New film has Tucson revisiting Dillinger's arrest

Tucson cops conducted their own sting operation. Within a few days, five members of Dillinger's gang were arrested. Dillinger and girlfriend Evelyn Frechette were cuffed almost as soon as they pulled up to the rented house.

Elliott J. Gorn, a history professor at Brown University and author of "Dillinger's Wild Ride: The Year That Made America's Public Enemy Number One," said the response in the media — and perhaps even among the gangsters themselves — was amazement that the Tucson Police Department had succeeded.

"It was sort of 'Damn, you guys got us,'" Gorn said. "The quick-drawing Western lawmen could do what the slick city cops in Chicago couldn't do."

But the thrill was short-lived. Dillinger was extradited to Indiana, where he escaped and began another robbing spree before he was tracked down by the FBI and shot dead in Chicago later in the summer.

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