CBS 2 Vault: John Drummond's 'Crooks, Characters & Capers'
CHICAGO (CBS) -- John "Bulldog" Drummond was a staff reporter at CBS 2 for three decades. He returned for many years afterward to report for CBS 2 on major crime stories such as the Family Secrets Chicago Outfit trial, and you might still see him on our news to this day providing expert analysis and background on some of Chicago's most infamous crimes.
On CBSN Chicago Tuesday night, we reached into the CBS 2 Vault for "Crooks, Characters & Capers" – Drummond's own look back on the colorful stories and characters he covered in his first 20 years reporting for CBS 2.
Drummond, of course, is known for covering the city's top law breakers, but his résumé spans far beyond covering the underbelly of organized crime in Chicago.
In this look back, you'll see some of it all. Chicago mob juice loan enforcer John Conti tells Drummond how he would discourage recalcitrants from welching on their debts using a Louisville Slugger baseball bat. We hear the story of the botched plot to assassinate racketeer and later FBI informant Ken "Tokyo Joe" Eto, and the subsequent discovery of the bodies of his would-be killers – Jasper Campise and John Gattuso – in the trunk of a Volvo. We also learn about the lavish life of Chicago Outfit boss Tony Accardo, who was arrested many times, but never got convicted once. And we see Chicago Outfit leader Joey "Doves" Aiuppa try to goad a CBS 2 photographer into a fight – and mob associate "Big Joe" Arnold charging our cameraman and shoving our sound man into a parked car outside the Dirksen Federal Building.
You'll also hear about a man named Thomas Cornelius Jackson who bunked under the sidewalk on Madison Street near Laflin Street in what was once Chicago's Skid Row, and get a look at the hardcore down-and-outers who remained on Skid Row by the mid-1970s – today, of course, it's a fashionable part of town and we would call it the West Loop. And you'll see Rush Street with a lot of neon and a lot of strip joints.
In Las Vegas, you'll see Drummond talk with two sex workers who speak frankly about their profession and the dangers involved with it. And we'll see two agents from the Liquor Control Commission visit the Double Door in Wicker Park – with that same familiar "Double Door Liquors" neon sign that was there when it was one of Chicago's premier rock clubs hosting the Smashing Pumpkins and Wilco and even the Rolling Stones. But this was long before that – back then, it advertised bargain-basement prices for early-morning drinkers, and also had Captain Morgan rum behind the bar with fruit flies in it. At least one patron did not mind.
Look for that, and much more, in the video above.
