- 2 weeks ago
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Short filmTranscript
00:00Who said it up?
00:03Telling you the truth about this.
00:09Everybody else is pointing their finger at me.
00:20Can we get a safe area?
00:22What do you got?
00:23Stop booking.
00:26He just missed?
00:28Get him, get him.
00:28This is a case that on its face
00:31looks fairly obvious
00:37as to who the shooter is.
00:42But what actually happened
00:45was so incredibly shocking
00:47that even detectives
00:50and seasoned journalists
00:52couldn't believe it.
00:55Who was behind
00:57this series of attacks
00:59of a neighborhood icon?
01:02He was punched.
01:03He was shot multiple times.
01:06He had a hood on?
01:07Yes, and a mask.
01:09He was stabbed seven times.
01:10I thought the car was here.
01:12The entire family was under attack.
01:15Fire medical.
01:15It was brutal and crazy
01:18and unanswerable.
01:20Somebody got shot in the parking lot.
01:22He's dead.
01:24We had looked at the mafia.
01:27Now, we don't know
01:28if they're not coming from us.
01:28There is somebody behind the scenes
01:34pulling the strings
01:36and that begs the question.
01:38No, no, no, no, no.
01:39We're going to find
01:41the scene.
01:41No, no.
01:41No.
01:42It's probably a bit of a bomb
01:43to go.
01:44No.
01:44No.
01:44No.
01:45No.
01:45No, no.
01:46You're not here.
01:47I'm sorry.
01:48No.
01:49No.
01:54No.
01:55No.
01:56No.
01:58No.
01:58No.
01:59No.
01:59No.
02:00No.
02:01No.
02:01No.
02:02No.
02:04No.
02:05No.
02:05No.
02:06No.
02:07No.
02:07in september 2017 officers respond to an incident the incident was recorded
02:21the victim of the crime was sylvester zetola commonly known as sally dad he was 70 years old
02:32he was merely standing outside when the video showed a male walk up to mr zetola
02:37engaged him in a short conversation and basically asked him about employment sally that says no
02:42there's no employment around here and he had turned around and started punching him several times
02:50and then all of a sudden he just started viciously beating him right to the ground
02:59he had some bruising and he had a broken rib it's heartless
03:06zetola tells police that the perpetrator was an african-american male didn't really know the
03:15age so it's a pretty basic description for a suspect so the detectives really didn't have
03:22anything kind of go on in this case who's walking up to an elderly gentleman you know and beating him
03:28like that zetola's backstory is interesting he was a guy who was also known in the community as
03:39a reputable businessman and a very successful businessman at that and his business was real
03:45estate eventually amassing more than 40 million of primarily residential buildings throughout new york
03:55city his wife died years ago so essentially he became a single father to his three children
04:04he had two boys and one girl deborah the daughter his eldest son salvatore and his younger son was
04:14anthony and also a plethora of grandchildren he would tell anybody who asked that his family was the most
04:24important thing in the world to him in fact his two sons were brought in to run portions of his business
04:34he was a fixture of that community he had been a supporter you know of the police and helped the
04:39precinct out a lot during his lifetime with security cameras you know outside his residence supplying
04:45video to the police and detectives for crimes that occur in and around the area he was like the
04:51godfather of that community it has been widely said that he was like santa claus without a beard
04:56he was a jolly old fellow he would be the type of guy who would wave to kids on the street corner
05:03everybody knew him so why is someone going after him a really a gem of the community
05:10you know we had a rash of old people getting sucker punched you know throughout you know uh new york
05:15city during that time as well so is it just someone who's following a trend it didn't look like it
05:20was a full attempt you know of his life other than an assault or maybe a possible attempted robbery
05:37november 2017 sally daz he comes into the precinct speaks to the desk officer telling him he was driving
05:44on the expressway and in front of him and a perpetrator wearing a mask gets out with a firearm
05:49and starts threatening him and tells the first officer he sees that somebody is either trying
05:54to carjack him or kidnap him because you know what else would there be what they do an area canvas
06:00which shows up negative for the perpetrator in the area at this time the two incidents are considered
06:08separate even though it's our same victim because it's a description sally daz gave is very vague
06:15really at this point both of these incidents are really like a dead end there's no other
06:19investigative information and all leads are exhausted
06:28so a little over a month later 911 has called for a break in at the zatola residence so when the
