"A woman relative cried...but neighborhood dead-end kids enjoyed the show when a small-time racketeer was shot and killed," wrote Weegee in the caption accompanying this startling photograph in his 1945 publication Naked City.
"On the facing page Weegee showed the bloody body lying in the street. Alternately laughing, staring in disbelief, or looking into the camera to grasp their own momentary chance to be recorded, the children who had witnessed this grisly scene form an unsettling amalgam of human emotion and self-absorption. Two women are among the group: one, whom Weegee mentioned above, stands at the center, her face contorted with anguished tears, her personal loss turned into public spectacle." -- (Getty Museum)
Love Weegee's photography. Anyway, I went to the Getty link and looked at the "Cop Killer" photo. Saw that the perp was a feller named Anthony Esposito. After a quick internet search, I discovered that approx. a year after the original photo was taken, Esposito and his brother were escorted to a seat in a electric chair. If our system of justice was in effect in 1941, old Tony would just about be on his last appeal now.
Posted by: JimBobElrod at July 7, 2012 5:32 PM"It is impossible to speak in such a way that you cannot be misunderstood." -- Karl Popper N.B.: Comments are moderated to combat spam and may not appear immediately. Comments that exceed the obscenity or stupidity limits will be either edited or expunged.
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