Word: broderick
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...bait," and the bookmakers along his Broadway beat said that on any given day, the odds were 9 to 5 he would be killed. But when the shots were fired, they were off target; the knives and brickbats missed; the flung cue balls were wide of the mark. Johnny Broderick, "the world's toughest cop," was destined to die in bed-which he did last week of a heart attack on his 72nd birthday...
...less a connoisseur than Jack ("Legs") Diamond tagged him as the toughest. And Legs spoke from experience. One night the famous hoodlum declared that he was going to get Broderick. First Grade Detective Broderick, Shield No. 226, heard about the boast and went looking for Legs. "I understand you've been looking for me," growled Johnny as some of Legs's backup men started drifting away. "Ah, hell, Johnny, can't you take a joke?" asked a worried Legs. "Not from you, y'bum," replied Broderick as his left hook mashed Diamond into unconsciousness...
...Only Way. John Joseph Broderick came by his talents naturally enough. He grew up in Manhattan's East 20s, the Gashouse district, and while many of his neighbors were learning how to be thugs, Johnny, fresh from parochial school, was driving a brick truck at the age of twelve. A stint in the World War I Navy and a few months as a fireman convinced him that he was not cut out for such tame endeavors. The pug-faced Irishman joined the cops in 1923. "Gimme a gangster, give him a gun, and leave the rest...
...Broderick legend grew steadily. Informed that two men were bothering some ladies in front of a restaurant, Broderick rushed to the scene, righteously flung the toughs through the front window of the place, then raced inside and arrested them for malicious destruction of property. He cleaned out the gamblers at the Polo Grounds by climbing on a chair in a field box and shouting: "Come down, alia yez, and if yez don't, I'll throw yez off the roof." They came...
...soldier in the Texas War of Independence. After getting elected to the California court on the Know-Nothing ticket, Terry was jailed and convicted for stabbing a San Francisco vigilante. Not only was Terry freed, he became chief justice in 1857 and promptly killed U.S. Senator David C. Broderick in California's most famous duel...