06:33officers respond to mrs zatola's home they find him
06:36he's bleeding profusely on the ground he's been stabbed multiple times and slashed across the neck
06:51somehow miraculously he survived this brutal attack
06:56he tells detectives the little bit that he knew that he's at home the next thing he knows there's a group
07:10of men in there
07:12and there wasn't small talk there wasn't a lot of threats or anything like that
07:25they went right after
07:30and he didn't get any great physical description with the exception of he believed
07:35that these were predominantly african-american men
07:47it doesn't appear that there's any fourth entry there's a code to get in how did he have that code
07:52and number two zatola has surveillance camera in his property but guess what there was no surveillance tape
08:03from that incident
08:07they stole the home video surveillance so this starts looking to us as
08:13this might be an inside job someone's definitely trying to kill this guy
08:18but wait a minute why did they want to kill him
08:23hi my name is frank damatio and i know sally true the vending uh business
08:30are there things that just stays amongst the family and just don't share
08:38mob world family they're not gonna tell nobody nothing the less people know
08:42the better it is because less people got killed
08:43what do you know about sally that's you know
08:53only we know about sally said he was a good guy he was affiliated with the bananos he had friends in
08:58for protection i was with a different family but that's how we got to know him at all because he was uh
09:07and that area was a it was a banano area so that's why uh we knew he had a friend up there
09:14in new york city there's five major crime families
09:18and the bananos really took a big chunk of the bronx area
09:24many people don't walk around with a name tag that says
09:29i'm in bed with a crime family that's just not how it works
09:35zetola was considered an associate of the banana family
09:41sally himself wasn't in the mafia but he had enough friends and a banana cool
09:46so what makes you a mobster because you you you got a friend that's a monster to be able to do that
09:52world doesn't make him a gangster not everybody i think because you know somebody you're a gangster
09:57it doesn't work that way only in maybe on tv or something like that or or but in the real world
10:04no if you're a moron you're a moron that knows a gangster
10:10this guy was a legitimate businessman on real estate and then he was involved with joker poker games
10:17that's how he got started which is a big business
10:20so joker poker is an extremely popular video gaming machine that is sold to and placed in
10:35social clubs and it is very very profitable because there's a lot of money in it
10:42that's not legal no it's not legal you can bring in millions you know yearly so and it's unrecorded
10:52it could be so lucrative i know guys got tons and tons and tons of money by doing that vending
10:58like i said it's all under the table so
11:02so sally dad had joker poker machines which he would run anywhere from a basement apartment building to the
11:08the back of the bodega to numerous different commercial locations where they have secret spots in the back
11:15the expectation of sally dad's was to bring food to the you know bring food to the family
11:20that's kind of like how they put it is bringing money kicking money up uh to the banana crime family
11:26to help support the banana crime family so at this point the mafia someone trying to whack him and
11:34bump him off from his own organization from one of the other families you know to gain all his profits
11:40and take over those joker poker machines or possibly even going into his real estate and trying to bump
11:46him out of real estate now we don't know for not coming from us you know it could come up from
11:51but i don't know want to take him out or some other family would try to move in on it we don't know
11:56they don't tell us so several months go by since the third incident he's off the grid sally lay low
12:11which is what you're supposed to do not being flashy he doesn't stay at the house anymore he has a
12:16separate apartment he really buttoned up his inner circle and that included his kids his grandkids and a
12:25couple of mob associates that he does most of his business with so i i know the bananas they would
12:32reach out in the street and see if we knew anything about it or anybody could find anything about it and
12:37they didn't that's what it threw everybody off at this point it's becoming urgent that if law
12:46enforcement doesn't figure out who is targeting this elderly man he will end up dead
12:55one day in june 2018 mr zetola was walking around in another section of the bronx he's been in hiding
13:25one day atinas
13:39some approaches with a hoodie
