Union Station Massacre resonates 75 years later

Kansas City Star: Union Station Massacre resonates 75 years later 

Kansas City was a different world in spring 1933, as kidnappings, prison breakouts and gangland shootings routinely made headlines.

Then at 7:20 a.m. on a Saturday, while Union Station bustled with travelers, an event so brazen occurred that it swept away whatever tolerance the American public still had for gangsters.

Three gunmen confronted a party of seven law officers in broad daylight in an attempt to free a criminal in custody. Within seconds, four officers and the prisoner lay dead, and two officers were wounded.

The Union Station Massacre, 75 years ago Tuesday, changed the city and the country and gave rise to the modern Federal Bureau of Investigation. …