12. “The Gentle Don”
Angelo Bruno (1910 – 1980) was a Philadelphia crime boss who became known as “The Gentle Don” because of his penchant for conciliation and trying to resolve conflicts peacefully, which stood in stark contrast to his violent successors. Born in Sicily, Bruno arrived in Philadelphia in his teens, and as a young man, became a close associate of New York’s Gambino crime family. He took part in a variety of rackets, including gambling and moonshining, and by 1959, he had risen to become boss of the Philadelphia crime family – a position he was to hold until his murder, two decades later.
Bruno prohibited his Philadelphia mob underlings from participating in the drug trade, but allowed others to distribute heroin in the city, which infuriated his subordinates. He also angered New York’s crime families by refusing to let them in on the gambling rackets in Atlantic City, a Philadelphia mob monopoly at the time. On March 21st, 1980, Bruno was sitting in his car in front of his home in South Philly, when the back of his head was blasted by a shotgun. His consigliere Antonio Caponigro was suspected of the hit. Because Bruno was murdered without sanction from The Commission, the mob’s supervisory body, Caponigro was himself murdered a few weeks later, and $300 were stuffed in his mouth and up his butt.
