Columbus Circle Shooting: Joseph Colombo and Jerome Johnson

The Joseph Colombo shooting happened on June 28, 1971, when a 25-year-old drifter named Jerome A. Johnson walked up to the New York Mafia boss at an Italian-American Civil Rights League rally in Columbus Circle, posed as a photographer, and fired three bullets into his head at point-blank range. Seconds later, an unidentified person shot Johnson dead in the surrounding chaos. Colombo survived but was left paralyzed and largely comatose for nearly seven years before dying on May 22, 1978. No one was ever charged with ordering the attack, and the identity of the person who killed the gunman was never established.¹²

What Happened at Columbus Circle

Shortly before noon, crowds were gathering near the Christopher Columbus statue for the league’s second annual Unity Day rally. Colombo, then 48, had founded the organization the year before and was its public face. Johnson had gotten himself a “Unity Day press pass” from the rally’s own organizers and was carrying a camera, blending in with the working press.¹

According to witnesses, Johnson and a female companion asked Colombo to pose for a photograph. He drew a revolver and fired three times into Colombo’s head.² Police and bystanders swarmed the gunman. In the confusion, someone shot Johnson dead. A UPI photographer described a brief exchange of gunfire between police and the attacker, but Chief of Detectives Albert Seedman later said investigators were “convinced” that Johnson had been killed by one of Colombo’s bodyguards rather than by any officer. Whoever fired that shot vanished into the crowd and was never identified.¹

Colombo was rushed to Roosevelt Hospital. Surgeons operated on his brain for five hours, removing two bullets, one from the mid-brain and one from the back of the neck, and leaving a third slug lodged in his jaw. Doctors put his chances of survival at “less than 50-50.” By the next morning he was breathing on his own and could move his left arm, but the damage was catastrophic and permanent.¹

Who Was Jerome Johnson

Johnson was a drifter from New Brunswick, New Jersey, with a long record of erratic and violent behavior and at least seven prior arrests. A woman who had lived with him told the New York Times that he had subjected her to “three months of torture.” Police described him as a “gun buff” and an admirer of Hitler who kept photographs of the Nazi leader.³⁴²

He lived a transient existence, drifted through Greenwich Village, and frequented mob-connected establishments. His bank balance in January 1971 was $2.05. He had no obvious personal grievance against Colombo, and the preparation for the attack suggests he did not act alone. In the days before the rally he rented a 16mm Bolex camera in Cambridge, Massachusetts, under the pretense of shooting a documentary. He carried National Rifle Association certificates identifying him as a “marksman and sharpshooter,” which investigators believed were meant to prove his capability to whoever hired him. Chief Seedman stated publicly that the attack was planned.³¹

Why Colombo Was a Target

By 1971 Colombo had made himself the most visible Mafia boss in America. He publicly denied any Mafia connections, claimed to work in real estate, and used the Italian-American Civil Rights League to picket the FBI and press the media to drop the words “Mafia” and “Cosa Nostra.” The league claimed roughly 46,000 dues-paying members by mid-1971, and Colombo forged a public alliance with Rabbi Meir Kahane’s Jewish Defense League against what both men called Justice Department harassment.⁵

That visibility unnerved his peers. Other bosses had once dismissed him as a “lightweight,” and a taped conversation between New Jersey crime boss Simone Rizzo DeCavalcante and others captured their surprise that someone like Colombo could sit on the commission. Inside his own family, Carmine “Snakes” Persico and his faction reportedly resented Colombo’s public attacks on the FBI, believing the activism was drawing unwanted law enforcement scrutiny onto the entire organization.⁶ Colombo also had an older, bloodier enemy. Joseph “Crazy Joe” Gallo and his brothers had been at war with the family’s leadership since the late 1950s and had once kidnapped Colombo and his predecessor, Joe Magliocco, for ransom.²

Theories About Who Ordered the Hit

Investigators pursued two main theories, and neither was ever proven.

The first pointed at Joe Gallo. Police questioned Joe and Albert Gallo within hours of the shooting, and federal investigators pushed the “gang war” angle hard. The theory was that Gallo, recently released from prison and rebuilding his crew with contacts he had made behind bars, had recruited Johnson to take out Colombo.¹

The second theory gained ground later. Investigators discovered that Johnson had been frequenting a club controlled by Paul Di Bella, a soldier in the Gambino crime family.⁷ Time magazine reported growing doubt that Johnson had any real ties to the Black gangsters Gallo had recruited in prison and described a “growing rumor” that Carlo Gambino, the most powerful boss in New York, had issued the contract. Under this version, Carmine Persico helped execute the attempt from inside Colombo’s own family and was rewarded with control of the rackets, while Gambino eventually absorbed the Colombo family’s operations.⁸

A third suspicion, held by Colombo’s son Anthony among others, was that the FBI itself had a hand in the shooting. No definitive evidence tied Johnson to any specific crime family or agency, and no one was ever charged with ordering the attack.³

The Retaliation

With Colombo incapacitated, Joseph Yacovelli, described by law enforcement as “extremely close” to Persico, took over daily control of the family. Persico himself was free on bail while appealing a 14-year hijacking sentence, and investigators believed Yacovelli was acting on his behalf.⁹

On April 7, 1972, Joe Gallo was shot and killed at Umberto’s Clam House on Mulberry Street while celebrating his 43rd birthday. Gunmen entered after 4 a.m. and shot him in the elbow, buttock, and back. He staggered out and collapsed on Hester Street. Joseph Luparelli, a Colombo family associate, later surrendered to the FBI and identified Yacovelli as the person who sanctioned the killing.¹⁰¹¹

Colombo’s Long Decline and Death

Colombo spent most of the next seven years in a comatose and paralyzed state at his Brooklyn home, requiring constant care. In early May 1978 his health worsened and he was admitted to St. Luke’s Hospital in Newburgh, New York, with what staff described as “intra-cerebral problems.” He died there on May 22, 1978, at 54. The official cause was cardiac arrest, which hospital staff attributed to his injuries from Columbus Circle seven years earlier.²

A requiem high mass was held four days later at St. Bernadette’s Roman Catholic Church in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, where he was eulogized as a “champion of civil rights.”¹² The core questions about the shooting were never resolved: who recruited Jerome Johnson, who killed him seconds later, and whether the plot ran through the Gallo faction, the Gambino family, Colombo’s own lieutenants, or some combination of them.²

1
The New York Times. Colombo Shot, Gunman Slain at Columbus Circle Rally Site
2
The Mob Museum. The Life and Death of Joe Colombo
3
CrimeReads. Soul Assassin: The Brief Life and Death of Jerome Johnson
4
The New York Times. Jerome A. Johnson Is Depicted by the People Who Knew Him
5
The New York Times. Italian-American Rights League Builds Strength in Several Major Cities
6
The New York Times. Colombo: The New Look in the Mafia
7
The New York Times. Suspect in Shooting of Colombo Linked to Gambino Family
8
Time. The Nation: Colombo Contd.
9
The New York Times. Yacovelli Said to Succeed Colombo in Mafia Family
10
The Mob Museum. Joe Gallo’s Crazy Celebrity Status
11
The New York Times. Story of Joe Gallo’s Murder: 5 in Colombo Gang Implicated
12
The New York Times. Colombo Is Eulogized as a Champion of Civil Rights