'Our Thing' Podcast Season 1 Episode 2: The First Hit | Sammy "The Bull" Gravano

new york 1970. i'm now a member of the columbo family i'm an associate one day i get a message from shorty spiro orders come from the top and members carry these orders out so i get an order one day carmine persico and probably from the boss himself when you break the rules you can die it was a member of our crew and i understood basically i was asked to kill for the first time ever sammy the bull gravano tells his story this is our thing the rampers in bensonhurst brooklyn 1959. when i was young early in my life 13 14 years old maybe i'm in a gang there was different gangs in that in those days everywhere black gangs puerto rican gangs you name it a friend of mine called me not too long ago and was talking about it he said samuel you remember when we went in and uh we were taking the initiation you would get beatings slapped you [ __ ] [ __ ] punched kicked i mean sometimes real good beatings your mouth was [ __ ] swolled up and the answer was all the time we're gonna toughen you up and we were doing things that wasn't just normal to everyday gangs we were already carrying guns armed robberies burglaries we were a little more dangerous than the everyday gang there was a lot of people belong to gangs not like this gang this game was a brutal [ __ ] gang when you joined this gang you felt brutalized it prepared you for different things new york 1970 joe calucci joe calucci was a bricklayer he was in the crew with us he was a hunter a tough guy so i really liked him but what he did what he was plotting is unthinkable and he came out with this weird plan on what to do and it backfired on him joe calucci plotted to kill shorty sparrow and myself he went to another crew member for help a guy named frankie frankie listened to his request and went to shorty and told him what he was asked to do that's how this whole thing started they went right up to the top the order came down to kill him i wasn't really sure in my head if i was being goaded into this i didn't understand why he would want to kill me and i was asked who do you want to help you once i agreed to do the hit i wanted frankie on the hit i wanted to hear it from him what happened what he heard why he didn't tell me why he went to shorty sparrow and not me i also wanted tommy spero they agreed to that and we started plotting to kill joe coluchi where would we kill him how would we kill him frankie went back and told him that he would help him with his plaque his plan to kill me and shorty all the information was coming to us it was my first hit i was a little green i didn't know exactly what to do bensonhurst brooklyn 1945. my mother and father were legitimate good people they prepared me in a lot of ways for a lot of good things honest things that made me a little bit different of a gangster i had some compassion for people i did have some love and respect for people maybe people won't agree but i had dif i was a different type of gangster i had no one in the mafia no uncles aunts cousins sisters brothers nobody in the mafia to excel in the mafia without brothers fathers uncles or somebody is extremely difficult i excelled in the mafia from all my other training my family learning respect learning honor learning something different and the gang structure so when i got into the mafia i believe i excelled because of all that back history my father's name was uh jalando in italian but everybody called him jerry over here my mother was called katie so jerry and katie originally there was five of us before i was born my brother frankie gravano died one of my sisters was a twin she died i was left with two sisters one of them was nine years older than me one of them was five years older than me and they were i was like their little toy they would hover around me and they almost like played house with me you know took care of me it was almost like having three mothers my mother was a seamstress my father was a painter and they worked long long hours i got in trouble most of my life i literally used to break their heart i could see the pain in their face when every time i [ __ ] up they didn't hit me and then my father never raised his hands to me my mother would hit me with a broom and a steak and anything she could get heads on but my father never had me they wanted the best for me and to be good but i was a fuck-up i i absolutely loved my parents i adored them i never told them i was in the life i don't think they officially knew i was in the life because when i was younger i i was really tough with my hands i had a lot of respect in the neighborhood people wouldn't [ __ ] with me my father i heard him telling my mother one time he's just a bad kid he's just that way some kids are born and raised that way we didn't raise him that way but that's in him so he just knew i was a tough kid a bad kid and uh i was well respected feared probably at the same time i remember going to church one time with my father on a sunday and we went down the block on the corner there was a bar and almost like that movie goodfellas there was guys dressed in suits and hanging out cop car parked there they were talking them in right in front of the cops they're shooting dice and they're you know they're the heavyweights everybody looked up to these people in the neighborhood so my father told me when i asked him who they died he said they're bad