I mean, Petrosino always seemed to me as somebody who genuinely hated the mafia, he was even killed by the mafia at the end, yet instead of simply telling Palizzolo to “f#ck off”, he is all over him with admiration...Even one of America’s most legendary Mafia fighters, NYPD Detective Joseph Petrosino, appeared to be bowled over by the aristocratic Palizzolo. Petrosino (who would be assassinated in Palermo a year later by the Mafia) stated that it was, “…a privilege to be in the presence of a great man, a man of blood, of action, a gentleman and a scholar.” When asked about the Mafia by a reporter, Palizzolo recited the now well-known romanticized version that suggested that the society began as peasant uprising in the thirteenth century during the Sicilian Vespers, determined to drive out the repressive French government.
Does anyone else think this was quite a double standard on Petrosino’s part? Of course, he wouldn’t be the only one to act that way: even Joe Pistone defended characters like John Connolly or Paul Rico, yet I honestly didn’t expect from somebody who beat up Ignazio Lupo to a pulp once, to be so submissive to a mafioso like Palizzolo.
