when one of Billy's riding partners was shot in a misadventure, the kid rushed his friend in to the town of Trinidad Colorado for help but the town Doctor refused the outlaws treatment.
Billy took his friend to a nearby convent of the Sisters of Charity where the man was nursed back to health by a Sister Blandina, formally of Brooklyn.
    Seeing that his partner would live, Billy calmly announced to the Nun's that he would now walk down the street and shot the doctor to death for refusing his friend treatment.
    Sister Blandina talked the Kid out of it. However, before he left town, the Kid informed the Doctor that the only reason he was still alive was that the Sister Blandina wanted it that way.
Furthermore, the kid said, if he heard of any trouble between the towns folk and the Nun's for helping him, the Kid said he would be back to settle the issue "in God's favor"

Connelly, James: Union Hood   In 1953, the Retail Clerks International Association International called a strike on a Kansas City Department store that lasted for four years. Jerry Connelly, the Teamsters official who had taken over local 548 in 1951 with Jimmy James, dreamed up the strike. Both men had been involved in a murder investigation in Miami.
       After Connelly was indicted twice for extortion in 1954 and 1955, he was replaced as the head of the local by Sidney Brennan. Three months later the local was placed under trusteeship of the Kansas City Teamsters boss Roy Williams, who placed Connelly back in charge.
      In the early morning hours of February 11, 1956, the car of a Teamsters rival was blown up with dynamite. A jury decided that Connelly had planned the bombing. He was convicted but pulled strings and walked from the crime.

Curran, Micky AKA One Lung. A leader in the Gopher gang, Curran’s dubious claim to fame was that he started the fashion in gangland of wearing re-tailored police jackets. Legend says Curran was looking for a unique gift for his girlfriend, so he blackjacked a cop and stole his jacket. Currans girlfriend stitched it into a shorter cut and started a fad until police began patrolling Gopher territory in groups of four and five and the police jacket craze came to an end.

Flynn, James : FBI Agent was responsible for winning over New York mob informant Joe Valachi to the governments cause in the early 1960's. Valachi told a story about the mobsters efforts to recruit some local New York Irish street thugs in to his opera¬tion. The Irishmen were known more for their preference for day light stick ups then the more profitable but much less excit¬ing world of loan sharking and burglary.
"The Irish, they had a lot of nerve, but no business sense at all " He said. On one o ccasion, the last time he worked with the Irishmen, Valachi was burglarizing a store and posted two Irish¬men outside the store as watchmen.
When Valachi came out of the building he saw that the Irishmen had seven citizens lined up against a wall, hands in the air and were relieving them of their wallets
"What the hell are you guys doing ?" Valachi bellowed
"We're doing what we do best" one of the Irishmen said "we don't like your line of work, its boring"

Gas House Workers Union: A Chicago based labor union taken over by Big Tim Murphy in the early 1920's who took the title of President. He was booted out of the union by the membership after he was arrested on a mail robbery charge with Pete Gusenberg. Murphy and Gusenberg were suspected in the February 3, 1920 murder of Mossy Enright. Murphy's cellmate, when he was finally convicted, was Nicky Arnstein. Fanny Brice's boyfriend.

The Gophers: Early Irish Street Gang: The Gophers existed in New York City from about the early 1900s until Prohibition. At their peak, about 1907-09, the gang was believed to number around some 500 members.
    The gang was the most powerful of the early Hell's Kitchen Irish gangs. The Gophers were considered the lords of Hell's Kitchen, the tough Irish section of Manhattan. Their domain ran from Seventh Avenue to Eleventh Avenue and from Fourteenth Street to Forty-Second Street.
    Their specialties were burglarizing shops and pool halls and raiding the docks and the Hudson River Railroad. Occasionally the gang rented itself out as sluggers to various political candidates, depending on who paid the most, however most of their time was spent fighting other Irish, Italian and Jewish gangs around the area. The Gophers produced some of New Yorks most violent criminals including Monk Eastman and Happy Jack Mullraney
. The Gophers got their nickname from their fondness for hiding out in basements and cellars. They were reputed to have some 500 members. The main target of the Gophers was the New York Central railroad yards which ran through their territory.
   In the mid 1910s the New York Central Railroad, a prime target of the
Gophers stealing, organized a special police force to stop the gangs pillaging.
Without the protection the gang had enjoyed from corrupt politicians in the past, the Gophers were beaten, literally, from one end of Hell's Kitchen to the other by the hired police. The gang broke apart shortly afterwards.

Gallagher Newburgh: Last leader of New Yorks Gopher gang. The Gophers were decimated by clubs, blackjacks, and pistols within a few short months. Gallagher died in Sing Sing prison and the Gophers fell shortly afterwards.

Kearns, Jack: When the Chicago mobs point man on the west coast, Johnny Roselli walked out of prison on August 13, 1947, after serving his time on the Bioff charges, he was met at the gates by Jack Kearns, the fight promoter who had once handled Jack Dempsey's career. The two had met years before when Kearns was staging fights at the Los Angeles American Legion Stadium and Roselli was operating the Club New York. Kearns had a criminal record as a stock swindler which would have kept him away from Roselli or another convict just sprung but United States Congressman Tom O'Brien of Illinois had intervened on Kearns's behalf in 1947.

The Jimmy Curly Gang Early Irish Street Gang The Curly Gang operated in New York's 59th street section in the early 1900's. They took their grab for power in a broad day light rumble in 1914 when they met the equally powerful and deadly street gang the Gas Housers then under the leadership of Tommy Lynch who was killed in the fight. In the end, the Gas Houser’s were soundly defeated and the Curly gang reigned supreme on the streets until 1919 when the gang disappeared.

Kelley, Kevin, leader of the Westies gang, 1986-1988. After Westies boss Jimmy Coonan went to jail, Kelley Kenny Shannon, took control of the rackets in New York’s Kell’s Kitchen, and also started operating outside the West Side, pushing cocaine in Manhattan's Upper East Side. However, they grew to big to fast and by 1988 both Kelley and Shannon turned themselves into the FBI.

Knox, Johnny AKA Goo Goo. One time member and leader of the Gopher gang, Goo Goo Knox was also one of the founders of the Hudson Dusters that produced Legs Diamond (AKA John Nolan)

O’Brien Carlton: New England Gangster In 1952, the Rhode Island faction of the Mafia, which was technically under the leadership of Gennaro Buccola, decided to take over Rhode Island's rackets and went to war with a hood named Carlton O'Brien, for control over the area. O'Brien was dead before the year was over.

One Way Ride The One-Way ride was introduced into gangland by O'Bannion gang member Hymie Weiss in 1921. Weiss, who was second in command at the O'Bannion place, used the automobile, for the first time in American history, to take a victim, Steven Wisniewski, out for a ride with the intention of killing him. Wisniewski was driven out of the city, and shot in the head. When a reporter asked about the hood, Weiss replied, "He got took for a one way ride, that he didn't come back from."

Donovan, William J: Served as Assistant Attorney General during the Hoover administration.

Irish Confetti: Bricks tossed by Irish gangs in New York at other ethnic gangs. Donnybrook: A brawl. Shanty Irish: Meaning a low class Irishmen, from the word Ashanti,an African hut, the term drew out of a cartoon “King of the Ashan ti” Bog-troter: American and British Slang for a person of Irish decent. Lace-curtain Irish: An attempt by the sons and daughter of Famine Irish immigrants to achieve social status by showing off their material posessions.