The Gangster Squad, later known as the Organized Crime Intelligence Division (OCID), was a special unit of the

Los Angeles Police Department The City of Los Angeles Police Department, commonly referred to as Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), is the primary law enforcement agency of Los Angeles, California, United States. With 8,832 officers and 3,000 civilian staff, it is the th ...

(LAPD) formed in 1946 to keep the East Coast

Mafia "Mafia", as an informal or general term, is often used to describe criminal organizations that bear a strong similarity to the Sicilian Mafia, original Mafia in Sicily, to the Italian-American Mafia, or to other Organized crime in Italy, organiz ...

and

organized crime Organized crime is a category of transnational organized crime, transnational, national, or local group of centralized enterprises run to engage in illegal activity, most commonly for profit. While organized crime is generally thought of as a f ...

elements out of

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, California.

Origin

The squad was created by then

Chief of Police A chief of police (COP) is the title given to an appointed official or an elected one in the command hierarchy, chain of command of a police department, particularly in North America. A chief of police may also be known as a police chief or somet ...

Clemence B. Horrall in 1946. Initially organized as an eight-man intelligence detail, it became popularly known as the Gangster Squad. It was given the tasks of fighting organized crime and spying on corrupt cops. Criminals it targeted included

Mickey Cohen Meyer Harris "Mickey" Cohen (September 4, 1913 – July 29, 1976) was an American gangster based in Los Angeles and boss of the Cohen crime family during the mid-20th century. Early life Mickey Cohen was born on September 4, 1913, in New York ...

Jack Dragna Jack Ignatius Dragna (born Ignazio Dragna, ; April 18, 1891 – February 23, 1956) was a Sicilian-American American Mafia, Mafia member, entrepreneur and Black Hand (extortion), Black Hander who was active in both Italy and the United States ...

Bugsy Siegel Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel (; February 28, 1906 – June 20, 1947) was an American gangster, mobster who was a driving force behind the development of the Las Vegas Strip. Siegel was influential within the Jewish-American organized crime, Jewish Mo ...

, Jack Whalen and

Jimmy Fratianno Aladena James Fratianno (born Aladena Fratianno; November 14, 1913 – June 29, 1993), also known as "Jimmy the Weasel", was an Italian-born American mobster who was acting boss of the Los Angeles crime family. After his arrest in 1977, Fratian ...

History

Much like the events in the 2013 film '' Gangster Squad'', the real-life squad waged war on crime and did things that would be considered illegal by today's standards. As the real-life Sgt. Jack O'Mara later told the ''

Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...

'' in 2008: "We did a lot of things that we'd get

indicted An indictment ( ) is a formal accusation that a person has committed a crime. In jurisdictions that use the concept of felonies, the most serious criminal offense is a felony; jurisdictions that do not use that concept often use that of an indi ...

for today". In 1949, interim LAPD Chief William Worton increased the team's size and renamed it the Intelligence Division. William Parker became

chief Chief may refer to: Title or rank Military and law enforcement * Chief master sergeant, the ninth, and highest, enlisted rank in the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Space Force * Chief of police, the head of a police department * Chief of the boat ...

in 1950 and expanded the team even more, including the addition of a female field team.

In the media

* The 2013 action-drama film '' Gangster Squad'' is based on the LAPD's Gangster Squad (although with considerable departures from real-life people and events). *

Jack Webb John Randolph Webb (April 2, 1920 – December 23, 1982) was an American actor, television producer, Television director, director, and screenwriter, most famous for his role as Joe Friday in the Dragnet (franchise), ''Dragnet'' franchise ...

's 1954 film '' Dragnet'' is based on the Intelligence Division. * Author

James Ellroy Lee Earle "James" Ellroy (born March 4, 1948) is an American crime fiction writer and essayist. Ellroy has become known for a telegrammatic prose style in his most recent work, wherein he frequently omits connecting words and uses only short, ...

used a different, fictionalized version of the Gangster Squad, the "Mobster Squad", in his ''

L.A. Quartet The L.A. Quartet is a sequence of four crime fiction novels by James Ellroy set in the late 1940s through the late 1950s in Los Angeles. They are: * (1987) ''The Black Dahlia (novel), The Black Dahlia'' * (1988) ''The Big Nowhere'' * (1990) ''L.A ...

'' novels. The team is introduced in ''

L.A. Confidential ''L.A. Confidential'' (1990) is a neo-noir novel by American writer James Ellroy, the third of his L.A. Quartet series. It is dedicated to Mary Doherty Ellroy. The epigraph is "A glory that costs everything and means nothing"— Steve Erickso ...

'' (1990) and is headed up by corrupt LAPD captain Dudley Smith. Their duties included beating confessions out of suspects, scaring criminals out of town, and controlling and containing crime. * Similar units are depicted in the 1996 film ''

Mulholland Falls ''Mulholland Falls'' is a 1996 American neo-noir Crime film, crime Thriller (genre), thriller film directed by Lee Tamahori, written by Pete Dexter, and starring an ensemble cast featuring Nick Nolte, Jennifer Connelly, Chazz Palminteri, Michae ...

;'' and in the 2013 miniseries ''

Mob City ''Mob City'' is an American neo-noir crime drama television series created by Frank Darabont for TNT. It is based on real-life accounts of the L.A.P.D. and gangsters in 1940s Los Angeles as chronicled in John Buntin's book ''L.A. Noir: The Str ...

,'' where the squad is referred to as "Horrall's gang of thugs". * In the book ''L.A's Secret Police: Inside the Elite Spy Network,'' former OCID detective Mike Rothmiller discusses how, during the 1970s and '80s, the OCID was more interested in celebrities and politicians than actual mobsters. For example, he was denied permission to meet a major mob informant in

Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...

, while six officers were staked out a politician's beach house because of possible homosexual activity. * The 1950 film ''

711 Ocean Drive ''711 Ocean Drive'' is a 1950 American crime film noir directed by Joseph M. Newman and starring Edmond O'Brien, Joanne Dru and Otto Kruger. Plot Telephone technician Mal Granger, with knowledge of telephones and electronics, is hired by gang ...

'' depicts the Gangster Squad investigating a horserace betting syndicate.

Notes

References

* *

External links

* {{LAPD History of Los Angeles Los Angeles Police Department units Government agencies established in 1946