Here’s a look back at what happened in the Chicago area on Nov. 10, according to the Tribune’s archives.
Is an important event missing from this date? Email us.
Vintage Chicago Tribune: Lake Michigan shipwrecks close to the city
Weather records (from the National Weather Service, Chicago)
- High temperature: 76 degrees (2022)
- Low temperature: 18 degrees (2017)
- Precipitation: 2.37 inches (1995)
- Snowfall: 0.4 inches (1991)
1924: While arranging flowers for the funeral of gang affiliate Mike Merlo, florist and bootlegger Dean O’Banion, notorious for his erratic and murderous behavior, turned to greet three men. They shot him six times.
“O’Banion sprawled on the floor beneath the pots of roses, which shook of his body hitting the show case as it fell,” a Tribune reporter noted. “Out of the front door sped O’Banion’s wagon driver. Some say he started in pursuit of the murderers. Some say he was too scared to stop. But he hadn’t been heard from late last night.”
Shot dead in his flower shop, bootlegger Dean O’Banion got a classic gangland sendoff
O’Banion’s slaying sparked a gangland war, and gave him both pop-culture and literary fame. The protagonist of the 1931 movie “The Public Enemy,” starring James Cagney, was based on O’Banion. A fictionalized O’Banion similarly appeared in HBO’s series “Boardwalk Empire.”
Schofield’s Flowers, which was torn down in 1960, was directly across State Street from Holy Name Cathedral. As a youngster, O’Banion sang in the choir.
2016: Karen Finley, ex-CEO of Redflex Traffic Systems, Chicago’s red-light camera vendor, was sentenced to 2½ years in a decade-long bribery scheme. Finley faced up to five years in prison but was given a break for cooperating against John Bills, a longtime City Hall insider who steered multimillion-dollar contracts to Redflex in return for hundreds of thousands of dollars in cash bribes and lavish gifts.
Also in 2016: Former Illinois congressman Aaron Schock was indicted on 24 charges. The alleged crimes — theft of government funds, fraud, making false statements and filing false tax returns — began soon after Schock first entered the House of Representatives in 2008.
Aaron Schock’s journey from political star to criminal defendant
After he resigned amid a federal investigation, Schock was hit with a sweeping criminal indictment in Springfield alleging he used his government and campaign funds to pay for personal luxuries, including private jets, skybox tickets at Soldier Field and traveling to get a haircut.
Schock in 2019 reached a deal with prosecutors, who agreed to drop charges against him if he stayed out of trouble and paid $42,000 to the IRS and paid back $68,000 to his congressional campaign fund. His campaign committee pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.
The Dishonor Roll: Meet the public officials who helped build Illinois’ culture of corruption
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