29. Violent Mob Visits Payback Upon the Mob
The assassination of New Orleans’ police chief created a backlash, and 19 mafiosi were arrested and prosecuted. In the first trial of 9 of them, the defendants successfully tampered with the jury. Despite overwhelming evidence, 6 were acquitted while the other 3 had hung juries. The following day, March 14th, 1891, a mob numbering in the thousands, including some of New Orleans’ most prominent citizens, broke into the prison housing the defendants. They lynched 11 of them – the biggest single mass lynching in US history.
That had a salutary effect on the mafia. Unlike Sicily and southern Italy, where criminals could act in brazen defiance of the authorities and society, with little to fear from either, America was different, with limits to what criminals could get away with. Thereafter, the American mafia adopted strict rules against targeting law enforcement, even preemptively killing mobsters seeking to go after cops or prosecutors.