13:41on this day zetola's confronted outside of this new location somebody puts a gun into his face
14:00is going to shoot him at point blank range and kill him no doubt now luckily for sally daz
14:06the gun jams and sally daz has his own firearm on him and fires it at the fleeing perpetrator
14:15so when the police arrive you know the first thing they do is they see sally daz and his son
14:24anthony zetola can he go inside is that okay i'm not right now i'm not going to go inside right now
14:32mrs zetola is a wreck i was walking up 194th street yes i always turn around because i always
14:38think there's a car up there you follow me so i didn't see no car i turned around and see a black
14:44guy with a hood on he you know he walks across the street that way and he starts coming over to me
14:53like this okay and he had a hood on yes and a mask so after this attempt you know mrs zetola's kids
15:01deborah salvator and anthony they're all up in arms about what happened but at this point what's
15:18going through the detective's minds is he's relocated people who are behind this how do
15:23they know where he is right and that's what makes this attack in june that much more brutal and crazy
15:36and unanswerable because he's in a location where nobody is supposed to know where he is
15:43so what did you see when you saw him with a firearm what did you do
15:48he was returning fire you know to the perpetrator so in self-defense but he has an illegal firearm on
16:06how many shots did you find one and do you have a pistol permit no so this is interesting he ends up
16:12getting arrested for illegal gun possession and they they should be checking all these cameras
16:21so listen i can't i can't blame sally dance for carrying a firearm is it illegal yes is he getting
16:27arrested for it yes do i think a grand jury will ever indict him you know no why because there's four
16:35attempts on his life but um the law is the law
16:39okay
16:42he's a compensation connection
16:46let'sерт's say
16:48well it's true
16:51he's turned into 10
16:54well
16:56oh
16:57yeah
17:00yeah
17:02Yeah, so he's the one who's going to attack.
17:05Go, go, go!
17:10Get him, get him!
17:16Yeah, come on. You're still there?
17:32We're here.
17:35We're here.
17:51Finally, the custody.
17:54So really what happens is after this fourth incident,
17:57the perpetrator for that incident ends up getting arrested
18:01getting arrested a little while later in manhattan for criminal possession of a weapon because he
18:06has that illegal firearm i got the gun i got the gun you got the gun and where was the gun drive
18:10the gun was right he i saw him saw it over here okay yeah the problem is in the bronx we don't
18:18get that information that the arrest is made the arrest happened in manhattan and the attempted
18:25shooting was in the bronx and both shootings and gun arrests happen all the time in new york
18:31cities so neither really warrants any kind of city-wide action and so both jurisdictions are
18:37left in the dark about what the other had and i don't think anybody in law enforcement thought
18:44that these were the same group of perpetrators or at the very least the same group behind the planning
18:52of this at this point in the investigation now we start pulling jail phone calls to see who's
19:00calling talking to mr zetola to see if they have any idea who it is or is it them mr zetola had
19:09very strong ties with vinnie and vinnie bassiano was the head of the banana family and not only were
19:18they really close friends they were also really close business associates vinnie he's actually in jail
19:26during this whole incident and the sons had approached him during with a phone call see even if
19:33the mafia is involved with this vinnie they think we know who these people are unless we have no idea
19:41and vinnie gorgeous basically said right off the mark the crime families have no involvement with
19:46this this is something coming from outside there's nobody there you bother they should push you through
19:51this bullshit man come on man your father's a good person your father's the salt of the earth
19:56the salt of the earth he helped out everybody you know what i mean i don't know who's got this
20:00problem against them and vinnie loved sally daz and for years contributed to the family that's not
20:06somebody who they would want to get rid of it's something that he knows there's somebody that knows
20:10his routine all right bye bye i just don't know who it is and if it was you know another mafia
20:17organization another one of those five families you know vinnie gorgeous probably would have said
20:22something but we got nothing like that
20:43one day in july zetola's family vehicle stops and parks at the zetola family compound
20:53but it wasn't sal senior who got out of the car it was his son sal jr and all of a sudden
21:08somebody was targeting what appeared to be his entire family
