Mad Dog Coll

Vincent Coll
Mugshot of Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll.
Born	Uinseann Ó Colla (1908-07-20)July 20, 1908 Gweedore, County Donegal, Ireland
Died	February 8, 1932(1932-02-08) (aged 23) New York City
Resting place	Saint Raymond's Cemetery, The Bronx
Nationality	Irish, American
Other names	"Mad Dog"
Occupation	Mobster, Hitman, Kidnapper, Bootlegger
Known for	Hitman for Dutch Schultz and Prohibition-era gang leader

Vincent "Mad Dog" Coll (born Uinseann Ó Colla, July 20, 1908 – February 7, 1932) was an Irish American mob hitman in the 1920s and early 1930s in New York City. Coll gained notoriety for the alleged accidental killing of a young child during a mob kidnap attempt.

Coll was born in Gweedore, an Irish-speaking region of County Donegal, Ireland; his family emigrated to the U.S. a year later. Coll was a distant relative of the former Northern Ireland Assemblywoman Bríd Rodgers.

When Vincent was not quite one year old his father, Toaly, decided to move the family, his wife, and seven children to New York in search of a better life. After settling in the Bronx in 1909, they remained trapped in poverty. Five of Vincent’s six siblings died before he was twelve. His mother died of tuberculosis in 1916, worn out after years of trying to provide for her children. Vincent’s father Toaly had simply run off years before and was never heard from again. After his mother’s death, Vincent's surviving sister tried to raise him in a cold-water flat when Vincent was eleven.

Coll was raised in The Bronx by an elderly woman who took him in as her own. At age 12, Coll was first sent to a reform school. After being expelled from multiple Catholic reform schools, he joined The Gophers street gang. Run-ins with the law were almost inevitable. Vincent soon developed a reputation for being a wild child of the streets and began the first of several stints in Catholic reform school before he reached his teens. For example, at age 12 he was arrested for unlawful entry and sent to a Catholic reform school. Four years later he was arrested for carrying a gun, and by the age of 23 he had been arrested a dozen times. In the late 1920s he started working as an armed guard for the illegal beer delivery trucks of Dutch Schultz's mob.

Before prohibition, Irish gangs dominated the Bronx and Manhattan, but during the prohibition era the mobs were increasingly Italian and Jewish and controlled by the likes of Dutch Schultz, Charles Luciano, Bugsy Siegel and Louis Lepke. Schultz, the son of a barkeeper, built up an empire of speakeasies, clandestine alcohol stills and breweries during the early years of prohibition. In a tough business, with rival gangs constantly trying to carve out their own territory, Schultz needed ruthless, violent young men with a talent for intimidation and killing. Vincent Coll had all of that in spades and started out as an enforcer for Schultz, when he was still in his mid-teens.