Joe Colombo shooting

My question is did Colombo do enough wrong that the Commission or even just Gambino would want him killed? I know he drew a bunch of attention with his Italian anti-defamation league or whatever but was that enough to make other bosses want him dead? I mean didn't Colombo bust up Joe Bonnano's plan to kill Tommy Lucchese and Carlo?

if anyone killed him without the rest of the families, they would be killed, and the league in it self was enough to get him killed..he defied the other bosses..there was more picketing the fbi...staten island advance..having everyones name in a book that gave money to the league including carlo, that joe told the feds carlo donated that money..many things

He was' nt sharing the profits of the league with the commission

i believe it had to be Commissioned sanctioned especially back in those days

I'm surprised that the most popular answer on this poll has Joe Gallo working together with the commission. To me, this is not a realistic scenario for a few reasons:

1. Carlo already owed appreciation to Gallo and Colombo for the Anastasia murder and Bonanno plot, respectively. So, I don't see a motive strong enough for Gambino to whack Colombo or double cross Gallo.

2. If Gallo and Gambino teamed up to clip Colombo, then Gallo got screwed again- he was already screwed a couple of times by Profaci and Persico. Common sense dictates that Gallo would have been absolutely certain of his spoils if he whacked Colombo.
The Carlo Gambino led commission had the authority to put their approved choices into the don's role- shown by Joe Colombo, Gaspar DiGregorio, Funzi Tieri, Rusty Rastelli, etc... and they didn't.

3. The Colombo family put out an open contract on Gallo's head. Carlo could have saved Gallo, but chose not to.

4. Gallo didn't declare war on Gambino and the commission. This indicates he didn't have a deal with them. Certain defeat at the hands of the commission wouldn't have prevented Gallo from starting a war, he was fearless.

The attention that the League was bringing to the Mob was more than just an annoyance.The FBI stepped up the heat,and all five Families were subject to constant pressure. Gambino had put the word out after the first Unity Day celebration that attendance at a second one would not be appreciated, and indeed the turnout was much less than expected. Despite some "friendly"advice from Gambino,Joe went ahead with the event.

Besides the negative attention,Colombo had been whacking up the donation money with the other bosses,and he was found in possession of a paper with Gambino's name on it along with a sum of money. Colombo's explanation was that it was "money that Carlo had raised selling tickets for the League"
This was a final straw for Carlo,and Joe's fate was sealed.
Although Gambino was at the peak of his power,I'm sure he went through the process,and made a formal case to the Commission for the hit.
Columbo's activities had gotten out of hand and would have put a major dent in the Mafia's earning power due to the Law Enforcement firestorm that would continue to be unleashed.

The Families would have nothing to gain and everything to lose by allowing the League to continue.

If it were Gambino because he was upset over all the attention, why would he have colombo shot in public during a speech of all places? Wouldn't that only service to bring even more attention?

Also, I thought it was proven that the gallo boys weren't part of the anastasia hit. I thought they found a thumb print on the getaway car from joe biondo and it's assumed it was other gambino's who did the shooting?

The attention that Gambino was concerned with wasn't attention in the publicity sense,but rather attention in terms of Law Enforcement being all over the mob like white on rice. The public slaying served a two fold purpose. First,it sent a message that anyone in the mob would understand,namely that this Civil Rights B.S. was going to end,and that the Commission was behind that decision.Secondly,it was an acknowledgement to Law Enforcement(FBI)that Columbo was a loose cannon and that his harrassment of them was not sanctioned by the Mafia as a whole.
The location of the killing left no doubt in anyone's mind as to the reason for it.

Colombo was a walking target who fell in love with own bullshit; with EVERY reason in the world to have him hit, logic says it was the Commission, not Gallo, who had other issues to deal with then.

That said, who the fuck was Jerome Johnson, really, and how the hell did someone coerce/convince him into taking that job? Crazy is easy to find, competent isn't so you gotta wonder what he got (partial payment beforehand?) & what he ** thought ** he was getting into. Even if Colombos bodyguards didn't kill Johnson first, what chance was there he could make a getaway from that crowd & cops on the scene?

The most voted answer is Gallo and Gambino, not Gallo and the Commission.



Gallo being the hitman who murdered Anastasia is probably nothing more than a myth. It is far more likely that Gambino used his own men to murder Anastasia, not an outsider from a rival family. And besides, Gallo wasn't the only one who had made this claim.

Yes, you are correct. I meant to say Gallo and Gambino.....with the idea that Gambino was more or less speaking for the commission. I believe that Carlo respected the concept of the commission and wouldn't have whacked Colombo without a vote. Yes, I understand the irony of that sentence since Carlo received his seat by participating in a hit on his boss. Joe Bonanno feels the hit was unsanctioned, but the commission likely had the votes without Bonanno.



Probably worthy of another poll, similar to this one. Can we agree that it was a group effort between Genovese, Gambino, Trafficante, and Lansky?

You make a good point about "not an outsider from a rival family"
While I believed the gunmen were Gallo and Persico, I can't come up with a motive for the Profaci family (Colombos) to be involved to that extent. Unlike with the other mobsters, there wasn't an obvious beef between Anastasia and Profaci. So now you got me rethinking who the gunmen were....

