For those who are curious -
A Few of his Cases that Made the News
Early in his career when a beat-policeman, Petrosino came to the rescue of a Mr. Washington who was being mugged by three thugs. When the dust settled, Mr. Washington and Joe Petrosino were still standing. The three thugs were beat to a pulp on the sidewalk, and under arrest.
Police Commissioner Teddy Roosevelt promoted Joe Petrosino to Detective Sergeant assigned to Homicide, the first Italian-American to reach that position (1895). Petrosino developed a friendship with Roosevelt that lasted all his life long. The tough-good-guys were two of a kind.
Convinced an innocent man, Angelo Carboni, was being sent to the electric chair, Petrosino tracked the real killer down through two countries and over four weeks, using disguises, impersonations, informants, and cunning police sense. He saved the innocent Italian-immigrant from death, and sent the real killer down.
Under his command, the Italian Legion shut down an insurance scam that preyed on naive immigrants (1899). They were convinced to sign onto life insurance, but the seller made himself the beneficially. The innocent immigrant always died soon after.
Amazingly, he infiltrated an Anarchist organization based in Italy that was responsible for the assassination of Italy's King Umberto. Petrosino discovered U.S. President McKinley was one of the group's targets, and warned the Secret Service to have the President avoid Buffalo, New York. But McKinley refused to accept the warning, despite his Vice President Teddy Roosevelt vouching for his friend Petrosino's police skills. McKinley was assassinated soon after in Buffalo by an Anarchist, making Teddy Roosevelt President of the U.S. (1901).
He famously worked two so-called Barrel-Murder cases of note. A gangland counterfeiter who had talked too much was brutally murdered and stuffed in a barrel (1902). This case was linked to the more famous later case of another dead counterfeiter found in a barrel (1903) that led Petrosino to Vito Cascio Ferro, the newly arrived Sicilian mafia don who was working to organize the various Italian gangs (the Black Hand organizations) into one powerful crime group. Petrosino chased Ferro across the country to New Orleans, but Ferro escaped to Sicily and later became the prime suspect behind the assassination of Joe Petrosino 6 years later. Ferro kept a photo of Petrocino in his wallet and told all and sundry that he would one day kill his nemesis.
After numerous threats on the policeman's life, Petrosino gave a public beating (in self-defense, of course) to Ignazio Lupo, the Sicilian mafia's top killer (who buried most of the bodies at his family's stables in Harlem). Petrosino beat Lupo to pulp and stuffed him head-first into an ash-barrel on a street in Little Italy before the shocked and amused Italian immigrants, who only moments before would have crossed themselves in fear at the name of Lupo. Lupo never regained the standing he had before the beating, and was soon after sent down on counterfeiting charges.
His Italian Legion cut crime against Italian-immigrants by half, and succeeded in dismantling the Calabrian crime organization in NYC, and they deported it's don, Enrico Alfano, back to Italy (1907). Petrosino famously dragged Alfano all the way from the man's apartment down the streets to the police station, so all would see what eventually happens to criminals in New York City.
His Legion broke up a giant prostitution ring run by the Sicilian mafia in NYC (1909). Newly arrived Sicilian women were coerced into prostituting themselves to save their lives, or those of their relations in New York or back in Sicily. Petrosino managed to put away all but one of the mobsters involved.
