Thanks for posting the article, Obsessed. Enjoyed it.
I think the article overstates Joey Gallo's role in the Mob in general and in Columbo's shooting in particular. The Gallo brothers had a war with their nominal Don, Joe Profaci, in the early 60's that left them essentially on the fringes of the Mafia. Crazy Joe went away for a decade on a jukebox extortion rap. Yes, he did recruit blacks and Hispanics while in the can, and used them when he got out. But it didn't trigger a Mafia "war" because Gallo was an insignificant force by then. And while he was widely suspected of being behind the Columbo shooting, the consensus of opinion today is that he had nothing to do with it--it's generally thought that Carlo Gambino ordered it to stop Columbo's publicity-mongering.

Columbo's Italian-American Civil Rights League did tap a deep well of resentment among Italian-Americans about the way they were (and still are) portrayed. But Columbo formed it for his own selfish purposes: to deter the FBI from prosecuting him for racketeering, and to get the Feds to drop a charge against one of his sons for melting down silver coins for their bullion content. The irony was that even as he was appearing on nationwide TV (Dick Cavettt Show) to deny the existance of the Mafia, he was making Ruddy an offer he couldn't refuse: drop references to "Mafia" and "Cosa Nostra" in GF, in return for getting cooperation from unions Columbo controlled--and permission for James Caan to follow him and his top lieutenants around to study their mannerisms.