Shondor Birns

Two months later, Rudy Duncan took his 11-year-old foster son, Stanley to a movie show at the Uptown theater outside E. 105th Street and Saint Clair Avenue. Afterwards, they walked to a confectionery for ice cream. When they got into their car back in the theater parking lot, two men wearing white cotton gloves walked up alongside, one on each side. With a terrified Stanley crouching in the seat, they fired five bullets into Duncan. Police immediately began a search for Birns. They found him, but they couldn't find evidence to tie him to the murder. He was released. Duncan's murder went officially unsolved.

One of the best known African-American organized crime figures was Don King, the future boxing promoter. According to a 1988 Plains Dealer series by Christopher Evans, "King was flamboyant — always seen with a .38 in his belt and a big cigar in his mouth". In the mid-1960s, King and his partner, a Cleveland prize-fighter named Victor Ogletree were reportedly grossing $15,000 a day on policy. King first gained a reputation prominence in 1954, after he thwarted an attempted armed robbery on one of his gambling houses, by killing one of the stick-up men. The shooting was deemed a justifiable homicide.

In the following weeks, homicide investigators wrongly concentrated on African-American organized crime as suspects rather than Danny Greene. On Birns and the supposed involvement of black people in his murder, one black numbers operator said: "It's dumb to talk about blacks doing Shondor. Shon wasn't no bad fella. He was white but it didn't make no difference. Shon had a black soul. He was black through and through. Shit, there wasn't no racial prejudice in that goddamn Shondor Birns at all. He was a helluva guy.... No, No. There ain't gonna be no more Shondors...." Kevin McTaggert, a henchman for Danny Greene, later told the FBI that Greene had hired Hells Angels member Enis Crnic to kill Birns in return for $7,500. Crnic was later killed while attempting to attach a car bomb to a vehicle belonging to mafia associate John "Johnny Del" Delzoppo on April 5, 1977.

In March 1975, Holy Saturday, the eve of Easter, Birns was blown up via a bomb containing C-4, a potent military explosive, in the lot behind Christy's Lounge, the former Jack & Jill West Lounge, a go-go spot at 2516 Detroit Ave. Birns was blown several feet through the roof of the car and his torso landed near the passenger door. A man who walked Birns to his car braved flames and smoke and located him near the car. Apparently, Birns was still alive, though barely. The man only managed to drag away Birns's upper torso. His face, arms and chest were bloodied and blackened. Birns' nose was broken when his body landed on the street after being blown out the top of his car. His hair was scorched off from the heat of the blast. Birns had been blown in half. His severed legs landed fifty feet away and other smaller parts of him were scattered all over the place. Towards his death, the upper part of his body was convulsing violently. A chain link fence between Christy's and St. Malachi Church caught many of the smaller fragments of flesh and bone. At first glance, they resembled steaming pieces of meat.

By the 1970s, Alex Birns had mellowed significantly, playing handball daily and spending several hours on lunch and a cocktail or two. He didn't want any more trouble. He promised his parole officer, "Kid, I don't break any provisions of parole. I'll tell you why. If I go back to jail, I'll die there."

For a relatively small cut of their profits, $1,000 weekly, Birns had been serving as a peacemaker and mediator of disputes among the blacks. He also laid off or distributed big bets to other cities like Pittsburgh, so no single operator lost too much if a number came up. In 1968, after a massive investigation into his assets by the Internal Revenue Service, Birns was convicted and sent to federal prison for lying about his assets.

Birns had been suspected of two murders, including that of a financier named Mervin Gold. In the 1960s, Gold was being investigated for using stolen Canadian bonds for using a bank loan. On July 8, 1963, he was found murdered and stuck in the trunk of his car. He had been beaten, strangled with a clothesline and shot in the chest. A blanket was wrapped around his head. He was shot three more times in the skull. The coroner, Samuel Gerber, estimated his time of death as shortly before midnight Friday.

In the 1960s, Birns was having trouble with some black numbers operators. It was during this time that he came into contact with a brash, ambitious, young Irish-American upstart named Danny Greene. Impressed with his fearless attitude and abilities, Birns hired Greene to be an enforcer for his various numbers operators. It was a decision which Birns would eventually regret.

In 1959, Birns physically assaulted a police officer. He was convicted of assault and battery and was once again sent to the Warrensville Workhouse for nine months. He practically ran the place. The superintendent was later fired for the liberties he allowed Birns.

In 1959, Birns was shot at by an unknown assailant as he arrived home. The gunman missed, whereupon Birns cruised the neighborhood on the lookout for him. Upon investigation, Cleveland police picked up a small-time hood named Clarence "Sonny" Coleman, who owed money to Birns for interrogation. He was released soon after questioning. A short time afterward, Coleman was shot on a neighborhood street shortly after midnight. Three bullets hit him, but he managed to run up to the front porch of a house yelling, "Let me in, baby, let me in!" In the hospital, he told police the shooter was a man in the back seat of a car driven by Shondor Birns. Birns was arrested and brought to the booking window at Central Station.

At 3:45 a.m. on the morning of May 23, 1957, an explosion ripped apart the front porch of King's house. Uninjured, he went to the police and accused Birns of ordering the bombing. King also informed police of his decision to get out of illegal gambling. Largely on King's testimony, Birns and the others were indicted. A few weeks later, Birns attempted to prevent King from testifying by sending men to kill him at his home. King was ambushed outside his house. Several pellets of shot hit him in the back of his head, but King survived.

In October 1956, Birns sent an emissary to King and his colleagues demanding that they pay $200 a week as street tax, or suffer the consequences. They initially agreed but by December deemed the price too high. King eventually began holding out on the protection money being paid on a regular basis to Birns, Lonardo and their associates.

