Columbus Day with Italian policemen special report

By Sandro Addario

NEW YORK, USA – Some Italian policemen with their American colleagues celebrated the anniversary of Columbus Day. This twinning was renewed for the eighth consecutive year. Arrived from Florence, Rome, Genoa (the birthplace of Christopher Columbus), Naples, Arezzo, Pescara, Avellino and Enna the Italian policemen were invited to numerous events organized by the Italian-American communities of New Jersey, New York and Boston.

Yesterday, the Italian policemen took part to the traditional Grand Parade on Fifth Avenue in New York, for the 520th anniversary of the landing of Columbus in America, cheered by thousands of people with many Tricolor flags. A real huge crowd for the representation of the State Police, who has traveled more than five miles from 47th Street to the heart of Central Park, led by superintendent of Pescara Paolo Passamonti and Claudio Savarese, the national president of ANPS (the National Association State Police).

Particularly significant, in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the meeting with the Cardinal Archbishop Timothy Dolan, who left the stage and, one by one, greet the policemen who came from Italy. “Welcome! New York is all Italian now,” said the prelate. Then, the Archbishop of Brooklyn, Nicholas Di Marzio, met with Sergio Alberto Caracciolo and Sergio Tinti, representing the Florence-based section of ANPS.

Lots of American cops with Italian surnames went on Fifth Avenue. Among them, the chief of the New York Police Department (NYPD) Joseph Esposito accompanied by the commissioner Raymond Kelly.

Behind the deployment of Italian policemen joined the parade also the Italian National Football Team of Actors in New York alongside with Sergio Cirelli, the president of the new section of ANPS based in Brooklyn. Among them best-known actors as Enrico Montesano, Lino Toffolo, Pino Insegno and Gaspare Capparoni.

Arrived last Friday, the Italian group has participated to numerous initiatives in New Jersey. Among these, an event organized by The East Hanover Italian American Club with hundreds of people, including the mayor Joseph Pannullo and the “Morris County Columbus Day Parade” on the streets of the city. At Seaside, on the Atlantic Ocean, the Italian police went also to the “Ocean County Columbus Day Parade and Italian Festival”, which takes place for a week in New Jersey.

Yesterday afternoon, after the parade on Fifth Avenue, James Barberio, Mayor of Parsippany Troy Hills, New Jersey, convened the City council to greet his Italian friends and organized an evening with the local community in their honor. Among the others, it was awarded William Palatucci, a nephew of Giovanni Palatucci, an Italian police officer who became superintendent of River in Istria during the Second World War. He saved over five thousand Jews from deportation, but he was arrested by the Nazis and deported to Dachau, where he died. The tour of the Italian policemen will continues in the next days with numerous meetings in New York and Boston.