Bill Lovett

William J. "Wild Bill" Lovett (July 15, 1894 – November 1, 1923) was an Irish American gangster in early 20th century New York.

Born in Lixnaw, County Kerry, Ireland, Lovett was brought to New York City as a child and first fell in with the local Irish gangs around the Brooklyn waterfront as a teenager. The day after America's entry into World War I, Lovett enlisted in the United States Army. He was assigned to Company C, 13th Machine Gun Battalion, 77th Infantry Division. During fierce combat on the Western Front, Lovett was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for bravery. Upon his return to Brooklyn, he resumed his place as head of the Jay Street Gang, a group of toughs who sparred with Dinny Meehan's rival White Hand Gang for control of Brooklyn's lucrative waterfront rackets.

Lovett was labeled by the media as the new "leader" of the White Hand Gang after he took control of the waterfront rackets upon the killing of Dinny Meehan, who was shot while sleeping at his home with his wife at his side on the afternoon of March 31, 1920 (the press lumped both Lovett's and Meehan's gang together). While Italian gangster Frankie Yale is long thought to have arranged the murder, Meehan's killers casually entered his apartment in broad daylight, even stopping to chat with his young son, something rival Italian mobsters were unlikely to have done. Police at the time, in fact, believed that Meehan was probably done in by his arch-rival, Wild Bill Lovett.

Despite being well-educated and articulate, Wild Bill was a temperamental alcoholic who made even his own men nervous (he shot one of them for pulling a cat's tail; Lovett loved animals and couldn't stand to see them suffer). Rather than move his gang into the new business of bootlegging, Lovett's main income came from dockside extortion, burglary, and other crimes. Although Wild Bill is long thought by urban legend to have fought a desperate gang war with Italian mobster Frankie Yale, the greatest threat to Lovett's power was from rival Irish gangsters who wanted a bigger piece of the waterfront action. Wild Bill was suspected by police of killing Samuel DeAngelo in September 1919 and Dan Gillen in September 1920; in both cases, he beat the rap.

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