John Gotti

2 Pages 618 Words

The American gangster has become as American as …say…apple pie! For decades people have both marveled at and been reviled by this genre of criminal activity in the United States.
Few organized crime figures have completely captured the attention of the public as John Gotti has over the past 20 years. We have had our celebrity mobsters in the past. Underworld figures like Al “Scarface” Capone and Jack “Legs” Diamond captured the public’s fascination during the 1920s. In the 1930s it was a different brand of criminal that became popular. Bank robbers like John Dillinger, “Pretty Boy” Floyd, and “Baby Face” Nelson were the rage of what was known as the Mid-West Crime Wave.
The 1940s brought us Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel and the killers of Murder, Inc. Along with the glamour these individuals provided, their murders made for exciting front-page headlines, not to mention sensational photographs.
While there were no prominent names during the 1950s, that decade nevertheless brought organized crime to the forefront, due to the efforts of law enforcement. It began with the televised Kefauver hearings in the early 1950s and made a big splash with the infamous Appalachin conclave in 1957.
The turbulent 1960s passed none too quickly with its political / sociological upheaval and in gangland we saw for the first time warring within the various crime families – the Gallo / Profaci War and the Banana War. As the 1970s dawned gangsters began not only vying for newspaper headlines, but now television airtime. Mortal mob enemies “Crazy Joe” Gallo and Joseph Colombo were the media targets of New York City and the city knew how to promote them. Both flamboyant characters would meet brutal, albeit well-publicized endings.



By the mid-1980s federal law agencies, with the help of local law enforcement, began to dismantle organized crime families across the country. In the midst of this effort, John Gotti stepped fo...