Surviving the Mob - Dennis Griffin [3]
Samuel Karkis, the driver of the getaway car, was indicted on the same charges, plus hindering prosecution in the second degree.
The above account of events was taken primarily from that indictment and relates the facts of what took place. But it doesn’t tell the story. It doesn’t reveal the circumstances that brought Ralph Burzo, Samuel Karkis, and Andrew DiDonato to East 2nd Street near Avenue P that May afternoon. And it doesn’t explain why Andrew wanted Burzo dead.
The story behind the shooting can’t be addressed in a few sentences or paragraphs. In order to truly understand what happened that day and why, we have to go back out on the streets of Brooklyn nearly a decade before Andrew pulled the trigger.
2
Learning the Trade
In 1980, Andrew DiDonato was living with his mother and stepfather on East 55th Street in Brooklyn. At that time the minimum wage in the United States was $3.10 per hour. Assuming a 14- or 15-year-old boy like Andrew could get a job flipping burgers 20 hours a week after school, he’d gross $62 for his labor. Although Andrew worked when he wasn’t in school, he didn’t toil in a hamburger stand or anything similar. He did his work on the streets, and his weekly income was sometimes in the neighborhood of $1,400 cash. How did a kid his age generate that kind of money? As Andrew explains, it took hard work and nerve.
“I had two main sources of income in those days. I stole and sold car parts. And I shook down the kids selling marijuana in the neighborhood. I told them they’d either pay me a couple hundred bucks a week or I’d break their head.”
Andrew knew that if you wanted to be respected on the sidewalks of Brooklyn, you couldn’t just talk the talk. Out there, actions truly spoke louder than words and verbal threats alone weren’t enough to prove you were a force to be reckoned with. That was a lesson of the streets Andrew learned early. And he learned it well.
“The killings of my uncle and cousin devastated my family. It was the first taste of the reality of how brutal that life can be. Although I didn’t realize it at the time, it was a lesson that ultimately saved my life many years later.”
Andrew’s own capacity for violence became obvious as he advanced his extortion plans.
“Shaking down the pot dealers, I began with an act of violence, like a severe beating or a few shots with a baseball bat. I let them know there was worse to come if my demands weren’t met.”
Andrew wasn’t physically imposing. He stood three inches or so under six feet and weighed around 160 pounds. Some of the dealers he wanted to move in on were bigger than he was and some were as tough, maybe even tougher. But that didn’t deter him. He was thin and athletic and to overcome deficiencies in size or strength, he used the element of surprise to get the upper hand on his victim.
“I’d sneak up behind the guy and whack him with a bat. When he went down, I’d hit him again to make my point. They knew then I had something most of them didn’t. I had the balls to do whatever it took to impose my will. So it really didn’t matter if they were bigger than me. They knew if they fucked around with me, I’d get ’em with my fists, or a bat, or a tire iron. And they’d never even know it was coming. They were afraid of me and that’s the way I wanted it.”
Did Andrew ever feel guilty about the beatings he administered?
“I knew most of these dealers from school or the neighborhood. Some of them I didn’t like and enjoyed beating up. But I wasn’t just a bully. I was liked in the neighborhood and gave respect to those who deserved it. This was business, though, and I had to rough up the ones I liked, too. I was making a statement that if you were into selling weed, I wasn’t playing favorites.”
Andrew’s tactics worked. In addition to the dealers falling into line, word circulated that a new kid out there needed to