True Life Tuesday: The Purple Gang

The Purple Gang, also known as the Sugar House Gang was a group of criminals who were active in Detroit during the 1920s and 1930s.

In 1917 the Michigan legislature banned the sale and consumption of alcohol, 3 years before the constitutional amendment making it illegal nation wide. The ban led to bootleggers would smuggle alcohol in from Ohio, where it was still legal, and Canada. When the amendment was passed Windsor, Ontario, across the river from Detroit, became a major port in the smuggling trade. The all lead to the rise of the Purple Gang.

The gang was mostly made up of the American born children of Jewish immigrants, mostly from Poland and Russia. Most of the members live on Hastings Street on the city's lower east side. The neighborhood was nicknamed "Paradise Valley". The group was led by brothers Abe, Joe, Raymond and Izzy Bernstein. There is debate about how the gang got its name. The first story is that one of the members was a boxer who wore purple trunks in the ring. The second is that in a conversation about the gang between two shop keepers one of the said that the boys were "rotten, purple like the color of bad meat, they're a purple gang." They started out as petty thieves and extortionists but they eventually moved onto armed robbery and truck hijacking. They eventually earned a reputation for stealing the alcohol from older and more established gangs. For many years the gang managed the business of supplying Canadian whisky to Al Capone's organization in Chicago. Kidnapping members of rival gangs and holding them for ransom also became one of their crimes. The FBI also had suspicions that they were involved in the Linbergh baby kidnapping. By the late 1920's the gang reigned over the Detroit underworld. The gang began hiring their members out as hitmen. In 1927 nine members were arrested and charged with conspiracy for attempting to extort money from cleaners and dyers in the city. They were all eventually acquitted of the charges. The gang was also suspected of being a part of the St. Valentine's Day massacre even though it was never proven. 

The gang seemed to be untouchable. Witnesses would refuse to testify because of their fear of the members. Soon feuds between the Purple Gang and other Italian and Irish bootleggers over territory. Eventually the gang became sloppy and arrogant. There was also a lot of infighting among the members. Eventually a Sicilian gang became fed up and ended up eliminating the gang in 1932. The gang was memorialized in movies and on TV. There is also a line about the gang in the Elvis Presley song Jailhouse Rock. Detroit rapper Proof has a song about the group call Purple Gang. Finally, Raymond Chandler wrote about the gang in his novel Farewell, My Lovely.