The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-07-30
LITTLE ITALY
MOURNS Child
GANG VICTIMS
Fear of SqueaIerS' Fate Is
Locking Lips of Those
Who Saw Shooting.
MOTHER vows REVENGE
Scores CompatriotS for
Lack of Courage in Turn
ing Up Criminals.
By United Press

~ united PreS8
NEW YORK, July 30.-Sicilian
mothers wept and muttered over
their dead and wounded children to-
day as tight-lipped neighbors, wit
neSses of whitening gunfire that
raked a group of playing children
Wednesday maintained a contrast
ing silence in the uproar caused by
the child butchering raid.
Police alternately viewed the bar
rage of bullets in Harlem's Little
Italy, that killed one child and
wounded four others, as the result
OF warfare between rival bootleg
rings, and gambling or bookmaking
cliques.
Several men have been questioned,
but police admitted this morning
they were without a single absolute
clew.
Their commissioner, Edward P.
Murooney, issued a statement di-
rected against sale of firearms; pub
lie officials were violent in their at
tack on the gunner; Governor
Franklin D. Roosevelt said it twas
damnable, but that won't help catch
them" Newspapers offered rewards.
Fear "Squealers'" Fate
But witnesses of the shooting
failed to identify the slayers, al
though a license number later
traced was obtained by investigators.
The neighborhood feared the So
called gangdom code that spelled
death to "squealers."
Among them all, residents Of the
shabby, densely populated district
near East One hundred seventh
street where the streets are the
Fairgrounds of the tenement young
sters one mother spoke her mind.
Mrs. Rose Bevilacqua, mother of
Michael, the 4-year-old boy shot
while he lay in a baby carriage,
Caid:
I'VE Italians are not courageous
enough to come out and tell what
We know. There won't be one per-
son in the street who'll tell.
Il wish to God 1 had seen that car.
If eve I set hands on the man who
shot my Michael, I'll cut him to
pieces. But my people will not talk.
We fear for our husbands, and
fathers, and brothers and sons"
SobS Over Bier
Her neighbor, Mrs. John Vengalli,
sobbed and walled over the bier Of
little Michael Vengalli, 5, who died
urhiIo che n1ncyNnI 1NnkAA~ nA31I
Salvatore, also wounded, and raced
with him to q hospital, not knowing
her younger child was dying. She
was comforted by Mikes sisters,
Rose, II and Marie, g..
The boy will be buried Saturday.
Sullen silence Wednesday night
had displaced happy, ~carefree
laughter, singing, and playing to
which the street long has been
accustomed of evenings. Visitors
swarmed in the block. Sound movie
cameras turned out hundreds of
feet of pictures of residents, bullet
holes in pock-marked brick walls,
and of a riddled baby carriage in
which n baby barely missed
DEATH.
Police Cover District
Fourteen additional police pa
trolled the district, already heavily
patrolled. There's a man to every
block. Plainclothesmen, fellow
men of the Italian residents, chat
ted with old friends, and tried to
make new n who could give them
the slightest clew to the gunner.
Cash rewards offered by news
papers may bring a flood of guard
ed clews. They have done so before.
The New York World-Telegram
first offered a $4,000 cash reward,
with the comment that 'if these
child killers escape, civilization
can't"
The New York American offered
$4,000 for information of the prin-
cipals in which it called a dull,
witless butchery."