Evening Star, 15 February 1929, page 1: Police massacred 7 for cutting off protection money, dry agent thinks

Front page of the Evening Star, Friday, 15 February 1929. The story is credited “By the Associated Press” and datelined Chicago, February 15. It opens: “Maj. Fred D. Silloway, assistant prohibition administrator, today advanced the theory that police officers themselves killed the seven gangsters shot to death in a North Side gang stronghold yesterday.”

The report sets out Silloway’s account: a hijacking of whisky from the Moran gang six weeks earlier, a stop to protection payments, and witnesses’ descriptions of men in police uniforms and a car resembling a police squad car. It then reports that Police Commissioner Russell called the statement “all rot,” and that a police captain called the idea that police were involved ridiculous. The decks add that State’s Attorney Swanson suspected a Detroit gang and that the inquest had opened. The story continues on page 2.

Silloway’s theory is printed as his statement and was disputed on the same page; this archive does not treat it as a finding. The Library of Congress OCR reads the headline figure as “1”; the page image shows “7”.