Indianapolis Times, 26 November 1926, page 12: Three Shot as Gangsters Fight

Page 12 of the Indianapolis Times, Home Edition, Friday, 26 November 1926. The page is mostly advertising. The story is a short item in the second column headed “Three Shot as Gangsters Fight” with the deck “Hostilities Renewed in Chicago on Holiday.” It is credited to the United Press and datelined Chicago, November 26.

The dispatch says that “After lying dormant for almost two months, the bitter hatreds of Chicago’s gangland factions flared forth anew” in a Thanksgiving shooting that wounded three men. Two of them were “Thomas and Charles O’Donnell, brothers of Edward, better known as “Spike,” long prominent in Chicago beer circles.” It names a man police believed had been a member of the attacking group, says he was among the wounded, and says the O’Donnells “returned the fire.” The OCR of the headline reads “IHREESHOTAS”; the scan reads “Three Shot as.”

The O’Donnell brothers in this story are not the North Side group around O’Banion, Weiss and Moran. The page is filed in the Irish gangs section as contemporary wire coverage of another Chicago faction with an Irish name. The story’s references to other gangs are the reporter’s labels. This archive draws no conclusion about who fired first or why.