What can you tell me about lawman Richard James Hart?
Categories: Ask the Marshall
By: Marshall Trimble 05/01/2008
Q
What can you tell me about Western lawman Richard James Hart?
Frank Cutler
Sodus, New York
A
His real name was James Vincenzo Capone. That’s right, Capone. He left home in Brooklyn in 1908 at the age of 16, headed west to join a circus and worked hard to lose his Brooklyn accent. During WWI, he was commissioned a lieutenant. After the war, he got married, moved to Homer, Nebraska, and changed his name to Richard James Hart, in part to honor his movie hero William S. Hart.
During Prohibition, he worked as a federal agent busting bootleggers. He made several successful raids and, in the ensuing publicity, the press nicknamed him “Two-Gun” Hart. But when reporters leaked the word that his name was actually Capone and that his younger brother was none other than Chicago gangster Al Capone, Hart was forced to leave Homer.
He became a special agent for the Bureau of Indian Affairs and was assigned to the Cheyenne Reservation in South Dakota, the Spokane Reservation in Washington and the Nez Perce Reservation in Idaho, to name a few. During this time, he was credited with arresting at least 20 men wanted for murder.
In 1931, he returned to Homer and with the repeal of Prohibition, he became a justice of the peace. He died there in 1952. Crimebuster Two-Gun Hart was quite a contrast to his kid brother, “Scarface” Al.
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