David Hennessy

October 16, 1890

“MAFIA” BECOMES A HOUSEHOLD WORD

The murder of New Orleans Police Chief David Hennessy is considered to be one of the first recorded Mafia killings in America. Whether or not the Mafia was actually involved is unclear, but in the end it matters little—for it was the Italian population of the city that bore the brunt of Hennessy’s death, on orders from the city’s mayor, Joseph Shakspeare.

New Orleans during the late 1800s was a city of corruption and vice. Everyone was on the take, and that included officials. Even Shakspeare, who had been elected on an anti-corruption platform, was known to receive regular illicit payments from the gambling dens and brothels.

For years countless waves of immigrants had been pouring into the city, with Italians being currently bottom of the pecking order. Mixed in with these migrants were members of the Camorra and Mafia, who jostled for position in the city’s underworld. Two rival families—the Provenzano and the Matranga—now vied for a piece of the criminal pie.

ENTER CHIEF HENNESSY

Descriptions of Hennessy vary widely. He was either an honest cop trying to put a lid on the gang problem, or a crooked opportunist hoping to manipulate the underworld for his own purposes. Certainly Hennessy was no wallflower. Back in 1882 he had killed a rival officer in a shoot-out. The incident had cost him his job. Then, more recently as a crony of Mayor Shakspeare, he had not only found his badge reinstated, he had been appointed Chief of Police.

One of Hennessy’s first tasks as chief of a force that was corrupt and riddled with political appointees was to lop off some of the dead wood. As a result, scores of lawmen lost their jobs. Next, he moved to crack down on the gambling dens and casinos—but only those not owned by members of Shakspeare’s constituency. Evidently the clean-up went only so far.

Hennessy was also manoeuvring among the gangs. In an attempt to neutralize the more powerful of the two families—the Matranga—he had agreed to testify on behalf of the Provenzano if they promised to reveal all they knew about the Mafia.

The shooting of Chief of Police David Hennessey who had been investigating crimes connected with the Mafia in New Orleans, 15th of October 1890.

THE MURDER

Hennessy was never able to testify. On October 15, 1890, he was shot down on his way home. Lingering for about a day, he was able to provide only three words of information as to the identity of his killers: “Dagoes did it”—meaning the Italians.

But this was all Mayor Shakspeare needed to hear and he leapt at the chance to eliminate a painful thorn in his side. Immediately he ordered the police force to round up as many Italians as they could. Accounts differ as to how many were arrested in the witch-hunt, but figures range from 100 to 250—a number well beyond the “usual suspects”. Only nine of these actually went to trial.

The trial was a fiasco from the start and both sides were accused of bribery and jury-tampering. In the end the judge had no alternative but to return an overall verdict of not guilty.

New Orleans was stunned. Agents of the mayor jumped on the soapbox and after a mass meeting the jail was stormed. When the smoke cleared, eleven prisoners were dead.

Yet even at the time opinion was divided as to who had actually killed Hennessy. Some dismissed Mafia involvement and believed the chief’s death to be the work of either ex-lawmen or gamblers who had suffered as a result of Hennessy’s clean-ups.

Nevertheless, anti-Italian sentiment lingered in New Orleans for years, with other ethnic Italians falling victim to the public mood. But the incident had further legacies too. The term “Mafia”, once known only by a few, was now a household word. It’s also said that because of the murders the American Mafia made it a hard and fast rule to never kill a cop. The price is just too high.