Gangster Squad

In the movie, the Gangster Squad is assembled to go after Mickey Cohen. However, in real life Chief W.H. Parker set up the squad to prevent other gangsters from taking over Cohen's rackets after Cohen went to prison on income tax evasion. Whenever the squad learned that out-of-town gangsters were coming to Los Angeles to try to set up new operations, the Gangster Squad would kidnap them, beat them up (some rumors say torture) and then send them back to wherever they came from with the warning that if they ever returned, they would be killed.

The film gives the impression that the Gangster Squad were responsible for Mickey Cohen's arrest. In reality, Cohen was arrested in 1950 for the more mundane crime of tax evasion. He was also not sent to Alcatraz until 1961, over a decade after the film's time frame.

Featured in The Tonight Show with Jay Leno: Episode #21.68 (2013)