L.A. Noir: The Struggle for the Soul of America's Most Seductive City

      MAYOR BOWRON was determined to eradicate the Combination. Shaw’s defeat and Chief Davis’s resignation had clearly dealt the underworld a major blow, but Bowron knew that its tentacles still extended deep into municipal government and into the LAPD. Soon after his election, Bowron invited Jim Richardson, city editor of the Hearst-owned Los Angeles Examiner, the feisty morning paper that was the Times’s fiercest competitor, to join him for lunch at the Jonathan Club downtown to talk strategy. The topic of their discussion was uprooting the Combination once and for all.

“We’ve got to find out the facts,” Bowron told the newsman over lunch. “We’ve got to get the evidence of how it was operated, who put out the bribe money and who took it. Who are the crooks in the police department and how did the whole setup operate? We can’t do much, hardly anything, until we get that information; and how are we going to get it?”

“There’s only one way,” Richardson responded. “We’ve got to get somebody to spill his guts.”

A few days later, Richardson realized someone might be willing to talk: Tony Cornero. During his bootlegging days in the 1920s, Cornero had conducted a guns-blazing feud with Combination leader Milton “Farmer” Page. That feud had ended with Cornero’s arrest, followed by an amazing escape to Canada. In 1929, Cornero had voluntarily returned to the United States and served two years in a federal penitentiary on McNeil Island, in the Puget Sound. He returned to Los Angeles in 1931 and hit upon a characteristically wily scheme. Rather than going up against underworld rivals and the LAPD, Cornero decided to commission gambling ships that would operate in international waters off Santa Monica Bay. Offshore gambling proved a smashing success; Cornero had reveled in one-upping his old land based rivals. But Richardson knew Cornero still held a grudge against his old rivals in what remained of the Combination. The newspaperman thought the old bootlegger-turned-nautical casino operator might well be willing to do them one last bad turn. So he called Cornero and asked if he’d meet secretly with him—and with Mayor Bowron—to help the mayor finish off his old enemies. Cornero readily agreed. A midnight summit was arranged at Bowron’s house, on a hill high above the Hollywood Bowl.

The night of the meeting, only six people were present—the mayor, his driver, the head of the Police Commission, Richardson and a colleague, and Cornero. Cornero began by explaining how the underworld operated, but what Bowron really wanted were names—names of police officers on the take.

Cornero handed Bowron a piece of paper. On it was a list of twenty-six compromised police officers. Bowron was thrilled—and puzzled.

“Thank you, Tony,” the mayor told the gangster. “You have done us a big service. In fact, you’ve done the city of Los Angeles a big service.” He paused and then continued. “But there’s only one thing I can’t understand. I can’t understand why you’re doing this. I mean, I can’t see what’s in it for you?”

Cornero smiled and then replied. “Well, Your Honor,” he began, “you are not always going to be mayor of Los Angeles. Someday you’ll be out. It may be the next election or ten years from now. I’ve given you the stuff to put the Syndicate out of business. Out it goes! Then comes the day when you’re out too. Then the field is open again. And it will be mine. It will be open for someone else to take over. Do I make myself clear?”

“You make it clear all right,” Bowron replied. The meeting was over. It was time to clean house at the LAPD.

There was just one problem. The testimony of a convicted felon like Tony Cornero was not exactly something that would hold up in court or even in an administrative hearing, given the protections that Bill Parker and the Fire and Police Protective League had so painstakingly enacted. So Mayor Bowron and his Police Commission decided to take an extraordinary step. They hired an ex-FBI man to investigate the officers in question and tap their phones. By the end of the investigation, Bowron was confident that the men were indeed corrupt. Over the course of two days, each was summoned to the mayor’s office individually and asked for his resignation. When an officer hesitated—or refused—the mayor reached over to the sound recorder and played an incriminating section of the wiretap. Most of the officers agreed to resign on the spot. In two days, much of the top echelon of the department was gone. Within six months, a dozen more had followed.