The gang warfare brewing in Arkham is heating up, but the latest gunfight has escalated to a bloody shoot-out. Is the competition shifting into brutality between Arkham’s mainstay gangs, the O’Bannions and the Sheldons? Or is someone else trying to hustle their way onto Arkham’s streets? The Arkham Advertiser has the story.
Miskatonic Massacre
All-Out War Between Bootleggers?
In a shocking escalation of gang violence, suspected members of the Six Nails Mob have been gunned down on the banks of the Miskatonic River. At press time, the precise number of dead is unknown, so savage is the butchery, so furious the violence. Police are on the scene, facing a panorama of murder rarely seen.
Automobile Assault
The attackers ambushed a truck, riddling it with bullets and setting it ablaze. Witnesses report seeing gunshot victims on the bridge and along the riverbank, suggesting that some of the victims were taken from the truck and marched down to their place of execution. The cargo of the truck had been destroyed, beer pouring out of the barrels to mix with pools of blood and contaminate the Miskatonic River, a grotesque reminder of the true wages paid by this nefarious enterprise.
There are many questions for the investigation to answer. Foremost among them is: who is behind this slaughter? To its cost, the good city of Arkham is all too familiar with the rivalry between the Sheldon gang and the O’Bannion gang. However, this attack is on a scale beyond the ambition previously seen of the O’Bannions or the Sheldons, and outside their turf as to make their involvement—and clash—unlikely.
Evidence points to the arrival of the Six Nails Mob with links to New York and Chicago filtering into Arkham’s streets and frustrating local leaders. However, it is far more likely the attack was orchestrated outside of Arkham.
Criminal Plague
Some eyes have therefore turned, with suspicion, toward Boston. This newspaper considers such speculation to be not without foundation. As much as Arkham prides itself upon its independent spirit, our city cannot escape the influences, good or bad, abroad in the wider world. The largest city of our state is also the one with the largest problems of organized crime, and it would be unreasonable to expect Miskatonic County to be immune to contagion. It is, then, quite possible that the kind of violence that plagues the streets of Boston has reached Miskatonic County.
If this proves to be the case, then the next question is what the authorities intend to do to curb such explosions of violent lawlessness. While the citizens of Arkham may breathe a sigh of relief that this massacre did not take place within city limits, where innocent people could have been caught in the crossfire, they must not be complacent.
Steps must be taken to prevent further outrages, and to keep Arkham free of the anarchy of gang warfare. Law and order must be maintained. This newspaper calls on the ordinary citizen to remain vigilant for the presence of interlopers.
There will be further reports as more details of the massacre become known.
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