21:22sal jr is shot multiple times
21:27it's rolling around on the ground it's a gruesome crime again in broad daylight
21:34it was a life-threatening wound you know when he was rushed to the hospital and lucky for him it was
21:40non-fatal and he survived it it was a big news we heard about it when it happened we found it strange
21:48it felt strange because the shooter was strange
21:56this guy's half running looking for him trying to shoot him i said that's how you do it
22:01as somebody who covered this case the mob gets it done on the first try and this was a case where
22:11it was almost like a bunch of bumbling idiots trying to kill somebody but always failing
22:19it was so just unprofessional you know the whole thing you know i'll take you three times go kill
22:24somebody takes you two minutes you get up close and kill the guy you know
22:32was it mistaken identity i think it was yeah 100 percent do you think
22:39this is the real target here that day yeah yes definitely
22:43so when i look at this incident you know a lot of people say maybe it's mistaken identity right
22:53he gets out and the perpetrator comes up and starts shooting at him maybe he mistakes it that
22:58it's his dad i never really looked at it that way the way i looked at it as is hey listen they're
23:03going after sally dads they can't get him right what's the next thing likely to do let's go after
23:09their family you know like they want his business they go after the kid too
23:17what this attack showed law enforcement was that it wasn't just the elder zatola
23:24the entire family was under attack and that begs the question who wants this entire family dead
23:36there are no leads cops aren't close to a suspect
23:45and everybody is waiting for the next shoe to drop
23:56i was a stringer a freelance reporter for the new york daily news the guy that goes to the scene to
24:06cover a story in person if it's a crime scene talk to people go to court talk to the cops things of that
24:15nature so that day the editor says well you might regret this but i have an assignment for you
24:25i'm working on a normal shift salvatore was done recovering and we get the call
24:31that there's a homicide over at the mcdonald's on webster avenue
24:35it's a kind of busy corridor in west bronx not a nice place to be honest with you fire medical
24:44hi can you send me down the ambulance right now somebody got shot in the parking lot somebody got
24:49shot yeah anybody know who shot him no the crime scene at mcdonald's and it was a an acura
24:56suv maroon collared car just next to the mcdonald's takeout window first breathing
25:05oh well to be honest with you i'm inside i'm one of the managers of mcdonald's and i was taking a
25:09hold of when i see the two probably shot the guy okay i don't know this man i was about to give him
25:16the food when everything happened anybody got a description of the person you know what he shot at
25:21all we know all we know is somebody we're just taking care of customers somebody just ran to the
25:26car and shot at him while we're en route they tell us right away that it's sally daz and someone
25:33had shot and killed him in the drive-through at the mcdonald's so he's in the in the car yes he's done
25:45as a department we have the duty to protect our citizens so when you turn around and you fail at it
25:51yeah you get emotional about it and you want to go out and find out who the murderer is
25:58when we get there i'm brought to the rear of the mcdonald's it appeared that the the vehicle is
26:04pressed up against the building where the call box is mr zatola is slumped on the steering wheel
26:12there's a fence around the mcdonald's perimeter and there's a big hole in the fence
26:17and as i learned the suspected killer at the time snuck into that hole
26:26the victim zatola is in his car and he's driving up to the drive-in window and he orders a coffee
26:34and he's boxed in there has a car in front of him and there's a car behind him so i can't move
26:40that's kind of like a funnel right there we're always taught as police officers don't drive
26:44through drive-throughs don't go through why it's the bottlenecks and now all of a sudden you're a
26:48target and so the killer when he gets close he just fires the shots and he hits him in the back and in
26:58the chest and we're shocked at that you know we're shocked at why why i always thought they were gonna
27:08rob him that's all we could shake him down and rob him you know and it just escalated to him getting
27:13killed got killed first thing i noticed walking around the vehicle was the cluster of bullet holes in
27:23the side window there was a very tight cluster so the person who turned around and fired this weapon
27:31had a very tight grouping which means he didn't just fire a weapon haphazardly into the vehicle hoping to
27:38strike he fired that weapon and those bullets through that vehicle and struck him with precision
