Editing Johnny Torrio (section)

==Rivalry with North Side Gang==
Torrio headed an essentially Italian organized crime group that was the biggest in the city, with Capone as his right-hand man. However, many other gangs were active in Chicago at this time, and Torrio was wary of being drawn into gang wars and tried to negotiate agreements over territory between rival crime groups. In 1920, Torrio built an agreement between most of Chicago's bootlegging gangs into a city-wide cartel.<ref name="Binder-2017"/> The smaller [[North Side Gang]] led by [[Dean O'Banion]] was of mixed ethnicity and was a member of the bootlegging cartel. In 1924, the North Side Gang discovered that the Genna brothers, close to Torrio's gang, were selling their booze in North Side Gang territory. O'Banion went to Torrio, who was unhelpful with the encroachment of the Gennas into the North Side despite his pretensions to be a settler of disputes.<ref>{{cite book|title=Capone:The Man and the Era|url=https://archive.org/details/caponemanera00berg|url-access=registration|author-link=Laurence Bergreen|last=Bergreen|first=Laurence|year=1994|publisher=Simon and Schuster Paperbacks|location=New York|isbn=978-0-684-82447-5|pages=[https://archive.org/details/caponemanera00berg/page/131 131–132]|access-date=March 18, 2020}}</ref> As a result, the North Side Gang responded by hijacking Genna beer shipments.

In May 1924, O'Banion learned that the police planned to raid the Sieben brewery on a particular night. Before the raid, O'Banion approached Torrio and told him he wanted to sell his share in the brewery, claiming that he wanted to leave the rackets and retire to Colorado. Torrio agreed to buy O'Banion's share and gave him half a million dollars. On the morning of the deal, the police (including the police chief) raided and shut down the brewery. Torrio, O'Banion, and several others were arrested. Torrio was indicted on bootlegging charges, a repeat offense for him with mandatory jail time. Torrio realized he had been betrayed and conned out of $500,000 by O'Banion.<ref name=Binder-2017/>

Torrio would have immediately attempted to retaliate against O'Banion and the North Side Gang had it not been for [[Mike Merlo]], head of the [[Italian-American National Union|Unione Siciliana]] labor organization. Merlo had a vested interest in keeping the peace between Chicago's gangs, and he convinced Torrio to forestall any violence against the North Side Gang.<ref name=Binder-2017/>

Mike Merlo died of cancer on November 8, 1924. On November 10, three men entered O'Banion's [[Schofield's Flowers]] shop under the pretense of buying flowers for Merlo's funeral and shot O'Banion dead. The killers are reputed to have been [[Frankie Yale]], [[John Scalise]], and Albert Anselmi, acting on Torrio's behalf.<ref name=Binder-2017/>

O'Banion's death placed [[Hymie Weiss]] at the head of the North Side Gang, backed by [[Vincent Drucci]] and [[Bugs Moran]]. Weiss had been a close friend of O'Banion, and the North Siders made it a priority to get revenge on his killers.<ref>Bergreen, pp&nbsp;134–135</ref><ref>Bergreen, p. 138</ref><ref name="myalcaponemuseum.com">{{cite web|url=http://www.myalcaponemuseum.com/id89.htm|title=Hymie Weiss|website=My Al Capone Museum|access-date=October 2, 2018}}</ref>