[1] Upon taking over the department in June 1930, Brown refused to obey or enforce the traditional ban on unnecessary violence, and allied himself with the Dillinger and Barker-Karpis Gangs.

The violent crimes resulting from this alliance inadvertently aided in the rise of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and its director, J. Edgar Hoover.

Through the FBI's influence, Brown's many felonies were publicly exposed during a Civil Service Board hearing, leading to his dismissal from the SPPD.

Thomas Archibald Brown was born in a coal mining region of West Virginia, into a Baptist family of mixed German-[2] and Scotch Irish[3] descent.

He quickly learned to build contacts with the criminals who ran these establishments and extorted protection money from them in return for advance warnings of raids.

[5] The same year he was suspended for thirty days after a federal judge ordered him extradited to Ohio to face charges of conspiracy and liquor smuggling.

The Purity Squad became notorious for its repeated failure to find any illegal activity during raids, and a board of inquiry investigating the matter was prepared to dismiss Brown.

The dismissal was suddenly withdrawn, however, probably due to pressure from corrupt politicians with links to local crime bosses, particularly Leon Gleckman, who was often termed the "Al Capone of St.

[8] To the public, Brown depicted himself as a racket-buster and a fearless crimefighter, declaring war on Chicago organized crime figures who were allegedly investing in Minnesota's bootlegging and slot machine rackets.

[4] In reality, however, notorious criminals, including Dillinger Gang associate Homer Van Meter, had donated large sums to Brown's campaign in exchange for being allotted certain rackets in Saint Paul.

According to Paul Maccabee, "No crime illustrated how far the O'Connor System had eroded" than the Barker Gang's next robbery,[11] which was carried out at the South St. Paul post office on August 30, 1933 by Charles Fitzgerald, Alvin Karpis, Fred Barker, and Chicago Outfit gangsters Byron Bolton and Fred Goetz.

"[16] When asked by Maccabee about the possible complicity of fellow cops in his father's murder, Robert Pavlak responded, "There was so much criminality then, both within and without the Department, that Lieutenant Jeff Dittrich used to tell me, 'You never went to take the garbage out at night without having a gun in your hand.

Edward Bremer, a mobbed up Twin Cities banker and brewery heir, was abducted on his way to work after dropping his daughter at school on January 15, 1934.

On August 23, 1934 Brown was involved in the killing of former ally Homer Van Meter at the corner of Marion Street and University Avenue in St. Paul.

In witness testimony, Brown was repeatedly implicated in a criminal conspiracy with crime bosses Harry Sawyer and Jack Peifer, as well as the Barker-Karpis Gang, to commit both the Hamm and Bremer kidnappings.

Claiming that all of the testimony against him was hearsay, Brown fought his dismissal, but mounting evidence of his corruption shocked the people of St. Paul enough to justify it.

[3] Despite their familial relationship, one of the FBI's many confidential informants relating to Brown's criminal activities was the police chief's brother in law, a cab driver named George Rafferty.

[23] In an interview with Paul Maccabee, Brown's daughter, Vera Peters, recalled her father as a strict disciplinarian, "of the old German feeling that kids should be seen and not heard.

"[2] After an IRS investigation into Brown for tax evasion fizzled out for unknown reasons, the disgraced former police chief was granted a liquor license in 1937.

In a plea bargain negotiated by lawyer, Brown pled guilty to one count of evading Federal liquor tax and failure to register as an alcohol dealer.