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

Cohen, Stanley

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0786717572 ISBN 13: 9780786717576

Publisher: Carroll & Graf, 2006

Synopsis

Lieutenant Charles Becker was the only New York City police officer ever executed for murder. He was convicted of orchestrating the gangland slaying of a small-time gambler named Herman (Beansie) Rosenthal in the summer of 1912. Becker was convicted twice, in showcase trials, and died in Sing Sing’s electric chair in 1915. The murder and the trial were front-page news in all twelve New York City newspapers for three years. Sensational as the case was on its own, it was given impetus by the fact that Becker was found to be a central figure in a network of police graft and political corruption whose effects were felt in City Hall, the state capital, and finally throughout the nation. For added measure, there was the strong likelihood that Becker, though clearly a cop on the take, had nothing to do with the murder of Rosenthal.

About this title

About the Author:

Stanley Cohen, a veteran award-winning newspaper and magazine journalist, is the author of The Wrong Men, The Man in the Crowd, A Magic Summer: The '69 Mets, and The Game They Played, a Sports Illustrated Top 100 Sports Book of All Time. He lives in Tomkins Cove, New York.

From Booklist:

In the summer of 1912, Beansie Rosenthal, a small-time hood, was murdered in New York's Times Square. Three years and two trials later, Charles Becker, an NYPD cop, was executed for arranging the assassination. Along the way Becker was exposed as the mastermind of a corruption ring so intricate and so well organized that it even had a name: the System. And when the System was brought down, professional criminals stepped in, and organized crime was born. The author relates this little-known but historically important story with gusto. Although it's nonfiction (complete with extensive bibliography and detailed source notes), the book reads like a novel, with rough-and--tumble dialogue and sharply drawn characters who feel as if they walked out of a Howard Hawks gangster flick. There are also tantalizing clues that Becker may not have been involved in Beansie's murder, leaving us to wonder what the criminal landscape of North America might look like today if Becker's System had not been dismantled. David Pitt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

About this edition

• Publisher: Carroll & Graf
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0786717572
• ISBN 13: 9780786717576
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 320