The Other Chicago Mob is the untold story of organized crime in Chicago but not the "Organization" or Mob; the other Chicago Mob was the Police Department itself. Gary Cohen was a Chicago cop for twenty years, from 1966-88 and started as a brute and opportunist (part-time thief) and in the course of his career became something more. Today he has decided that history deserves better than the cover-up that has existed for years; Gary breaks the code of silence and crosses the thin blue line. He details how the corruption worked. He also takes you on the streets and down into the subway system as part of the Decoy Unit, the war to win back mass transit from the thugs and gangs; they countered violence with greater violence and became legend. "The Other Chicago Mob" tells the gripping story of the 68' Democratic Convention told from the police lines and that the violence that week was no accident. You meet and know mass murderers, larger than life heroes and come to understand that real police work is not black or white but many shades of gray. Never before has one man confessed to his past and not asked for atonement but rather tells the truth and allows others to be the judge. In Chicago at that time it was not about a crooked cop, not about a crooked pair of cops or even a squad; back then it was the entire system, rotten to its core. Its leaders and most decorated members sent to jail and some of the highest ranking belonging to both the first and "other" Chicago Mob. The violence is real, the terror real but also it has humor and human interest. You get to know the participants are real people, not simply characters out of central casting. You experience their darkest hours and shake your head in disbelief at the system that promotes ineptitude and vice. The interesting question raised in the book is whether time has changed anything. This is all the more important given the pedestal Chicago now finds itself on being America's first city. To know the present you need understand the past and Gary Cohen tells the secrets of the past as no one has done before. You owe it to yourself to read The Other Chicago Mob and know the truth others want to hide. You be the judge.
