1959 Gang Killings

February 18, 1959 – Daniel Garcia, a member of a gang from East Harlem called the Norsemen is shot and killed by members of the Italian Red Wings.

February 23, 1959 – Four members of a Puerto Rican gang called the Mau Maus from Fort Greene, Brooklyn, shoot and kill Anthony Lavonchino, a member of the Italian Sand Street Angels from nearby Farragut.

June 1, 1959 – Earl Mack, a member of the Dragons is shot and killed in East Harlem by a rival gang called the Viceroys.  He hangs onto life for two weeks before dying on June 14, 1959.

June 14, 1959 – Raoul Banuchi is killing walking an East Harlem street by a Puerto Rican gang called the Dragons.  This was retaliation for the death of Earl Mack (see above).

July 7, 1959 – Radislaw Blazic, Frank Arroyo, Theodore Niforo shoot and kill Sergio Quinones in a drive-by shooting in Harlem.  The two gangs at the heart of this killing are the Sinners and Assassins.

August 23, 1959 – Miguel Castro, a member of the Sportsmen from the Lower East Side stabs and kills Julio Rosario a member of the Forsythe Boys.

August 23, 1959 – Theresa Gee is killed in a gang shooting in the Lilian Wald Projects in the Lower East Side by a gang called the Forsythe Boys.  This was in retaliation for the death of Rosario.

August 30, 1959 – Perhaps the most infamous of all gang killings in this era.  Sal “Capeman” Agron, Louis “Umbrella Man” Hernandez and some others stabbed and killed Robert Young and Anthony Krzesinski in a Hell’s Kitchen park.  The Capeman and Umbrella Man were members of a gang called the Vampires.  Young and Krzesinski were not in a gang, nor had any gang affiliations.

September 22, 1959 – Edward Perez, Freddie Sanchez, Aurelio Garcia, Peter Santos, Hippolito Rivera, Francisco Diaz, Angelo Diaz, Caesar Martinez, Robert Salas and Jose Ramon Cuba, all members of the Royal Knights, shoot and kill John Guzman, a member of a Bronx gang called the Valiant Crowns.

September 29, 1959 – Roosevelt Bennett is killed by members of the Bishops gang from Bedford-Stuyvesant after making a homosexual pass at the boys.