Isadore Blumenfeld (September 8, 1900 – June 21, 1981), commonly known as Kid Cann, was a Romanian-born Jewish-American organized crime enforcer based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, for over four decades.

Blumenfeld was also tried and acquitted for personally firing the murder weapon, a Thompson submachine gun, in the globally infamous December 1935 contract killing of Twin Cities investigative journalist Walter Liggett.

By his 20s, Blumenfeld and his brothers held considerable power over criminal activities in Minneapolis and oversaw bootlegging, illegal gambling, prostitution, extortion, and labor racketeering.

According to historian Elaine Davis, Kid Cann and his brothers, like many other organized crime figures from the Twin Cities, Chicago, and Kansas City, made frequent trips to Stearns and Morrison Counties to purchase Minnesota 13; a very high quality moonshine distilled locally by Polish- and German-American farmers with the collusion of local politicians and law enforcement.

Davis writes that the main go-between connecting local moonshiners with organized crime was Melrose resident "Chick" Molitor, who lived with his family on a dairy farm near Big Birch Lake.

The Blumenfelds, with whom Molitor had a very close business relationship, visited the area so often that they allegedly owned property south of the Rock Tavern in Melrose.

A number of deaths are attributed to Blumenfeld and his gang, including journalists who were killed after writing articles exposing the inner workings of his organization as well as his ties to corrupt politicians from several parties.

Kid Cann, Tommy Banks, and the Berman Brothers were regular visitors and Hartman's decades long friendship with them began during those years.

[13] The $200,000 ransom Machine Gun Kelly had received following the kidnapping of oil man Charles F. Urschel had been traced to Hennepin State Bank in Minneapolis.

Minneapolis Police Chief Joseph Lehmeyer traveled down to Oklahoma City to testify in favor of Kid Cann and the charges were dropped.

[14] In December 1933, the AZ Syndicate's accountant, Conrad Althen, who had become a secret informant for the Internal Revenue Service and whom according to Paul Maccabee "knew where every penny and body was buried", was thrown out of a car into a Dakota County cornfield and shot to death with a Thompson submachine gun.

Beginning on June 29, 1935, every issue of The Midwest American printed ten reasons for impeaching Governor Olson, including political corruption and collusion with organized crime.

[19] Throughout September 1935, Liggett reported on "a wet-councilmanic ring" which allowed "The Syndicate", led by the Blumenfeld brothers, to dominate the newly legalized liquor trade in Minneapolis.

During the same month, The Midwest American also published articles about Kid Cann's criminal history and how associate Meyer Schuldberg employed him as a "salesman" for La Pompadour perfume factory during Prohibition, which had switched since repeal to producing Chesapeake Brands Liquors.

[20] After announcing in print that he had refused offers of both bribes and paid advertisements by AZ Syndicate-controlled businesses, Liggett reported on October 2, 1935, that Minneapolis aldermen Henry Banks and Romeo Riley had both attended the prizefight between Joe Louis and Max Baer as personal guests of Kid Cann.

[21] According to Neal Karlen, Kid Cann allegedly claimed to fellow members of Minneapolis' criminal underworld that Liggett was using The Midwest American to try and extort money from him.

[23] Meanwhile, Kid Cann's younger half-brother Jacob Blumenfeld, alias "Yiddy Bloom", whom many sources allege to have been the acting boss of the organization, resurfaced in Paris.

[citation needed] Edith Liggett always believed that Minnesota Governor Floyd Olson and Farmer-Labor Party fixer Charles Ward were responsible for setting up her husband's murder.

[25] Although indicted for shooting dead taxicab driver Charles Goldberg and arrested for the attempted murder of police officer James H. Trepanier, who was left paralyzed, Blumenfeld continued to avoid conviction for serious crimes.

[29] The December 1944 issue of the Public Press, edited by Walter Liggett-style anti-corruption crusader Arthur Kasherman, featured the headline Kline Administration Most Corrupt Regime in the History of the City.

His murder made the front pages of newspapers across the Twin Cities, but few in Minneapolis were surprised when the police investigation was quickly shut down.

Public outrage over Kasherman's murder led, however, to the first term of Hubert Humphrey, who ran for the Minneapolis mayor's office promising to be a racket buster.

According to historian Paul Maccabee, however, Humphrey succeeded only in shutting down the far more visible criminal operations of David Berman and leaving those of Tommy Banks and the Blumenfelds largely unscathed.

He was later accused of allying himself with an Italian-American Farmer-Labor Party fixer turned corporate raider named Fred Ossanna, and using force to intimidate stockholders to selling.

[43] In an interview with Paul Maccabee, FBI Special Agent Bill Lais recalled sitting with Blumenfeld as he awaited sentencing, "Isadore lit my cigarette for me, took off my coat for me, called me, 'sir'.

[46][47] Kid Cann served four years at USP Leavenworth and was released in 1964,[48] after his wife Lillian paid his $12,500 fine for violating the Mann Act.

Blumenfeld and Lansky were also alleged to have set up a labyrinth of businesses, deeds, mortgages, leases, and subleases to conceal their involvement and evade Federal income taxes.

During an interview with a Minneapolis reporter in 1976, Blumenfeld denounced the Federal Agents and Prosecutors who had put him away as his "persecutors", and called his conviction under the Mann Act, a "trumped up charge", that involved, "a two-dollar whore."

[65] In an onsite interview with Minneapolis Tribune reporter Bonnie Miller Rubin, mourner Harry Horowitz said of Blumenfeld, "He was a wonderful fellow when a person needed something.

[67]In Minnesota folklore, tales of Kid Cann and his rumored dark deeds may be considered to have made him a local urban legend, similar to Al Capone or Whitey Bulger.