100 years ago in The Record

Saturday, June 2, 1917

Panic breaks out on an Albany-Troy train this afternoon as a passenger opens fire on a man he suspects of being a Black Hand gangster, The Record reports. Cerolo Calogero of Milwaukee is in an Albany jail tonight after shooting Ismell Laasko three times on the 4:30 p.m. train out of Albany. Laasko, who hails from Bisbee AZ, is in serious condition at Albany’s Homeopathic Hospital. “A number of Trojans witnessed the affair and were among those who scattered in all directions when the Italian opened fire,” our reporter notes. The Sunday Budget reports that two Trojans sat directly behind Laasko and barely missed being shot themselves as a bullet went over their heads and through a window. In a written confession, Calogero claims that Laasko had been tailing him since both men departed Chicago by train. He grew suspicious when Laasko asked him where he was going and asked to see his ticket. He grew more suspicious when Laasko made the same transfer as he did in Buffalo, to an Albany train. “I sat in the center of the car and he came in and sat several seats ahead,” Calogero writes, as translated from the Italian, “He kept turning around and looking at me. I then decided that I would shoot him before he shot me.

“I walked up to him, drew my revolver and said, ‘You follow me no longer.’ I then shot him three times.”

According to the Budget, Laasko was one of three men, whom he presumes to be Black Hand assassins, who had followed him all the way from Chicago to the train for Troy. The identities of Laasko’s alleged companions remain unknown to investigators.

TROY SLAYING

Later tonight, a Troy man is fatally wounded in the William Street alley between Congress and Ferry streets. Nicola Farina, who had lived in a St. Mary’s Avenue boarding house until this morning, is declared dead where he fell, outside Joseph Balato’s garage. He had been shot through the heart with a .38-calibre revolver. The only witness to the shooting is Anna Masse of 135 William. “In her opinion the men were quarreling and speaking the Italian language, one dragging on the other in an apparent attempt to have him do something he did not care to do,” The Record reports. Masse hears two shots and sees Farina stagger toward Congress Street after his attacker. Balato, who hears the shots from inside his garage, steps outside in time to see Farina collapse. An employee of Ludlum Steel in Watervliet, Farina leaves behind a wife in Puglie, Italy.