Apr 29th
2019THE STOOL PIGEON & THE HOLDUP (1931)

(The New York Police Department has several thousand photographs of crime scenes available online at the City’s Department of Records. Many of them are gruesome. But they are great pictures for doing research. The picture in this blog post was taken after a holdup at 729 4th Avenue in 1931. Although the pictures usually have limited or poor information associated with the photos, after a bit of some rudimentary research, we can usually find the whole story in old newspaper archives. Finding these, we are able to piece together the story behind the photograph.) THE STOOL PIGEON & THE BODYGUARD The picture above (the black & white inset photograph) is the scene of a holdup, which took place at 729 4th Avenue, Brooklyn, on 16 May 1931. Two men were shot during the event, but before it took place, another – providential – event occurred, which stymied the holdup and caused the arrests of the three men. Chile Acuna, whose revelations pried off the lid of police vice squad conditions (read about it here) was arriving home at 740 4th Avenue around 11:30 p.m. on 16 May 1931. His wife and their two kids were with them. So was their bodyguard, Patrolman William F. O’Brien. THE HOLDUP Noticing the vehicle at the curb of the drugstore across the street, O’Brien observed what happened next. He saw three men exit the vehicle while the fourth remained at the wheel. As the three men approached the drugstore, O’Brien told Acuna: “Run upstairs […]