Pretty Boy Floyd

Charles Arthur FloydBorn in Barrow County, Georgia, in 1904, Charles Arthur Floyd, alias "Pretty Boy", participated in the Kansas City Massacre in 1933 when four law enforcement officers, including one FBI Special Agent, were killed.  A leading light in the classic age of American gangsters, Pretty Boy was up there with John Dillinger, Bonnie and Clyde and Baby Face Nelson.  Known as Choc, after the popular local Choctaw Beer, for which, early in his teens, he displayed a liking, Floyd first fell foul of the law when he took part in a hit on a payroll in St Louis in 1925.  When the payroll master first described the three unidentified hoods to the police, he referred to Choc as "a mere boy – a pretty boy with apple cheeks." Charlie was sent to Missouri State Penitentiary where for a spell he worked as a cook on kitchen duty, then as a machine operator in the factory where the inmates made their own shoes and clothing, then as a plumber’s assistant.  On his release he gained nationwide notoriety as one of the most colorful, nervy bank robbers in the history of Depression-era America.  A Robin Hood who enjoyed hitting back against the wealthy for the defence of the poor, he is remembered in legend and in song, recalled not with a shudder but with almost a fond salute.  Floyd was killed in 1934 by FBI Agents and local police officers while resisting arrest.

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