Signed Sonny Grosso Randy Jurgensen NYPD 1977 Murder at the Harlem Mosque HC DJ

Up For Sale Today is

Murder At the Harlem Mosque

by

Sonny Grosso & John Devaney

Hardcover. 8vo. Crown Publishers, New York. 1977. 224 pgs. Illustrated with 16 pages of illustrations. Signed and inscribed by Sonny Grosso and Randy Jurgensen on the half-title page. First Edition/First Printing.

DJ has shelf-wear present to the DJ extremities. Bound in blue cloth boards with gilt titles present to the spine. No ownership marks present. Text is clean and free of marks, binding tight and solid, boards clean with no wear present.

This is the riveting story of how in 1972 officers responding to a false "10-13" (officer in trouble) call entered the Harlem Mosque and were attacked, one murdered, and the incident's aftermath. As tragic as it was, the murder was not the real story. In fact, several officers had been ambushed and murdered in the same precinct within a year of this incident by a group calling themselves the Black Liberation Army (BLA).

The real story is how the Black Muslims, lead by Minister Louis Farrakhan, had the mayor and police commissioner so intimidated that they ordered all police officers out of the Mosque, which was now a crime scene, severely hampering the murder investigation. They later ordered all white officers to stay away from the entire area of the mosque to appease Farrakhan and his followers. This book is an indictment of the higher echelons of a police department that was more concerned with maintaining an appearance of race relations than solving the murder of a police officer.

From Wikipedia

Salvatore "Sonny" Grosso (born 1933) is a movie and television producer and former New York City Police Department detective, noted for his role in the case immortalized in the book and movie versions of the French Connection. He was born in 1932 or 1933[1] in Düsseldorf, Germany. Grosso and his partner Eddie Egan, and other NYPD detectives broke up an organized crime ring in 1961 and seized 112 pounds of heroin, a record amount at the time. The investigation was the subject of a book by Robin Moore and a five-time Academy Award-winning motion picture in 1971 (Best Picture, Best Director, Best Actor, Best Film Editing and Best Writing).

Robin Moore, who had previously authored The Green Berets, writes in The French Connection book, "(he) was an only son with three sisters. When his father, a truck driver, died suddenly at thirty-seven, Sonny, the eldest, became the head of the family at fifteen. He treated his sisters with fatherly care.

Grosso himself recalls, “Even after our dad’s untimely passing, our beloved mother, Lillian, never looked at another guy and would always put us first. She would act as if it was always ‘Blue Skies’ and ‘My Blue Heaven,’ as her favorite performer Bing Crosby used to sing.”

Egan and Grosso were technical advisers to the movie and played small roles. The movie was highly fictionalized, and a character based on Grosso, called "Buddy Russo", was played by actor Roy Scheider, who was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance. Like the character, Grosso's nickname as a detective was "Cloudy." This was due to his pessimism, as well as the fact that "Cloudy" is the opposite of "Sonny."

Grosso recalls that his cop buddy, Egan, was nicknamed “Bullets” because he was “always firing his revolver in the air” for effect but “Egan was the bravest cop I ever knew.” Grosso continues the story, adding, “My beloved mother Lillian also had an insightful take on Egan, and would warn, ‘I know Eddie’s going to make sure you come home every night. But what I worry about is that one time, Egan might not come home.’ Her comment was profound. And my pal Eddie was the greatest cop I ever worked with. God rest his soul!”

Starting as a technical adviser on movies like The French Connection and The Godfather, while he was still working for the NYPD, Grosso learned the craft of filmmaking from people like Oscar winners Phil D’Antoni, William Friedkin and Francis Ford Coppola. While a technical advisor, he also played small roles in such groundbreaking movies as The French Connection, The Godfather and The Seven-Ups.

In 1976, Grosso retired from the NYPD, and subsequently became a movie and TV producer, involved in many productions including 1970s cop shows like Kojak and Baretta. Grosso actually helped revolutionize the role of the technical adviser/consultant for cop shows and movies, with film critic James Monaco once observing, “Sonny Grosso has had a hand in most of the major cop films and television series of the 1970s.” Monaco also jokingly speculated that someday scholars would discuss “Grossovian subtexts” about the period’s police dramas.

In October 2007, Grosso produced a limited engagement performance of Richard Vetere's Be My Love: The Mario Lanza Story. The play was directed by Charles Messina and co-produced by Phil Ramone. It premiered at The Tilles Center in Greenvale, NY.

Grosso also produced a series filmed in Canada entitled Night Heat, starring Jeff Wincott and Scott Hylands.