So...cast your mind back to New York City in the 1890s. It was the Gilded Age & people think of Edith Wharton's Age of Innocence, but as always there were multiple realities for the many different citizens of the city. The 400 led lives of leisure, but others had it rougher. 1/? 
For Italian immigrants and Italian-Americans, life was cruel and dangerous, entirely due to the actions of the Black Hand, a group of Mafia and Camorra criminals. The Black Hand specialized in black mail, extortion, kidnapping, and murder, and were utterly heartless. 2/?
The Black Hand targeted Italian immigrants & Italian-Americans & wld blackmail & murder anyone if it made them money. They specialized in child kidnapping & such was the fear the Black Hand spread that everyone paid, even if it bankrupted them. There was no fighting the Hand. 3/?
This was at a time when hostility against Italian immigrants and Italian-Americans ran high and hot, w/the usual variety of bigoted reasons being given for the prejudice against those of Italian descent. The notorious crimes of the Black Hand made things substantially worse. 4/?
NYC was the Black Hand's territory & they ruled it. The NYPD took few actions against them, as long as they only preyed on Italians--after all, the victims were only Italian, who cared about them? The police were there to serve the wealthy. The poor got sfa from the cops. 5/?
(La plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose). However, as is so often the case, someone arose to tell the Black Hand to catch these hands. His name was Joseph Petrosino, and his was one of the best--and one of the few honest--cops that the NYPD ever had. 6/?
Like many Italian immigrants of the time, Petrosino (born Giuseppe Petrosino in southern Italy) was sent to the US to live a better, safer life. Unfortunately, Petrosino's grandfather died in a streetcar accident, sending the very young Petrosino to an orphanage. 7/?
Sorry, my mistake--Petrosino ended up at the Oprhans and Surrogates Court. The Irish judge, not wanting to send the child into the meatgrinder that was the NYC orphanage system of the time, decided instead to adopt Petrosino--an act of kindness that helped save a lot of lives 8/?
Petrosino spent his childhood in the judge's family, and was able to take advantage of the judge's political connections in a way that most Italian immigrants would never be able to. Petrosino got a great education, and in 1883, at the age of 23, he entered the NYPD. 9/?
This was extremely unusual. The NYPD simply didn't employ Italian immigrants at this time, *especially* those who were "still wet from the boat to Ellis Island." Petrosino was fluent in several Italian dialects, loved opera--obviously Italian. Yet the NYPD hired him. 10/?
He was only 5'3", and far better educated than his counterparts. But the NYPD hired him, perhaps seeing that his virtues--intelligence, doggedness, incorruptibility, notable physical strength--far outweighed any perceived flaws. 11/?
Not that the NYPD used him on ordinary murder cases. They relegated him to cases involving the Italian community, in Little Italy & the Lower East Side. Low priority cases, viewed as hopeless--nobody squealed on the Black Hand & the police couldn't get witnesses to testify. 12/?
On the other hand, the NYPD hadn't had Petrosino. For the next twelve years he patrolled the streets of Little Italy, managing a one-man war on the Black Hand, solving everything from child kidnapping cases to murder cases and winning plaudits from the NYPD. 13/?
Petrosino was so good at what he did that he drew the attention of Theodore Roosevelt, at the time a member of the council of commissioners that ran the NYPD. Roosevelt & Petrosino became friends & Roosevelt's patronage gave Petrosino more leeway on cases than many cops had. 14/?
Petrosino was so good at solving crimes in Little Italy that, reportedly, whenever a new crime there was committed, the NYPD bosses inevitably cried "Send for the Dago!" (Image below is of Petrosino leading a Black Hand suspect to court. *Clearly*, not a man to mess with). 15/?
Remember, these were the bad old days--not as bad as the mid-century decades (see Asbury's Gangs of New York for more on that) but bad enough, with murder rates unthinkable now. The criminals were tough and ruthless, so the cops made themselves tougher & more ruthless. 16/?
It was in these days that the saying was coined that when a New York cop kicked you, you stayed kicked. And Petrosino was known as one of the toughest cops in the city, which says something about how his colleagues viewed him. 17/?
As for the press, they *loved* him. He was great copy, and the continuous stream of arrests he made sold papers hand over fist. By 1895 he was, by many accounts, the most famous Italian-American in the US. 17/?
In 1895 he's promoted detective sergeant in charge of homicide by Teddy Roosevelt. Petrosino begins grooming detectives to solve crimes in the Italian community his way, talking to the civilians rather than at them, and having sympathy for them rather than disgust for them. 18/?