Birns was soon recruited by Maxie Diamond, leader of the E. 55th street and Woodland Mob. Diamond was an associate of Teamster leader William Presser and was once referred to by the local newspapers as "Cleveland's Number One Racketeer". Birns became a ranking member of Diamond's gang during the battles for control of the city's dry cleaners and launderers.

Then, the Plain Dealer reported, "Birns cocked his summer straw hat, waved goodbye to reporters, walked out of the building and down the front steps to where his attorney, James R. Willis, was waiting." All concerned was shocked when two days later, Birns produced Allene Leonards, a shy, 24-year-old teacher in the Garfield Heights school system who confirmed his alibi claiming that she had been with Birns the whole night. This was also confirmed by the owner. Birns would later divorce his first wife, Jane, and marry Leonards a year later. He had married Jane in 1952, and had one son, Michael (died 1978), with her.

Upon his release in 1944, Birns returned to Cleveland and was well known by the police, judges and the public. He was regarded as a celebrity gangster and had many public sympathizers in what was generally seen as a vendetta.

In 1942, at the height of World War II, Birns was arrested on a deportation warrant based on the auto theft and bribery convictions. During his incarceration, Birns tried to enlist in the United States Army. However, this was to no avail. Two years later, his attorney was successful in getting him released on bond. However, officials were determined to keep Birns locked up. A wartime executive order was issued by Franklin Delano Roosevelt charging Birns as an enemy alien and he was interned at McAlester, Oklahoma. This greatly offended Birns. Although he had never applied for American citizenship, Birns always considered himself a patriotic American.

During the 1940s, Birns made a longstanding alliance and had become closely involved with the local Cleveland crime family mobsters such as Angelo Lonardo. Lonardo had already taken over the black lottery and numbers operations. Birns was determined to firmly keep this traditionally black racket under his control.

One of Birns's most serious arrests was for the 1934 murder of Rudy Duncan, a 36-year-old night club bouncer at Euclid Avenue's Keystone Club. Birns was sitting at Keystone with two of his fellow gang members when he rose to retrieve some cigars from his overcoat which he had checked in the coat room. Birns had misplaced his cheque and could not produce it when asked for it by the coatroom girl. The coatroom girl subsequently refused to give Birns access to his coat. Over her objections, Birns entered the coatroom, shoving her aside in the process, and retrieved some cigars from his coat. He then returned to the table, had two more drinks, and smoked one cigar.

During this period, he was successfully prosecuted only twice. At the age of 19, Birns was convicted of auto theft and served two years in prison. In 1933, he was convicted of bribery, served 60 days and paid a $500 fine. After six appearances in court, a prosecutor remarked, "It is time the court put away this man whose reputation is one of rampant criminality." Birns was only in his twenties.

In 1933, shortly after he hooked up with the Maxie Diamond gang, Diamond narrowly escaped death from gunfire by rival gangsters in what was called by the police, "a continuation of the city's dry cleaning racket war". Birns was among those picked up for questioning. He was released, but only after paying $2 for two overdue traffic tickets.

During the late 1930s, Birns became heavily involved in extorting protection money from whorehouses, or "vice resorts" as they were dubbed by the media. With the backing of the Cleveland crime family, Birns operated freely and was well liked by all the prostitutes of his whore houses. Many of Birns's clients were judges, politicians and police officers of high rank. They would serve as important contacts for him in the future and vice versa. In 1938, Birns visited Canada for a vacation. Upon his re-entry to the United States, he was questioned briefly about his criminal history and answered honestly. At the time, Birns was unaware of the Immigration Act of 1917 which required any alien convicted of a crime of moral turpitude to gain permission prior to entering or leaving the country. It would take a couple of years of paperwork to catch up.

Then his major brushes with the law began. Birns was convicted of car theft in 1925, for which he served 18 months in the Mansfield Reformatory. He soon acquired an assault conviction in which Birns broke the jaw of a motorist who had taken too long to make his turn in front of Birns. With 18 arrests in a 12-year period, Birns was on his way to notoriety in northeast Ohio. During this period, he gloried in his fame and enjoyed the attention which he received from local law enforcement as well as fellow gangsters. He soon developed a knack for beating legal charges.

As a student, Birns excelled at athletics, especially baseball and swimming. He dropped out of school after 10th grade in 1922 and enlisted in the United States Navy in 1923, but was discharged six months later because he was underage.

In November 1920, Birns' mother was tending to the 10-gallon still in their apartment, when a faulty gas connection caused an explosion. Her clothing caught fire and was engulfed in flames. She ran outside screaming, where a passing motorist helped extinguish the flames and drove her to the hospital. Horribly burned over 75 percent of her body, she died the next morning. 13-year-old Birns was sheltered for a time in the old Jewish orphanage. He grew up quickly, and took a job as a newspaper boy during the tough circulation wars. Later on, he lived with his grandmother.

Alex Birns (February 21, 1907 – March 29, 1975), best known as Shondor Birns, was a notorious Jewish-American mob boss and racketeer from Cleveland, Ohio, who was once labeled as the city's "Public enemy No. 1" by the local newspapers. He was actively involved in a wide variety of racketeering and other organized crime related activities such as prostitution, theft, numbers, etc., from the days of Prohibition until his demise.

Alex Birns was born Sándor Birnstein in 1907, in the town of Lemes, in a section of Austria-Hungary that went to Czechoslovakia under the Treaty of Trianon. His Hungarian Jewish parents were Herman and Illon Birnstein. The second youngest of four children, Sándor was brought through Ellis Island at the age of one month. From there, the family moved to Cleveland and settled in the lower Woodland Avenue district.