About this series
In 1992, Times staff writer Paul Lieberman took a call from a reader who said a piece about the LAPD's Organized Crime Intelligence Division had failed to mention its roots in a unit formed after World War II, the Gangster Squad. Asked how he knew, the man said, "Well, I was on it."
Within days, Lieberman was in the San Gabriel Valley living room of long-retired Sgt. Jack O'Mara. Over time, he tracked down nine other squad members. One, the unit's first bug man, shared what he knew only after a decade of persistence. All the interviews were on the record.
The interviews were checked against thousands of pages of documents: a trial transcript from archives in Sacramento, criminal files in Perris, Calif., grand jury transcripts from the Black Dahlia case and reports from Gov. Earl Warren's Organized Crime Commission.
More than 100 others were interviewed, including attorneys for Bugsy Siegel and Mickey Cohen and two former members of Cohen's entourage, one of whom was present on the night Jack "the Enforcer" Whalen was shot.
More recently, Whalen's surviving relatives, including his 91-year-old sister, agreed to be interviewed.
Monday in the California section: The Gangster and the
Columnist.
