User:CaseyChoCSULB/Milwaukee Police Department bombing

Lead
In September 1917, an incident between police and anarchists in the Bay View neighborhood of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, precipitated a larger campaign of Galleanist attacks across the United States. In response to a rally held by a reverend near their clubhouse, the Galleanist anarchists of the Ferrer Circle rushed the stage and tore down the American flag. The police fired on them, killing two, and two detectives were injured in the crossfire. A retaliatory bomb intended for the reverend was relocated to the police headquarters, where its explosion killed nine detectives and a bystander. No one was convicted for this bombing. The November trial of Bay View anarchists for the earlier shooting incident was influenced by sentiment related to the bombing. The jury returned a quick guilty verdict despite what historian Paul Avrich described as insubstantial evidence. The verdict was overturned on appeal and most of the anarchists were released and deported. Until the September 11 attacks, according to the FBI Criminal Justice Information Services Division, the police station explosion was the worst recorded American police tragedy.

Incident
On Sunday, September 9, 1917, the Methodist minister of the Milwaukee Italian Evangelical Church, Augusto Giuliani, held a rally in Bay View, a largely Italian neighborhood, near the Francisco Ferrer Circle clubhouse. Giuliani was a former Catholic priest from Rome who had converted to Protestantism. In Italy, he had baptized the son of Guglielmo Marconi before he had married an American missionary and joined her evangelization efforts in Bay View. Giuliani's missionary endeavours were opposed by both the largely Catholic Italian population in the neighborhood as well as the anarchists due to Giuliani's efforts to instill patriotism and support for the war among immigrants.

As Giuliani finished his speech and the crowd sang "America", the Ferrer Circle's Galleanist anarchists mounted the platform and tore down the American flag. Police fired on the demonstrators. The Circle's theater group director Antonio Fornasier was shot through his heart and died immediately. Augusto Marinelli fired back with a pistol and was shot in the chest, hospitalized, and died from his wounds five days later. Bartolo Testalin was shot in the back and survived. Two detectives had non-serious wounds.

The police arrested eleven anarchists. They described Mary Nardini as the riot's instigator. The police raided the Circle's clubhouse, confiscated anarchist publications, and roughed up Circle members.

Retaliation
In Mexico, the Bay View incident spurred exiled Galleanists to retaliate. They had been planning their reprisal for the arrest of their mentor, the Italian–American insurrectionary anarchist Luigi Galleani, since his arrest in June 1917. After the September incident, three members of the group traveled to Chicago and Youngstown, Ohio.

On the evening of November 24, an iron pipe bomb was discovered in the basement of Giuliani's Italian Evangelical Church.It was moved to the police headquarters for inspection where, while handled and joked about by detectives, it went off. The explosion killed ten detectives, including one who had been wounded at the September rally, and a female bystander who had come to report a robbery. Six additional police personnel were seriously injured: a lieutenant and five detectives.

The bombmaker was never identified. Historian of anarchism Paul Avrich wrote that it might have been local Ferrer Circle anarchists, but it was more likely to have been two of the Galleanists from Mexico, Mario Buda with the assistance of Carlo Valdinoci, coming from Chicago and Youngstown, respectively. The Chicago Police Chief responsible for arresting the Haymarket anarchists sent two detectives who spoke Italian, to no avail.

Trial
The eleven anarchists involved in the Bay View incident were put on trial in late November. Though the anarchists were being tried for assault with intent to murder two detectives, observers believed that they were really on trial for the police station explosion. While only one or two of the accused had participated in the shooting, eleven were on trial. Testalin, for one, asked who he was accused of attempting to kill, having been shot in the back at the rally and detained since. The prosecution sought to prove conspiracy, similar to the Haymarket trial, that even if the defendants did not participate in the shooting, they were involved in the plan. The attorney cited the Circle's seized anarchist literature as evidence of their conspiratorial intentions.

The trial's jury returned in just 17 minutes with a guilty verdict despite what historian Paul Avrich described as insubstantial evidence. The verdict was later appealed and overturned. Most of the defendants were released and deported.

Impact
The Bay View incident was the opening salvo in a series of attacks between police and the Galleanists across the United States.

The police station bombing, while not intended for the police, was, according to the FBI Criminal Justice Information Services Division, the country's "worst police tragedy" prior to the September 11 attacks. No one was convicted for the bombing.

Lead
The Milwaukee Police Department bombing was a November 24, 1917, bomb attack that killed nine members of local law enforcement and a civilian in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, United States. The perpetrators were never caught but are suspected to be an anarchist terrorist cell operating in the United States in the early 20th century. The target was initially an evangelical church in the Third Ward and only killed the police officers when the bomb was taken to the police station by a concerned civilian. The bombing remained the most fatal single event in national law enforcement history for over 80 years until the September 11 attacks.

Background
On September 9th, 1917, Rev. Augusto Giuliani of the Milwaukee Italian Evangelical Church held a rally near a local Galleanist meeting spot in Milwaukee's Bay View neighborhood. When the anarchists disrupted the rally, police fired on the demonstrators, killing two, arresting 11, and leading to a raid on the Galleanists.

The bombing
A little over two months later, on November 24, 1917, a large black powder bomb wrapped as a package was discovered by Maude L. Richter, a social worker, next to Rev. Giuliani's church in the Third Ward. She dragged the package into the church basement and notified the church janitor, Sam Mazzone. Mazzone took the bomb to the central police station at Oneida and Broadway and turned it over to the Milwaukee Police Department. The station keeper was showing it to the shift commander, Lieutenant Flood, right before a scheduled inspection, when it exploded. Nine members of the department were killed in the blast, along with a female civilian who had come to report a robbery. The police detective who faced the full brunt of the explosion was reported to have been found with his body mangled while one officer was killed while on the second floor. The explosion was loud enough to be heard throughout much of the city and attracted a crowd of thousands to the police station.

Casualties
Nine members of the Milwaukee Police Department were killed as well as Catherine Walker, who was in the police station reporting a robbery.

Aftermath
It was suspected at the time that the bomb had been placed outside the church by the Galleanist anarchists who had been involved in the Bay View incident. Those responsible were never apprehended, but days later the eleven alleged Italian anarchists previously arrested went to trial on charges stemming from the Bay View incident. The specter of the larger, uncharged crime of the bombing haunted the proceedings and assured convictions of all eleven. However, in 1918, Clarence Darrow led an appeal that gained freedom for most of the convicted. To aid the investigation, the Chicago Police Chief responsible for arresting the Haymarket anarchists sent two detectives who spoke Italian, to little effect.

While historian of anarchism Paul Avrich have suggested the local Ferrer Circle anarchists may have been responsible, interviews with surviving Galleanist members implicated Mario Buda, chief bombmaker for the Galleanists, who may have constructed the Milwaukee bomb with the aid of Carlo Valdinoci. both of whom may have been coming from Mexico. Buda and Valdinocci had previously fled with many other Galleanists to Mexico in order to evade the draft. At the time, the bombing was the most fatal single event in national law enforcement history, only surpassed later by the September 11 attacks.