Mr.
Schiff: Hi, welcome to "FBI 100, A Closer Look." I'm Neal Schiff of the Bureau's Office
of Public Affairs along with FBI Historian Dr. John Fox. John, in 1933 there was a very significant shootout that took place in the Midwest?
Dr.
Fox: "Yes Neal on June 17th a couple of our agents and several other law enforcement officers were escorting an escaped fugitive back to Leavenworth Penitentiary when they were ambushed outside the Union Train Station in Kansas City, Missouri.”
Mr. Schiff: The events of that fateful day really began in another state?
Dr. Fox: "We had been chasing Frank ‘Jelly’ Nash, a notorious gangster of the day, who was wanted on a number of criminal charges. And we found that he was hiding out in Hot Springs, Arkansas, kind of a spa for gangsters in some ways in those days. They had an agreement with local law enforcement that ‘we don’t shoot up the town, you don’t bother us’ sort of thing. And we wanted to return Nash back to the federal penitentiary at Leavenworth and he was captured down there and we tried to bring him back as quickly and as secretly as possible. But word got out. They saw us take Nash and a group was ready for us when we were getting out of the train at Kansas City.”
Mr.
Schiff:
John, what was the impact of the Kansas City Massacre?
Dr.
Fox: "It really shocked Americans. It was four law enforcement officers killed very early in the morning, just before eight o’clock, wide public venue. People were really shocked. The Attorney General said, in a sense, that there was a war on crime going on and that the federal government was losing it. And he began to ask Congress to increase the authority of the government to go after the gangsters. There were no federal crimes committed in Kansas City helping the fugitive to escape, killing a federal officer, those weren’t federal crimes. And so, in order for the Bureau to really be able to go after these gangsters, we needed new authority. And over the course of 1933 and into 1934, the Attorney General really pressed Congress to do that. And by May and June of ’34, Congress was willing to and gave the Bureau the authority to go after those gangsters. And within months we had wrapped up most of the major ones.”
Mr.
Schiff: Lots more FBI history on
the Internet at www.fbi.gov.
From the FBI’s Public Affairs office, along
with Bureau Historian Dr. John Fox, I'm Neal
Schiff with "FBI 100, A Closer Look."
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