Detective Joseph Petrosino
Det. Joseph Petrosino was He was the NYPD’s first Italian‑American detective--and the only NYPD officer ever killed in the line of duty in a foreign country. Petrosino was murdered by Mafia members on March 12, 1909 while he was in Palermo investigating the Black Hand. It took almost a month for his remains to be returned to New York. After a funeral Mass at Old St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Little Italy, over 200,000 New Yorkers lined the route to Calvary Cemetery— an unprecedented tribute for a police officer. The New York Times wrote that “if Petrosino had died a President or an Emperor no deeper or truer show of feeling could have been manifested.” His funeral remains one of the largest NYC has ever seen.