Slaying Follows U. S. Raids on Chicago “Bad Lands.” Deportations Asked.
CHICAGO, February 24. —As immigration inspectors prepared deportation proceedings against a dozen aliens taken in raids on “Little Italy” and planned to renew their round-up next week, a man, identified as Baldelli, the Eagle, was found shot to death in an alley today.
He was the forty-first victim of gang warfare in recent years.
The man had been shot and apparently carried to the spot in an automobile. In his clothing was found a notice that his application to be a policeman had been filed.
A card found in his pocket was that of a partner of Orazio Tropea, the “Scourage,’’ whose assassination, climaxing others, precipitated the action of the immigration authorities to weed out undesirable aliens.
Police called attention to the fact that, despite the drive, a lull of only one day had brought a killing. The immigration Inspectors, after arresting 121 in raids Monday night, suspended further round-ups until next week.
The officials made it plain they were not working against law-abiding citizens of any racial groups, but rather against certain undesirables whose operations brought disrepute to their countrymen.
The president of an athletic club and a chauffeur told the police they thought the assassins’ victim was Baldelli. An examination disclosed he had been given a terrific beating.
The police thought the slaying had no connection with an earlier shooting affray between two rival gangs in automobiles, which raced on a West Side boulevard while occupants exchanged some two dozen shots. One man, giving his name as George Farrell, was captured when he jumped from one of the automobiles and fled into a residence, begging to be saved.
Evening Star, Washington, DC, February 24, 1926