Barnett "Barney" P. Ruditsky (December 25, 1898 – October 18, 1962) was a British-born American police officer and private detective.
During his 20-year career on the force Ruditsky was among the NYPD's prominent "celebrity detectives" of the 1920s and 1930s. Ruditsky was associated with many criminal cases during this period, most notably, ending with the break-up of Murder Incorporated in 1940. Years later, he was called to testify before the Kefauver hearings due to his knowledge of the criminal underworld in Southern California and Las Vegas.
He later worked as a private investigator in California, and also served as a technical advisor on a series of crime films for 20th Century Fox in the mid-1940s and The Lawless Years, a television series loosely based on his career.
Early life
Barnett P. Ruditsky was born in London, England on December 25, 1898. He was the son of Blooma (née Marin) and Phillip Ruditsky, a boot finisher. His family lived in South Africa for a time before returning to England. He was Jewish.
In 1908, the Ruditsky family emigrated to the United States and settled on the East Side of Manhattan. At the age of 18, Ruditsky enlisted in the United States Army and saw active service during the 1916 U.S. expedition into Mexico and on the Western Front during the First World War.
Career in the NYPD
Upon his return from France, Ruditsky joined New York City Police Department (NYPD), officially becoming a patrolman in 1921. The young officer soon made a name for himself when, in August 1923, he subdued a much larger man using his nightstick and was praised by both Magistrate Henry M. R. Goodman and The New York Times for the arrest. Ruditsky was made a detective the following year in the gangster-industrial squad, headed by Detective Johnny Broderick. The two men would eventually become one of the Broadway Squad's leading detectives during Prohibition.
On the night of February 21, 1926, he and his wife Mollie stopped the robbery of a confectionery store near their home on Pennsylvania Avenue in Brooklyn. The two were returning from celebrating their wedding anniversary at a theatre and supper club when they noticed the hold-up taking place. Ruditsky managed to overpower one of the robbers, took his gun, and handed it to his wife while he chased down the second robber. Mollie held the first robber at bay while Ruditsky apprehended his accomplice a block and a half away. He then took both men to the nearby Brownsville Police Station. Six months after this incident Ruditsky was promoted to second-grade detective.
In 1928, Ruditsky and fellow detective Harry Hagen disguised themselves as customers in a Turkish bathhouse on Second Street, a known underworld hangout, where they successfully captured the notorious "Poison Ivy" gang. Similarly, he arrested members of the "Pear Buttons" of West Side Manhattan. It was these cases which first gained Ruditsky fame as a detective.
By the end of the decade Ruditsky and other detectives had earned a sort of celebrity status as "tough-fisted cops", described by The New York Times as "slight of build, but utterly fearless, who, together or separately, battled and beat many an oversized gangster". The exploits of the Ruditsky, Broderick and other detectives were frequently featured in crime magazines and newspapers as they took on such underworld figures as Jack "Legs" Diamond and Dutch Schultz. Ruditsky himself personally arrested Benjamin "Bugsy" Siegel and Abe "Kid Twist" Reles at various points in his career and investigated Louis Buchalter's infamous "Murder, Inc." during the 1930s. Years later, Ruditsky told Senator Estes Kefauver at the hearings on organized crime that he had been "threatened a thousand times ... but I got around them pretty good; nobody got back at me."
Ruditsky was among the 300-man police squad called into action when 2,000 Communist protesters threatened New York City Hall on January 30, 1931. It was the largest force ever assembled to protect City Hall. When the protesters began attack the police, several officers were isolated by the mob and beaten, Ruditsky being among them until he was saved by a fellow officer. In November 1935, Ruditsky was involved in the pursuit of three hold-up men who had robbed nightclub entertainer Frances Faye and her escort Joseph Eichenbaum. The high speed chase began after he commandeered a car and, with detective Thomas Aulbach, followed them until the would-be thieves crashed their car into an elevated pillar at Ninth Avenue and 63rd Street. He chased one of the men on foot and captured him following a shootout. He was presented with the NYPD Combat Cross, the NYPD's second-highest honor, for his actions.