“The idea of a bandit gang using a specific article of clothing as a badge of identity may seem like the stuff of adolescent comic book fiction. Surely, any “professional” criminal would realize that anonymity is a key factor in avoiding arrest. For a bandit to advertise himself with a trademark would be foolish. Nonetheless, there have been robber gangs who, out of a desire to be flamboyant or a juvenile need for attention, have accessorized so as to make their mark for the media and the public.... For example, John “Red” Hamilton, the Canadian member of the John Dillinger gang in the 1930s, was in his youth associated with a band of hoodlums whose leader wanted them all to wear white hats when they pulled robberies, so the world would know them as the White Hat gang. In Chicago, over a period of a few months in 1942, a gang of young gunmen who wore blue polka-dot bandanas gained national notoriety as the Polka Dot Gang. Whether by coincidence or deliberate imitation, polka-dot bandanas gave a name to a robber gang that plagued southern Ontario around the end of the Second World War.MoreLessRead More Read Less
User Reviews: