The Violent Years (2 page)

“The directory of Gangland is a complicated affair. Life in that last of the absolute monarchies runs not in straight lines but in sharp zigzags. Leaderships, alliances, friendships and enemies are constantly changing.”

—The Detroit News,
1923

T
he modern Detroit area underworld organization was born out of one of the bloodiest gang wars in the history of the underworld. It began shortly after the Michigan Prohibition Law became effective on May 1, 1918. This internecine warfare, which became known as the Giannola/Vitale Gang War, was to rage for nearly three years. Before it ended, all of the established leaders of both of the warring factions would be dead. Antonio (Tony), Sam, and Vito Giannola immigrated to the United States from Sicily around the turn of the century. The three brothers eventually settled in Detroit’s Italian community, which was located on the city’s lower east side.

During that time, the local Sicilian underworld was dominated by two brothers known as Salvatore and Vito Adamo. The Adamo brothers controlled the rackets in Detroit’s Italian community. At first, there was an uneasy alliance between the Giannola and Adamo gangs. This period of cooperation only lasted a short time as the Giannola Mob had their own grand designs on the Adamo-controlled rackets. Once the Giannola brothers became established in the community, the trouble began.

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Both the Adamo and the Giannola groups were involved in the typical ethnic rackets of that era. These underworld enterprises included the Italian lottery, kidnapping for ransom, the peddling of homemade beer and wine, and the “Black Hand” extortion racket.

The origins of the term Black Hand have been traced by some scholars to late 19th century Spain, where it was said to have been the name of an underworld group of thieves and murderers who had styled themselves as protectors of the people. Other research has suggested that the Black Hand may have been a secret society that had fought against the government and the Church in Spain during the Inquisition.

It is important at this point to note that many individual criminals and groups of two or three malefactors practiced the Black Hand form of extortion. These people were often not affiliated with any formal Italian or Sicilian underworld organizations such as the Camorra or the Mafia. For these underworld opportunists, the Black Hand racket was merely a simple means of squeezing money out of their fellow countrymen. This form of extortion was extremely effective on the newly arrived and superstitious Sicilian and Italian immigrants who associated the Black Hand with the secret criminal brotherhoods of their native countries. Once these people arrived in the United States, they were often insulated in their own communities, unfamiliar with the culture and customs of their newly adopted country, and distrustful of established institutions of authority Many of these immigrants felt helpless and terrified when they received a Black Hand letter. Those who were unfortunate enough to be sent such correspondence believed it to be the work of an all-powerful underworld organization known as the Black Hand, from which there was no escape.

All that the Black Hand extortion technique required was the writing of a threatening letter—often illustrated with crude drawings of daggers dripping with blood, a black handprint, a knife-pierced heart, a gun firing, or a bomb exploding. The letter would sometimes contain a subtle threat cloaked in flowery language. At other times, the letter would come blatantly to the point, threatening the victim with immediate death or the death of a family member if the extortion demands were not met. Often a Black Hand letter might suggest that the victim seek out an intermediary who could negotiate with the mysterious Black Hand. This intermediary would often be easier to find than the victim imagined, because in reality it would sometimes be the author of the Black Hand letter.

The usual consequences of ignoring a Black Hand threat would be the destruction of the victim’s place of business or home by bombing or arson, the murder or kidnapping of a family member, or the murder of the victim himself.

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As was tradition, the immigrant Italian and Sicilian community of the early 20th century often developed a love/hate relationship with the local underworld leaders. The Giannola brothers were known in their community as the “Triumvirate of Terror,” yet they also served at times in the role of community benefactors. Tony Giannola was known to have helped the aged and the poor in his community, sometimes providing free coal in the winter when people could not afford to buy fuel, or food on the table when a family was destitute and had nothing to eat. Some residents in Giannola’s community even claimed that Tony had actually done more to stop the Black Hand from operating than the Detroit Police Department.

For several years, the streets of Detroit’s lower east side were the scene of open warfare between the Giannola and Adamo factions. Bodies were often found blown to pieces with shotguns or with their throats cut. The sawed-off shotgun became the weapon of choice among the feuding gangs. As the gang war dragged on, men on both sides died violent deaths.

Tony Giannola was often arrested and questioned by the police during the gang war, but officials could never get enough evidence against him to hold him on a specific charge. Tony was considered by the Detroit police to be the brains behind the Giannola Mob and the man responsible for most of the crime in the Italian community. According to Detroit Police Inspector William Good, chief of the Sicilian Squad, whenever “Tony Giannola was brought in for questioning he would shrug his shoulders, roll his eyes and look at the ceiling. He always had an alibi.”

Tony Giannola was convicted of a crime only once, and that was careless use of firearms. It seems that Tony and several of his henchmen had been riding down a Detroit street when they passed two pedestrians who had the misfortune of resembling Vito and Salvatore Adamo. Both of these men were immediately shot to death. Shortly after the shooting incident, Giannola’s auto was stopped by a patrol car. The officers found two empty sawed-off shotguns and an empty revolver in the car. All of the weapons had been recently fired. Unfortunately, what police couldn’t find were witnesses that would be willing to testify against these men. The end result of Giannola’s conviction was the payment of a $200 fine.

Many say the final incident in the Giannola/ Adamo war occurred when Ferdinand Palma, a local banker and a personal friend of Tony Giannola, received a Black Hand letter. The letter had been authored by one of the Adamo brothers. Tony Giannola intervened in the extortion plot and warned the Adamo Mob to lay off his friend. Palma, in the belief that he was protected, ignored the demands of the letter and shortly afterward was shot and seriously wounded.

The war with the Adamo brothers finally ended when the two men were caught walking along Mullet Street near Russell and shot down by Giannola assassins.

The deaths of the Adamo brothers left the Giannola Mob in complete control of the Italian/ Sicilian underworld, both in Detroit and in the downriver communities of Ecorse and Wyandotte. The Giannola organization at this time was composed of about 50 men. The Giannola brothers established the Wyandotte Fruit Co. and several other legitimate businesses, and for a while they prospered.

When Prohibition arrived in Michigan in 1918, the Giannola Mob was well established. The Giannola brothers quickly grasped the opportunities created by the new Prohibition Law and became involved in rum-running and hijacking.

Soon after the Michigan statewide Prohibition Law went into effect, U.S. 25, known as Dixie Highway, became a popular route for rumrunners bringing liquor to Detroit from Toledo, Ohio, and other areas. This roughly 60-mile link of road between Detroit and Toledo would become popularly referred to as the “Rumrunners Runway” and the “Avenue De Booze.” The Giannola gang made a profitable business out of hijacking trucks and autos bringing contraband liquor into Michigan along U.S. 25. They also began working the lower Detroit River, hijacking liquor as it was being moved from boats to trucks by small gangs of rumrunners and independents. It wasn’t long before the Giannola brothers began to purchase boats and establish themselves as rumrunners, buying their liquor in Canada and hauling it across the Detroit River to points in Wyandotte and Ecorse.

Shortly after the Adamo brothers were murdered, Sam Cipriano, a Giannola underboss and partner in their beer business, received a package in the mail. He took the box over to a friend who owned a nearby drugstore. When the two men opened the box, it exploded in their faces. The gift-wrapped bomb detonated with such force that it blew out the front of the drugstore, instantly killing the druggist and ripping off one of Cipriano’s arms. Cipriano managed to stagger into St. Mary’s Hospital, where he died several hours later.

Around the same time, another Giannola lieutenant, John Vitale, was being investigated by detectives of the Detroit Police Department’s Sicilian Squad. They suspected that he was one of a group of men who had set up and ambushed Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Roggers, who was shot to death on July 24, 1917. Roggers had been a member of the Sicilian Squad. Police theorized that Roggers, who was investigating the Giannola brothers, had found out too much and for this reason had been eliminated. However, in early 1918, John Vitale broke from the Giannola Mob and set out with a gang of his own. This group was for the most part composed of former Giannola gangsters.

The actual reason for the trouble between the Giannola brothers and John Vitale, which resulted in the split of the Vitale faction from the Giannola Mob, is not known for certain. As a partner in the Giannola beer business, John Vitale had been allowed to run his own crew semi-independently of the Giannola gang, although he still was required to account to the Giannola brothers for his activities. It is possible that Vitale had grown tired of working for the Giannola brothers. Vitale could see the fabulous profits that could be made in rum-running and other Prohibition-related ventures and did not want to share the spoils with the Giannola brothers.

Another theory behind the Giannola/Vitale split involves Peter Bosco, a close friend of John Vitale’s and a fellow Giannola gangster who had been involved in a business deal with Tony Giannola. Bosco had been part-owner of a grocery store with Tony Giannola in Detroit. Apparently Giannola thought that Bosco was taking more than his fair share of the profits out of the business. The business arrangement ended in a dispute between the two men, and they parted company. Shortly after Peter Bosco and Tony Giannola had dissolved their partnership, Bosco opened up a garage in Detroit. At first, the Giannolas’ men attempted to kill Bosco by rigging his auto to explode upon starting by filling the cylinders with gasoline. When police investigators attempted to move the vehicle, it blew up. Several Detroit police officers involved in the investigation barely escaped injury when the car exploded. Then one night Bosco was ambushed and shot to death in his garage. John Vitale at this point swore revenge for the murder of his friend, and the Vitale faction broke from the Giannola Mob.

The Giannola and Vitale Mobs had coexisted in relative peace for a time but—as could be expected—business competition and personal rivalries led to killings and reprisals for killings, which ultimately pushed the two Mobs to an all-out war.

The incident that triggered the war occurred in November of 1918. John Vitale arranged a business deal with Canadian suppliers to have 41 barrels of whiskey sent to Detroit via the Wabash Railroad in a freight car marked as fruit. This liquor shipment was valued at $13,000. Vitale thought that labeling the contraband-loaded freight car as a fruit shipment consigned to him would provide a good cover, as both he and Giannola were legitimate fruit dealers.

Somehow the Giannola gang learned about Vitale’s liquor shipment. They located the freight car in a railway yard, arrived with trucks, broke open the seals on the freight-car doors, and stole the whiskey. They liked Vitale’s cover so much themselves that after they had loaded the whiskey into their trucks they covered the load with green peppers and other produce.

Unknown to either the Giannola or Vitale gangs, the Detroit police had been tipped off about the freight car and staked out the railroad yards waiting for somebody to show up with trucks and pick up the load. Police followed the liquor-loaded Giannola trucks back to Wyandotte, arrested most of the gang, including the Giannola brothers, and confiscated the liquor. When John Vitale learned of this incident, he supposedly became enraged and swore revenge on the Giannola brothers. It was this incident that in all likelihood precipitated the Giannola/ Vitale Gang War.

Tony Giannola became the first casualty of the war. On January 3, 1919, Tony was driven by his bodyguard, Tony Alescio, to attend the wake of a close friend named Giuseppe Braziola. Braziola had been shot to death by his son-in-law in a family argument. As Tony Giannola stepped from his car to attend the gathering, Alescio pulled his automatic pistol and fired five rapid shots. Tony Giannola plunged forward and collapsed, a bullet in his brain and four more slugs in his back. Tony Alescio, Giannola’s bodyguard, had been adopted and raised by the Giannola family since childhood. No one ever suspected that he was a Vitale spy.

At the time that Tony Giannola was murdered, he was waiting to stand trial in federal court. He had been indicted by the feds for violation of the Car Seal Act in the freight yard whiskey theft. If found guilty, Giannola could have received up to 10 years in prison. Tony Giannola’s funeral became one of the first extravagant gangster funerals in Detroit. Within a month, an attempt would be made on the life of Sam Giannola by the Vitale Mob.

On the evening of February 2, 1919, Sam Giannola and his brother-in-law, Pasquale Danni, had just arrived at Sam’s Ford City, Michigan, home. As Giannola and Danni walked up to the house, assassins hiding in the bushes opened fire. Danni was killed instantly in the shotgun attack, but Sam Giannola managed to escape the ambush unharmed.