27:45so that tells me you know that the shooter has used the firearm before
27:49that he's proficient with it and that he can stay on target even during a stressful situation like that
27:59so i started asking myself out of all these other attempts i can see a level of professionalism
28:05has increased and i kind of felt that this could be a different person from the last couple of attempts
28:12one of the other detectives interviewed the 911 caller he looks young he looks like a black kid
28:23but she took cover and wasn't able to see his face but he had retreated back up the hill
28:34a few days later i covered the the funeral the church was packed there were like maybe at least 300
28:41people in there packed and there was this beautiful photo of azotola and i'm just looking at him look
28:50at him it's like it's like my grandpa you know it could be my grandpa deborah and sal jr and anthony
29:00all gave touching eulogies about what this man meant to them and to this community they were devastated at
29:09the news that they had lost the man that they were closest to in their lives debbie the daughter
29:18i remember her in tears anthony too had some very nice words about his father he was like you were a
29:24wise man you were strong and he was saying you taught me everything in life i need to make you proud
29:31like i will do all i can not to disappoint the family you know my brother my sister especially
29:38you it was very touching
29:43there's something so mundane about all this right you're just ordering a coffee you're just like an
29:47average joe ordering a coffee and he loved to get his coffee there and that was his last coffee
29:53i don't believe in coincidences so i started asking myself okay how do they know where he is
30:01are they following him the vehicle ends up getting removed to really get processed
30:10we go over the entire vehicle they go from top to bottom you know from the from the front to the
30:15back when one of the things that we end up coming up with is a tracker on the vehicle
30:22a gps device that is in the wheel well it answers some questions like wow right that's how they've been
30:29tracking them and that's how they got them here so at this point this is like the real big solid
30:34piece of evidence that we had that could possibly bring us you know to a perpetrator i know how these
30:40things work and i know that this thing is talking to something so it's going to be talking to a cell
30:46phone or to some other device that's going to be able to be tracked we'd sent it to the lab and to
30:54get it broken down so once we start receiving that information back what do i do just like i have kids
31:03every time they get a new toy they want to play with it
31:05usually the first thing that they'll do is they'll activate this device near their home
31:14so i look at the first thing that's on that line of where it is and that leads me to topping avenue in
31:19the bronx is less than a half a mile from the crime scene at the mcdonald's so then i turn around
31:27and i start my video campus i go up and down topping avenue and i walk into this one building and i go
31:34and i start downloading video and reviewing video and i see the gps device being used looks like being
31:42tested by two males out in front of the address and all my other attempts they're master hooded but
31:48these guys are standing right out in plain view and i can see exactly who they are
31:53these aren't your mafia type
32:02at the same time a bloods member named ron kaby who was arrested in manhattan a few months earlier for
32:09discarding that firearm came forward and said to the police
32:13i've been seeing all these headlines i've been hearing all of this about the zatola murder
32:20i have information that you're going to want to know he feels that he's going to be wrapped up in
32:26this whole thing and he wants to get ahead of it and he wants to cut a deal and give up who everybody is
32:32he tells them that he was offered ten thousand dollars from a bloods associate to kill an older man
32:44he was given intimate details about the person that he was going after from security codes to where
32:54surveillance cameras were located in the residences to routines times of day that the victim might be home
33:06and when he went to shoot and kill an elderly man his gun jam
33:14now the light bulbs are going off okay now it's a murder for hire case and the people who are outside
33:22using that gps device they're just hired hitmen who's going out and employing them that's what i
33:27want to find out but ron kb does not know who the handler is he doesn't know who the mastermind
33:34behind this whole thing is he just knows that they were hired to kill sylvester zistola but ron
33:41kb tells us the names of the people using the gps that was used to murder sally daz
33:48that's that's person shelton and that's hyman ross
