Antonio F. Vachris

Antonio F. Vachris (1866-1944) was an Italian-American police officer on Coney Island who headed the Italian Branch of the New York City Police Department.[1]

Biography

He was born in June 1866 in France to Italian parents.[2][3] He was an active prosecutor, and, in 1908, received a death threat in a letter addressed to him and Brooklyn judge Norman Staunton Dike from the "Black Hand", a terrorist group.[4] He solved the Michael Scimeca kidnapping case in 1910.[1] His predecessor, Lieutenant Joseph Petrosino, was murdered in Sicily in 1909, and Vachris had to go to Palermo to retrieve Petrosino's list of Italian criminals operating in the United States. Vachris was also involved in policing adult entertainment on Coney Island.[2]

References
  1. "Lieut. Vachris Gets Black Hand Threats. Detective Petrosino's Fate Awaits Him, He Is Told, Unless He Drops Scimeca Case. Kidnappers Being Pursued. "Professor" Italiano Closely Questioned by District Attorney. Scimeca Family Afraid to Talk". The New York Times. September 15, 1910. Retrieved 2009-11-20. The persistency of Lieut. Antonio Vachris, head of the Italian branch of the Detective Bureau, in trying to learn the secret of little Michael Scimeca's return to his parents by kidnappers, has resulted in his receiving two Black Hand letters in which he is threatened with the fate of Lieut. Giuseppi Petrosino unless he drops the case at once.
  2. "Badges in Little Italy". Retrieved 2009-11-20. Vachris was born about 1867 [sic] in France to Italian parents. Before his third birthday, the family moved to the United States, settling in Brooklyn. He married at the age of 18. His wife was a slightly older woman named Raffela. The couple, who lived for years at 636 39th Street in Brooklyn, had a son, Charles, in 1886. Vachris was naturalized an American citizen in 1888.
  3. Antonio Vachris in the 1900 United States Census in Brooklyn
  4. Gets Black Hand Warning, Democrat and Chronicle (Rochester, New York) March 8, 1908, page 1, accessed April 4, 2017 at https://www.newspapers.com/clip/10046849/gets_black_hand_warning_democrat_and/
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