The machine guns came out, slaughtering the seven men with over 100 bullets. The event made national headlines and shocked the world. The people killed were not called gangsters or bootleggers. It was recognized that they were human beings and we could not endure the violence we had created by prohibition. Today, events far worse than this happen regularly.
Most people wring their hands and blame it on drugs.
Americans have become callous about tragedies like this unless they happen in their own neighborhoods. Those killed are dehumanized by drug war rhetoric. Adding to the damage is the fact that most of the victims today are young, Black or Hispanic males. The destructiveness of drug prohibition is hidden in the smoke-screen of crime created by the policy.