I'm skeptical of Gambino and Gallo working together because Gallo must have resented the Commission blessing Colombo as the new head of the Profaci family after Gallo (with Gambino backing) had gone after Profaci. Fool me once, shame on me. Fool me twice…

Also, if killing Colombo was about sending a message, why use an African-American shooter as well as a fictitious black liberation group (that was easily proved to be fake)? To me, it seems like the cover for the shooting was put together pretty haphazardly, indicating a shoot-from-the-hip Gallo operation rather than a well-organized Gambino ploy.

I'm also not totally opposed to the notion of Johnson working alone, although his motive could be anything and everything. But I'm partial to the notion that he preferred going out as the killer of a Mafia boss than continuing living as a nobody bottom-feeder.

It definitely seems that it was a collaboration between Genovese and Gambino, but I wonder what relatively small potatoes Lansky and Trafficante would've added to this conspiracy.

I personally think that the Colombo shooting was reminiscent to the murder of Angelo Bruno. I think that Gambino manipulated Gallo into making this move by falsely promising that he would back him up, afterwards putting the blame on Gallo.

The best explanation of what went on with the Joe Colombo hit was in a book called "Joey, portrait of a Mafia Hit man" it was written in the mid 1970s. Joey knew both Colombo and Gallo and accordingly to his version, Carlo Gambino the puppet master got tired of Colombo ignoring his request to lay low and stop antagonizing the FBI and used Joey Gallo to take Joe Colombo out. Both of them were a pain the ass to Gambino. After Joe Colombo was shot and disabled, Don Carlo stepped away from Joey Gallo and looked the other way when the Colombo’s went gunning for him. A master chess move that neither one saw coming

Gambino also gave Colombo spot as boss because he told Gambino about the Bonnano plot...I think Gallo wanted to take over and it is possible Gambino gave permission but I think Gallo acted on his own which is why he was assassinated.

What you just wrote is Don Carlo down to a T.
He would be the person to mastermind the plot to get rid of two trouble making pain in the asses.

You make a good point. While nearly every source states that both Genovese and Gambino were behind Anastasia's death....Lansky and Trafficante's involvement are occasionally mentioned.

Anastasia was trying to muscle into Havana- Lansky and Trafficante's domain. According to a book I read (I believe it was TJ English's Havana Nocturne), Anastasia was actually in the process of building a hotel/casino there. Lansky considered Cuba his domain and warned Albert to stay out of Cuba- and was ignored.

Trafficante stayed at the Park Sheraton hotel, which was where the barbershop was located. He checked out the morning of the shooting and immediately left town. Like Lansky, his motive was to keep Anastasia from muscling in on his Havana operations. Coincidence or was he in town to discuss Anastasia's murder? This was in the Biography channel's Mobsters episode of Santo Trafficante, Jr.




Excellent book, not very many people have read it. I'm just not sure how much of what Joey wrote was reliable, versus unsubstantiated rumors and gossip among the lower ranking mobsters.

Here's an interesting story from that book: Joey was a hitman, and he was approached by Genovese's people to whack Meyer Lansky. He declined the contract. Shortly afterward, he was ambushed and shot multiple times, it was implied it was due to refusing the contract. He survived and warned Lansky that he was in danger. Meyer paid Joey's hospital bills, out of appreciation, and gave him a safe hideout where he could heal. My guess is that this was shortly before Lansky recruited Nelson Cantellops to frame Genovese.

Interesting thoughts re: Carlo pulling strings but that still leaves Jerome Johnson...

He's gotta from somewhere and have some motivation...

How thorough was the original NYPD investigation?

Would Santo be dumb enough to be at the scene of a very public execution a couple of hours before it happened? I'd doubt it if he had foreknowledge of the hit. If you include Lansky and Santo in on the hit; then you have Genovese, Gambino the Gallos and two other people all plotting and having to have lower ranking people "in the know" to act as "buffers" between the bosses and the Gallos, carrying messages back and forth. That's a lot of people to have that knowledge and not have it leak out like Bonanno's grand schemes.

As for Jerome Johnson, there's a lot of knuckleheads who are dumb enough to take huge risks when big shots come around telling them that they'd set them up for life "for one little job". Perhaps they contacted him through one of the old Genovese heroin rings operating in Harlem? Joe Gallo wasn't the only mafia member to deal with blacks.

One reason I think they used a person not well connected to cosa nostra is that they knew that no shooter was going to get out of Columbus Circle alive and that an experienced mafia member/associate wouldn't go on that kind of suicide mission. They might have told Johnson that they'd have people in the crowd covering him so he could escape in chaos.

I think it was carlo gambino. He was smart like a fox. But then again, Gallo had strong ties to African Americans because of his time in prison. So idk. And we'll never know.

I think people overstate Lanksy and his involvement with the mafia. He had some partnerships in casinos in Cuba and Florida and various other gambling investments but once Lucky left the country and Costello was deposed he lost what little influence he had with the Italians to begin with, which wasn't much.

Well that's because he was more partnered with the Genovesr family, and Genovese hated Jews that's really the reason why. I still believe he had a lot of influence in the mob though.