July 20, 1949: Mickey Cohen, right, and Harry Cooper, a body guard provided by the California attorney general, leave the Continentale Cafe on Santa Monica Boulevard. An hour later, at 3:55 a.m., the two and two others in their group were shot outside Sherry’s Restaurant, on Sunset Boulevard.
The photo, by Clay Willcockson, led the next day’s paper.
From our Framework photo blog:
This was the second of three attempts on Cohen’s life. In the first, on Aug. 18, 1948, gunmen armed with shotguns killed Harry (Hooky) Rothman, a Cohen associate, at Cohen’s haberdashery on Sunset. Cohen was unhurt.
After avoiding jail for years, Cohen was convicted of tax evasion in 1951 and again in 1961. Cohen died at the age of 62 on July 26, 1976.
In 1950 – covered in a previous From the Archive post– Mickey Cohen’s home was bombed. Again, Cohen survived. …
After the 1949 shooting, The Times went all out in its coverage. Two pages were devoted to photos – many included in the above photo gallery.
On the lower right corner of the front page, The Times published an account of Cohen’s fears:
Wounded Gang Leader Admits He Is Scared
Mickey Cohen, wounded mob leader, gazed at the ceiling of his heavily guarded room in Queen of Angels Hospital last night and frankly admitted he is scared.
“I’m scared not only for myself, but for everyone around me — my wife, my friends, and even the law,” he declared. “I don’t know what to expect next. I wish I did.”
Asked what he will do when he is able to leave the hospital, Cohen said he has no plans.
“I don’t know what people want from me. Every time I’ve been shaken down lately I’ve had the feeling I was a ‘sitting duck.’
“It would have been so easy for someone in a car to drive by and move us all down.
“I hope I don’t come any closer to death than I did this morning.”
Read more about L.A.’s underworld history in former Times writer Paul Lieberman’s 2008 series: L.A. Noir: Tales from the Gangster Squad. A movie based on the series, “Gangster Squad,” starring Sean Penn as Mickey Cohen, opens next Friday.