Joe Petrosino: First Scourge of the Mafia

by Arrigo Petacco

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0241891175
• ISBN13: 9780241891179
• Release Date: January 1974
• Publisher: Hamish Hamilton
• Length: 195 Pages
• Weight: 1.74 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Scourge of the Black Hand

It's easy- and tempting- to idealize Joe Petrosino. He was born in Italy but became a tough and dedicated New York City cop. As the first Italian to achieve the rank of detective in the NYPD, he was the force's ideal attack dog in the war with the Mafia, Black Hand, and other criminal groups that preyed on the ignorance and fear of the Italian immigrant community. Petrosino instigated the formation of an Italian Squad in the NYPD after convincing his superiors that American methods were useless in investigating and eradicating the crimes that plagued his countrymen. He fought the anarchists with equal fervor, and tried unsuccessfully to warn President William McKinley that his life was in danger from that quarter. He became a folk hero to the oppressed and earned the enmity of powerful Mafia figures such as Don Vito Cascio Ferro, who laid the groundwork for modern organized crime syndicates in both America and Italy. In 1909 Petrosino was sent to Italy to obtain the criminal records of Mafiosi currently resident in the United States, in order to secure evidence for their deportation. It was an assignment that ended on March 12, 1909, when Mafia assassins shot him to death in Palermo's Piazza Marina. His Manhattan funeral was attended by 250,000 people, and the city of New York declared a public holiday to allow the citizenry to pay its respects. A small plaza north of the old NYPD Headquarters at 240 Center Street was renamed in his memory. Arrigo Petacco's "Joe Petrosino" was a number one best-seller in Italy. In addition to being well-written, it's an impartial and honest re-examination of the life, achievements, and mistakes of a man whose memory had become more hallowed with time. Petacco provides evidence that Petrosino rivaled his opponents when it came to using violence as a tool: he was fond of using a fistful of keys to knock a recalcitrant interrogation subject's teeth out. The author also demonstrates that long before Prohibition crimebuster Elliot Ness charmed reporters into making him a media legend, Joe Petrosino had perfected the art of courting publicity. (Ironically, the press played a role in his death: when the New York Herald revealed that Petrosino was in Italy on a mission meant to be secret, criminals on both sides of the Atlantic were alerted, and an assassination plot formed.) But instead of dismissing his subject as brutal and manipulative, Petacco makes it clear that Joe Petrosino was a product of his time: punitive beatings were routinely inflicted on thugs who were too well-connected to fear the courts, and crusader cops who lived on the front pages reassured a public that lived in daily fear of anarchist bombs and gang violence. Petrosino's methods might be questionable by today's standards, but no one can dispute that his intentions were firmly on the side of law and order.