In 1908 Petrosino is promoted to Lieutenant and is put in charge of the "Italian Squad," an elite group of Petrosino-trained Italian-American detectives put together specifically to deal with the Black Hand, the Mafia, and the Camorra. 19/?
Some of Petrosino's more famous cases: he arrested one Vito Casico Ferro, a low-ranking Mafia hitman, on murder charges. Ferro was found Not Guilty, but Petrosino hounded Ferro so that Ferro left for Sicily, where he worked his way up to become capo da capo, boss of bosses. 20/?
(Keep Ferro in mind--he'll reappear in Petrosino's story) 21/?
On another case, Petrosino discovered that Enrico Caruso himself was being extorted by the Black Hand in a your-money-or-your-life situation. Petrosino (a lover of opera) convinced Caruso to help him catch the extortionists. Which Petrosino did. 22/?
On a third case, Petrosino infiltrated an Italian anarchist group who had ties to King Umberto I's 1900 assassination. Petrosino discovered that the group had targeted President McKinley and intended to assassinate him during his trip to Buffalo. 23/?
Petrosino warned the Secret Service, but McKinley ignored the warning. Petrosino had Teddy Roosevelt--then the Vice President--talk to McKinley & vouch for Petrosino. McKinley ignored Roosevelt. So Leon Czolgosz, one of the group, succeeded in killing McKinley in Sept 1901. 24/?
In 1909, Petrosino, seeing that he's fought the Black Hand to a standstill in NYC, decides to take the fight to the Mafia's home ground: Sicily. So Petrosino, by himself, takes a ship to Sicily. 25/?
Petrosino's stated mission was to get evidence in Sicily on a long list of Italian-American criminals. A new law said that the US could deport anyone who'd been in the US for less than 3 years if they were convicted of a crime in another country--great for Petrosino's war. 26/?
But on another level Petrosino wanted to really hit the Mafia et al. where they lived. Petrosino HATED the Mafia, seeing them as bringing dishonor & disrepute on to all Italians & Italian-Americans, and he wanted to hurt them at home rather than in NYC. 27/?
And it has to be admitted vanity probably played a part in this. Petrosino was internationally-famous and had appeared in the pages of a Nick Carter issue to help Carter fight crime--and Carter was more famous & more widely read than Sherlock Holmes in 1909. 28/?
It's quite likely that on some level Petrosino was beginning to believe his press clippings, the ones that called him "the Italian Sherlock Holmes." Petrosino probably thought that he'd be as bulletproof in Sicily as he was in NYC. 29/?
Unfortunately for Petrosino, his mission, which was supposed to be secret, was not. His idiot boss, this asshole, told the New York Herald about Petrosino's secret mission, and the Herald ran a front page story on it. 30/?
So when Petrosino arrives in Palermo and hits up his contacts for information, one of them tells him, "Hey, come over to the Piazza Marina, there's a guy here you'll want to talk to." Petrosino went and was murdered. :-( 31/?
The murder makes international news. The Italian Squad gets a letter, a day after the murder, that the Black Hand was responsible. Arrests are made, but witnesses provide the suspects with alibis, and the suspects are released. 200,000 attend Petrosino's funeral in NYC. 32/?
And Vito Casscio Ferro, who Petrosino drove from NYC, and who became boss of bosses in Sicily? He reportedly says that he had ordered the death of "a gallant man, not an enemy." 33/?
That wasn't the end of things, though. Petrosino becomes immortalized in various dime novels in Italy, Germany, and France, being portrayed as a more fisticuffy Sherlock Holmes and being given his very own arch-enemy, Prof. Tom Flax, a vivisecting Moriarty. 34/?
Then came WW1, and when it was over people had moved on and Petrosino was forgotten by all but the NYPD and NYC, which renamed Kenmare Square into Lt. Joseph Petrosino Square. Petrosino's murder remained unsolved.
UNTIL.... 35/?
UNTIL.... 35/?
In 2014 the police in Palermo launched "Operation Apocalypse" and swept up virtually two entire Mafia families. One of the hitmen apprehended told the police that it was his grandfather who had killed Petrosino back in '09: “We have been mobsters for 100 years.” 36/?
It's cold comfort to Petrosino's descendants, but at least the case is closed, and maybe Petrosino's ghost can rest a little easier now.
Thanks for reading!
---Fin---
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Thanks for reading!
---Fin---
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