Customer Reviews

The Execution of Officer Becker: The Murder of a Gambler, The Trial of a Cop, and the Birth of Organized Crime

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a sloppily written and poorly researched book. Major errors appear on the opening page (Herman Rosenthal was one of the few gangsters not to have had a nickname; Cohen repeatedly refers to him as "Beansie"--the monicker of the similarly named "Rosenfeld" who was actually a partner of the murder victim.) Big Jack Zelig is incorrectly identified as William Alberts (his true name was Selig Harry Lefkowitz--a biography, THE STARKER, is being published in February 2008.) Photos are badly labeled. Some of the gangsters are still changing identities even now, years after their deaths. Two pictures (Sam Schepps and Harry Vallon) are captioned differently than the same photos in Andy Edmond's much better AGAINST THE EVIDENCE, which is now out of print but worth reading.

This book is a good guide to the inaccurate reporting on the Becker case, since it seems to rely mostly on newspaper accounts of the trial that were invariably highly unfavorable to the defense. But it should in no way be considered historical fact. Corrupt policeman Becker was an unsavory character, but he went to the chair for a murder that he did not commit. The District Attorney hounded him to his death for political advantage. Cohen portrays this even more unsavory man as some kind of hero.

SATAN'S CIRCUS by Mike Dash is an immensely superior work in every way.

Author Stanley Cohen has done a thorough job in investigating the murder of gambler Herman "Beansie" Rosenthal in the Times Square area of New York City in 1912. A good portion of the book deals with the trial of the actual murderers by the shady names of Gyp the Blood, Lefty Louie, Dago Frank and Whitey Lewis, and the two trials of the man convicted of orchestrating the hit of Rosenthal, Lieutenant Charley Becker. Becker apparently enlisted three others (Bald Jack Rose, Bridgey Webber, and Harry Vallon) to set up the hit on Rosenthal who then hired the four hitmen to carry out the actual assassination. Becker was afraid of Rosenthal exposing Becker's involvement in shady operations in his police department, and the only way to silence Rosenthal was to place him in the past tense. I feel Becker's mistake was to involve three middlemen who then turned state's evidence against Becker to save their own neck. The four actual hitmen paid the supreme price for their involvement in Sing Sing's electric chair in 1913. Despite two trials Becker also kept a date with the electric chair in July of 1913, a few months after the actual hitmen. The fact that Becker was a police officer who faced execution in Sing Sing made this story front page news from the time of the murder until his execution. The book involves several people in addition to those already mentioned, and I found it hard to keep everyone's role in the drama straight. That, however, is my problem. I feel the author did a wonderful job on this book, and if you enjoy crime stories this one is a dandy. Two sets of pictures show the main characters in addition to New York landmarks in the 1910's such as The Tombs and the Criminal Courts Building connected by the Bridge of Sighs, Rector's Restaurant, New York's Lower East Side, the Tenderloin District (Times Square area), the Hotel Cadillac near the site of the murder at the Metropole Hotel, children hawking newspapers with the cry of "Extra", the building where Lefty Louie and Gyp the Blood were arrested in Queens, and children licking huge blocks of ice in front of a grocery store to ward off the stifling July heat. The pictures, I felt, gave me an idea of what New York City was like during the 1910's. Those who enjoy crime stories will want to make this book a permanent addition to their library.