WTI Magazine #65    2015 July, 24
Author : Giovanni Verde      Translation by:

Joseph Petrosino was born by the name Giuseppe in Padula, a small town in the province of Salerno, in Campania, on August 30, 1860. He is just one of many Italian immigrants: he will become a symbol of the America that the struggle for justice, against all kinds of crime. Giuseppe moves to New York with the whole family in 1873, and tries to live by selling newspapers, shining shoes and studying English in Little Italy.

In 1877 he becomes a US citizen and gests hired as a garbage man by the administration of the City of New York. These are complex years, when the Italian migration gets to an extraordinary intensity. The police, almost all made by Jewish or Irish, cannot understand the Italian immigrants. Quickly, in the Italian community the discontent towards the institutions will become fertile ground for criminal organizations, which in a few years come to almost entirely control the neighborhood of Little Italy.

Petrosino, who as a garbage man actually is an employee of the Police, becomes an informant thanks to his outstanding gifts of intelligence, cunning and speed. Also crucial is his ability to understand the Italian language and then to be able to interpret the dangers that come from Little Italy. Criminals from this New York neighborhood suddenly find themselves faced with an enemy who speaks their language, knows their methods, is allowed to enter into their environments. Joe Petrosino holds a kind of dark, red-hot grudge against those criminals who are dissipating the respect the Italian immigrants are slowly and painfully building among the New Yorkers.

In 1905 Joseph Petrosino becomes a Police Lieutenant. It already has been excused to not wear the uniform, a concession that enables him to move freely within the criminal environments. He is entrusted with the organization of a team of Italian police, the Italian Branch, composed of five members, including Petrosino's successor, Michael Fiaschetti. This makes it more profitable and effective his fight with no rest against the Black Hand, a shadowy mafia organization, with branches in Sicily, which has evilly spread throughout Little Italy.

An opportunity that sees Petrosino and his team against the Black Hand is when they defend Enrico Caruso, in tour in New York, who gest blackmailed and threatened of death by gangsters. Petrosino convinces Caruso in helping him in capturing criminals.

Previously Petrosino had infiltrated the anarchist organization responsible for the death of the Italian king Umberto I, also revealing plans to assassinate US President William McKinley during his visit to the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo. McKinley, informed by the intelligence, ignores the warning and is actually killed on September 6, 1901 by the anarchist Leon Czolgosz.

In 1909 Joseph Petrosino is on a secret mission in Italy, to inflict the last decisive blow to the Black Hand. The mission is top secret, but because of a leak all the details have been published in the New York Herald. Though, Petrosino still chooses to go, in the mistaken belief that the Sicilian Mafia, as the New York one, would not have dared to kill a cop.

At 20:45 of Friday, March 12 1909, in Palermo, three shots hit Joe Petrosino in his neck and shoulders. The fourth, fatal, is to his head. The American Consul sends a cablegram to Washington: "Petrosino shot. Instantly killed heart of city this evening. Assassin unknown. Dies a marytr". Symbol of the fight against crime, of the sense of justice and of the protection of the civilians, Joe Petrosino receives the celebration of 250,000 Americans, who gather to pay their respect to him the day of his funeral in New York.

The myth of Joe Petrosino continues today, both in Italy and in the United States. Gold medal for civil valor in Italy, he is today commemorated by the Associazione Internazionale Joe Petrosino, who, in his memory, has created an award annually presented to law enforcement officials who deserve to be recognized in their struggle against any kind of crime.