Also the 4th of July parties were for HIS benefit. Having the neighborhood on your side to give you info on cops/fbi watching him was his goal.
Exactly. It was the same on Mulberry. Citizens preventing the authorities from doing surveillance on criminal elements in their neighborhood. How is this tolerable? You think people like Gotti give a crap about all the 17 year old and 18 year old neighborhood kids who ended up with criminal records because mobsters used them, took advantage of them and got them to riot and destroy public property in his name?
A myth put out by the FBI and media.
i call horseshit on that one
I'll always remember seeing Bruce Mouw talk about the way ordinary people were duped, specifically younger people, by John Gotti and his family into believing the Robin Hood esque myths about him, while ignoring the part about his destructive role on society. He actually got a little bit emotional about it. It struck me as very sincere.
But I imagine if I had a similar job in trying to do something constructive for the good of society and the media almost makes a conscious effort to portray the criminality you're fighting as glamorous to impressionable people I'd probably get pretty disenchanted.
I guess we are talking about a society where a few years before these events people were literally spitting on Vietnam vets, so there you go.