33:57i'm giving an opportunity to kind of explain what what happened that day
34:02test brain what why don't you tell us i don't have enough attention
34:11we established probable cause and now we're turning around we're arresting person
34:15shelton at his residence in brooklyn we tend to imagine killers of mobsters as just looking the
34:23way the mobster look but bushon shelton is just a regular guy from brooklyn went to college in the
34:32bronx i remember looking at shelton's linkedin page and i was thinking oh this is just like an average guy
34:39when we do the search of his residence we find a firearm which is not part of our crime but we also
34:47find cell phones sean shelton's cell phone revealed text messages between he and somebody else speaking in
35:00movie terms and movie vernacular for example shelton was referring to himself as the director
35:11and shortly after the murder was done he texted something to the effect of the movie is shot or the
35:18movie is over these are cold words about the murder and we start seeing all the messages that were going
35:28back and forth to an unknown number so that phone number is now submitted now they're going to find
35:35out in the subscriber information on who owns that phone and when i get that phone call it was probably
35:41one of the best phone calls i've ever gotten in my life it was the wow moment of this entire case
35:51and probably in my career as well to find out that his own son anthony azotolo organized the murder of
35:57his father i was like wait anthony the guy son was at the grieving at the funeral and just thought like
36:10who knew i think anybody covering this case knew that there was a part of this that was an inside job of
36:18some sort can he go inside is that okay everything started making sense i mean he knew where his father
36:32was all the time he knew that there was video cameras inside the residence he knew the code to get
36:39into the back of his house and through his kitchen he knew all that it's very very rare that organized
36:46crime will bring in somebody from the outside somebody from a street gang to do their dirty work
36:58but anthony had to go outside of their circle bushan shelton he's the guy or the subcontractor where
37:07you go to and you say i need this this and this and then he finds the people to do the job and who knew
37:12how to pull off violent attacks one thing i can say is i had a feeling you were coming when i don't know
37:22but i can thank you that it was after father's day and it was after all my kids breakfast anthony was arrested
37:29the day after father's day for his own father's murder he doesn't have remorse and that was the shocking
37:41throughout this entire ordeal anthony played the loving son while he was pulling all the strings
37:51i don't know for certain but i'm not sure that anthony has a soul
37:59so detectives are thinking what's the motive here once we make the arrest we look into anthony zotolo
38:08sally dad had multiple businesses from real estate to also joker poker machines anthony was running the
38:16real estate arm of this business but the eldest son salvatore was running the joker poker portion of
38:26this business and worked more closely with the mob associates and the folks within social clubs
38:34i think this was a case of anthony wiping out his brother and his father wanting dad's money wanting
38:44the brothers money as the only way to ascend in the family and become the god the only motive that is
38:55clear as day is the motive of greed sally just good just good guy man we would take it back our world
39:06usually doesn't happen over money to respect your father you're gonna kill him or your brother but you
39:11you got to be out of your mind to do something like that
39:28sean shelton tells the u.s attorney hyman ross is the guy that was a shooter
39:33prosecutors said hyman ross was a violent member of the blood street gang with a felony record
39:39i mean he was definitely someone capable of pulling off a targeted killing in a drive-through
39:55it took them over a year really to succeed because of the different players that they had involved
40:16and that's also what kind of threw us off during the days you went from guys who really had no experience
40:22trying to carry this out to at the end more experienced guys that were able to get the job done
40:29i think the most bothersome part about this case is that the elder zatola did everything for his children
40:39and yet it wasn't enough for anthony anthony anthony was still interacting with his father at birthdays at
40:51family events making money off of his father meantime secretly plotting his demise
40:59the house looked like something that a mad scientist would live in and he said who set it up the mastermind
41:14to me he was arrogant a fraudster sociopath for 40 000 gotten didn't lost his life
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