平民私自處刑黑幫？為什麼美國黑幫禁止殺害警察？

01-29

原問題：Why does the Mafia have a rule against killing cops?

In the 1880s, two New Orleans mob factions had a gang war over control of the waterfront. The violence spilled over, putting pressure on the authorities to act, and when New Orleans』 police chief launched an investigation, he was assassinated in 1890. His last words were 「the Dagoes shot me「.

在19世紀80年代，新奧爾良的兩個黑幫團體，就濱海區的控制權發生了火併爭鬥。暴力一發不可收拾，使得當局不得不採取行動，當新奧爾良的警官發動調查時，他於1890年被刺殺了。他的遺言是：「拉丁佬殺了我。」

That created an uproar, and 19 mobsters were arrested and prosecuted. In the first trial of 9 hoodlums, the mob tampered with the jury, and despite overwhelming evidence, 6 were acquitted while the other 3 had hung juries.

警官之死引發了騷動，19名黑幫成員被逮捕並起訴。然而在其中9名歹徒的審理中，黑幫做了手腳，即使有鐵證在場，仍有6名被判無罪，3名無法定罪。

The next day, March 14th, 1891, a mob numbering in the thousands, including some of the city』s leading citizens, broke into the prison and lynched 11 mafiosi – the biggest single mass lynching in US history.

但是在第二天，1891年的三月14日，包括該城社會頂尖人物在內的數千名市民衝進監獄，私自處死了監獄裡的11名黑手黨。這是美國歷史上最大規模的私自處刑。

That had a salutary effect on the mafia, demonstrating that unlike Sicily and southern Italy, where criminals could act in brazen defiance of the authorities and society, with little to fear from either, America was different, with limits to what criminals could get away with. They could act all big and bad and brave in the Old Country, killing cops and prosecutors and judges. Here, that brazen shyte would get them murked.

事件對美國法制起了良好影響。這證明美國不像西西里島，或是義大利南部那樣，黑幫可以恬不知恥，無法無天地對抗當局和社會各界，美國卻對黑幫有一定的忍耐限度。他們盡可以在老家裡大搞特搞，不怕強權，殺害警察、律師和法官。但是在美國，這樣的行為會使他們自受其咎。

Ever since, the American mafia had strict rules against targeting law enforcement, even preemptively killing mafiosi who seemed like they』re about to go after cops or prosecutors, lest they bring down unwanted heat on the rest. In the 1930s, then-special prosecutor Thomas Dewey was going after the NYC mob hard, when leading gangster Dutch Schultz decided to assassinate him. Mob boss Lucky Luciano, even though Dewey was coming after Luciano gangbuster style, had Schultz killed instead of risk the consequences of a mobster killing somebody like Dewey.

後來，美國黑幫就制訂了嚴格的規定，不得以執法人員為目標，甚至也不能攻擊那些即將報案的其他黑手黨，防止帶來不必要的麻煩。在19世紀30年代，當時的私人辯護律師托馬斯·杜威正陷入與紐約市黑幫的紛爭，其中一個頭子達基·舒爾茲想要刺殺他。儘管杜威是個眼中釘，黑幫大佬查理·盧西安諾直接殺了舒爾茲，以免杜威這樣公眾人物死亡帶來的麻煩。