tzahiV/iStock(NEW YORK) — The reputed leader of the Gambino crime family — once headed by infamous mobster John Gotti — was gunned down outside his home late Wednesday.
Francesco Cali, 53, was found with multiple gunshot wounds to his body outside his home on Staten Island, according to the New York Police Department.
Paramedics transported Cali to Staten Island University North hospital after responding to the home at 9:17 p.m. He was pronounced dead at the hospital, police said.
Police said there have been no arrests and an investigation is ongoing. No gun has been found.
A 911 caller reported a blue pickup truck, which may have ran over Cali before or after the shooting, was seen driving away from the scene, according to WABC.
Cali is the highest-ranking member of a crime family to be murdered in New York in decades, New York ABC station WABC reported.
Cali’s wife and children were home at the time of the shooting.
The last mob boss to be killed was Paul Castellano, also the leader of the Gambino crime family at the time, who was murdered outside Sparks Steakhouse in Midtown Manhattan in 1985. That hit was ordered by Gotti, who later took over the family until being convicted of racketeering and Castellano’s murder in 1992.
Gotti died of cancer in prison in 2002.
The shooting wasn’t the only recent mob assassination in New York. Sylvester Zottola, 71, reportedly of the Bonanno crime family, was gunned down at a McDonald’s drive thru in the Bronx last October, according to WABC.
Zottola’s son, Salvatore, survived an apparent assassination attempt in July 2018 outside his home in the Bronx.
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