guys they don't work they're not like us but they're our bad guys respect them all the time never tell on them never go against them they help us when we're in trouble back then when they came from sicily especially they didn't trust the government they didn't trust police they didn't trust they had those people they would run to my father had problems and ran to them a few times he had gumbadas that he knew from sicily and they came over they were made guys my father had nothing to do with their life but if he had a problem he couldn't go to them so they to me were like guards the way they walked around they had beautiful women beautiful cars beautiful clothes diamond pinky rings and they were looked up to by just about everybody i think i remember my father asking me because his cumbara suvido was a made guy and when he had problems he would go to his gumbado cevido and i remember my father asking me one time you know you're never hooked up right that's what you mean that hooked up like sophie do you never went over there nah nah i'm good like i am i know a couple people like that don't worry about it february 28 1970. one night we went out drinking we went to an after-hour club it was about four o'clock in the morning we were ready we've been hunting him for a while this was the perfect time [Music] we went to a cafeteria that's open 24 hours a day the famous cafeteria that was the name of it on 86th street when joe went downstairs and more or less like down the staircase into the basement where the men's room was when we leave tommy you get behind the wheel and drive frank you get in the back i'll get in the back as well that'll put joey in the front the passenger seat and i'll take him out part of the life there's a code a strong code when it comes from the top they tell you to do something and you have to do it that's part of the code of the mafia if you refuse you can be killed in most cases you will be there's no i don't feel like it i don't want to do it and in this code this is all to protect goes in austria i never woke up in the morning and said i want to kill somebody or thought about killing somebody i never killed a woman or a child [Music] it was all part of the life that's the code you must listen to the boss there's no questions about it there's no arguing there's no talking about it you could put a position in to try to save the person who's going to get killed they'll listen to you hopefully but if they take a position that you you presented your case now go kill them that's it there's no more discussion about it the only discussion is i have to hunt and kill this person and i'm not talking strictly about myself that's the life for everybody who's in the life now at that time i was an associate once you become made then it's it's written in granite i went on with the life i've learned that the hardest part of doing a hit is putting it together the planning the plotting deception pulling the trigger is the easy part you're told to sit here and pull the trigger you pull the trigger but it's pulling it off the deception of it and not getting caught that's the that's the hard part now they'll use friends people who are close to you people ask why because it makes the hit easier you got the guy in your grasp most of the time you hang out with him so you're going out drinking with him you're going to the club with him you're always around him so you're going to be given the contract not somebody he doesn't know coming from left field then the hit becomes harder to pull off so that's the way the mafia functions the only only justification you get for this is that we all know the rules so when you're going to get killed as much as i like you will love you you broke the rules bro i'm gonna get the same thing if i break the rules the plan went pretty solid joey came back we were ready to go we were drinking he was a little drunk i think but he was still on guard he was a hunter as well when we got to the car tommy got in to drive the car when frankie was going to get in to sit behind tommy joey told him hold up frankie sami you get in the car and sit behind tommy frankie you sit behind me i guess it made him feel a little more confident the car took off the windows were rolled up we were driving down the street there was a beatles song i believe it was let it be tommy had it blasting loud like as if to cover a noise or something i went in my waistband and pulled out a 38. i put the gun to the back of his head and i pulled the trigger nothing seemed to happen it shocked me why didn't anything happen was something wrong with the gun i was confused the sound of the gun was enormous with the window shut it sounded like a cannon went off the smell of the gunpowder i still till today could smell it i pulled the trigger again he started to slide over towards the driver down and to the side i told tommy go to the highway and i told him where to go it was a an area a little bit out of brooklyn bensonhurst there were fancy homes with lawns and it was quiet well to do neighborhood i told them to get off the highway over there and go into the side streets like i said it was four o'clock in the morning maybe it was 4 10 now i saw a block tree lined quiet i told him pull over he pulled over in front of a house it was a two-door car it was my car i told tommy open the door and push him out he was completely shooking up nervous sammy he's dead i know he's [ __ ] dead instead of arguing i told frank he opened up the window it wasn't even electric windows it was rolling down the window i crawled over frankie and out the window i went to the door opened the door joey was a big guy pretty heavy i put one arm around his neck one arm under his legs i picked him up felt like he weighed a thousand pounds dead weight feels different i took him out of the car and put him in front of the house on the grass and i got back into the car my hand on the seat slid there was a puddle of blood my hand my clothes were full of blood now i told him hold up i rolled the window down pointed the gun out the window and i shot him three more times then i told tommy go forward don't speed don't go through lights and let's go back to the neighborhood we'll stop by the ocean i'll get rid of the gun and then we'll clean the car we did that i didn't know back then that i was making a mistake you can't clean the blood completely out of a car i should have just burnt it but it was my first hit i didn't know exactly what i was doing but we got rid of the gun we came back we cleaned up the car and then we went up into an apartment where tommy and his brother maddie and his family lived and i was staying there on occasion and we went into the house i was totally exhausted [Music] i went into the shower to take a shower i've saw in movies when people did a murder they would get nervous sweat and shake and i thought this would happen to me and i was waiting for it to happen but i was letting the water run on me it didn't happen i didn't feel anything [Music] i came out of the shower and went into the bedroom and got into bed i fell asleep in a matter of seconds i slept like a baby the entire night [Music] i got up in the morning and there was confusion in the apartment people coming in girls guys oh my god joe calucci was killed last night it's in the newspapers i remember getting up and one of the girls the younger girls used to hang with us and i said did they catch who did it she says i don't know it just said that he was killed i don't think so [Music] we got dressed and we went down to the corner where we would hang out everybody was there people talking all kinds of stuff going on tommy wasn't there he left to go meet his uncle jody sparrow i remember it was like everything went into slow motion it was like i wasn't there like i was up further looking at everybody talking and listening to them i started to think why isn't this bothering me why don't i feel guilt remorse why don't i feel anything i did feel something i felt i had power over life and death [Music] my adrenaline was running like crazy [Music] i knew this was part of the life of the mafia my concentration was broke when tommy came back and said shorty's going to pick us up we got to go downtown brooklyn where carmine persico who was a captain directly below joe colombo [Music] i got in the car [Music] shorty told me my nephew told me everything you did a great job we're gonna go down talk to carmine and i want you to say nothing sammy don't talk my nephew will explain the whole thing i said okay that's what we did we went down there tommy explained every little detail that happened leaving out the detail that he didn't want to push him out of the car that he was nervous or scared or whatever it may be we came back to the neighborhood and there was we saw the family because we all knew each other telling them don't worry about it we'll get whoever did this and faking it and that kind of bothered me a little bit i knew the sister i knew the family but that was the life that i was in i understood it now more than ever [Music] that night in the car there's no question it was life-changing for me i was a tough kid with my hands i never killed anybody i don't think i'm a bad person or was a bad person like i said i feel i felt power over certain things i felt now i belong to goes in austria [Music] at some point early in my life i'm gonna die or i'm gonna go to prison for the rest of my life i knew it knowing those things being in the life and starting to really understand the life more and more i became ruthless i became fearless [Music] i thought i'm going to die anyway or go to prison that's the life and i'm in it it's like being a soldier you could train when you go to vietnam and fight you say to yourself i don't know if i'm ever coming home there's other guys shooting at me this is [ __ ] for real this isn't a game this isn't a fist fight this is a war i'm in that war those in austria became everything to me it became my government my country my god it became everything to me later we went to the funeral [Music] and uh again i just didn't feel much at first i thought am i sick is this something wrong that i don't have feelings or i don't have things i have tons of feelings for people in all different kinds of ways but i felt maybe a piece of me died that night i don't know i really don't know i know one thing that night i became a professional [Music] killer [Music] you

Channel: Salvatore "Sammy The Bull" Gravano

Views: 854,035

Keywords: sammy the bull, salvatore gravano, godfather, mafia, mob boss, underboss, mafioso, john gotti, carlo gambino, lucky luciano, paul castellano, al capone, gambino, bonanno, colombo, crime, true crime, mob, goodfellas, the irishman, roy demeo

Id: BD5BIiztBE8

Length: 26min 17sec (1577 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 12 2021