Ice pick

An ice pick is a tool used to break up, pick at, or chip at ice. In shape it resembles a scratch awl for wood. Before modern refrigerators, ice picks were a ubiquitous household tool used for separating and shaping the blocks of ice used in iceboxes. Their role as a household item sharply declined during the late 1920s and early 1930s.[1]

"Icepick" redirects here. For the climbing tool, see Ice axe. For the hardcore punk band, see Icepick (band).
A standard ice pick

Use as weapon

Because of its availability and ability to puncture the skin easily, the ice pick has sometimes been used as a weapon. Most notoriously, New York's organized crime groups known as Murder Incorporated made extensive use of the ice pick as a weapon during the 1930s and 1940s.[2][3] The most feared hitman of his day, Abe Reles, used the ice pick as his weapon of choice, usually stabbing his victims in the ear.[4][5]

According to New York City police, ice picks are still used today as street weapons.[1]

The Marxist revolutionary Leon Trotsky is sometimes incorrectly said to have been killed with an ice pick. He was actually murdered with an ice axe, a mountaineering tool.[6][7]

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gollark: It's horrible and bad like much of Go.
gollark: Go uses an eldritch thing where you use PascalCase for *public* things and camelCase for *private* things.
gollark: No, Go does NOT.
gollark: I think in Nim you can somehow use any case and it automatically maps them onto the right one when using external stuff.

References
  1. Ruderman, Wendy (31 August 2012). "Ice Picks Are Still Used as Weapons". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
  2. Elmaleh, Edmund (2009). The Canary Sang But Couldn't Fly: The Fatal Fall of Abe Reles, the Mobster Who Shattered Murder, Inc.'s Code of Silence. New York, London: Sterling Publishing Company, Inc. p. 34. ISBN 9781402761133.
  3. Hanna, David (1974). Icepicks & Coffins: The Killers of Murder, Inc. Leisure Books.
  4. Green, David B. (12 November 2014). "This Day in Jewish History / Repentant Killer Canary Dies From Hotel Window Fall". Haaretz. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
  5. Krajicek, David J. (25 March 2008). "Justice Story: Canary who could not fly". New York Daily News. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
  6. Borger, Julian; Tuckman, Jo (13 September 2017). "Bloodstained ice axe used to kill Trotsky emerges after decades in the shadows". The Guardian. ISSN 0261-3077. Archived from the original on 30 November 2019. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
  7. Lanchin, Mike (28 August 2012). "The ice pick assassination". BBC News. Archived from the original on 5 September 2019. Retrieved 6 February 2019.
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