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Wilkes-Barre Township police investigating theft of puppy

Pittston Mayor William H. Gillespie felt compelled to send policemen to St. Aloysius Hall on South Main Street when elections were held for Local 1703 of the United Mine Workers of America on Jan. 18, 1928.
				Months of labor disputes and unrest caused a mob-like insurgency among unionized mine workers employed at the No. 6 Colliery of the Pennsylvania Coal Company.
				Despite the added security, a union treasurer was gunned down after the meeting and three other union officials were killed in the following weeks.
				Newspapers called the deadly labor feud in Pittston a &ldquo;blood harvest.&rdquo;
				Several people were arrested with some being released due to insufficient evidence while others were convicted. One suspect was arrested years later when found hiding on the United States territory of Hawaii in 1931.
				Tensions got so bad, Gillespie sent a telegram to United Mine Workers of America President John L. Lewis in Washington, D.C., on Feb. 28, 1928, to come to the region to calm unionized coal miners.
				The first slaying happened less than one hour after the Local 1703 meeting ended.
				Thomas Lillis, 41, and Peter Campbell, left the meeting and were walking home. Minutes after Lillis bid farewell to Campbell on Railroad Street in Pittston, Lillis was gunned down near his house on Oak Street in Pittston Township.
				Two men from Pittston and members of Local 1307 were arrested when found on a Lehigh Valley passenger train that stopped in Sayre, on Jan. 19, 1928. Investigators believed they were on their way to Buffalo, N.Y., intending to cross the border into Canada.
				State policemen returned to two men to Luzerne County and released them without filing any charges on Jan. 20, 1928, citing lack of evidence, the Times Leader Evening News reported the same day.
				Lillis&rsquo; homicide has never been solved.
				Less than a month later, union organizer Frank Agati, 40, of Wyoming, was fatally shot inside the local office of the United Mine Workers located on the 12th floor of the Miners Bank Building in downtown Wilkes-Barre on Feb. 16, 1928.
				Agati had a meeting with union members Sam Bonita, of Vine St., Steve Mendola, of South Main Street, both in Pittston, and Adam Moleski, of Jenkins Township.
				As soon as the meeting began, Bonita pulled out a revolver and shot Agati twice.
				&ldquo;The shooting occurred when the representatives of the Pittston mine walked into union headquarters to discuss grievances,&rdquo; the Evening News reported Feb. 16, 1928.
				Bonita, Mendola and Moleski fled the building, running out a door on South Franklin Street. Mendola and Moleski were captured by city policemen on Northampton Street in Wilkes-Barre.
				Bonita escaped capture but was arrested by state policemen the next day, Feb., 17, 1928, in Pittston.
				&ldquo;The man accused of having fired the shot which snuffed out the life of Agati, the mine leader, was arrested as he was about to enter the office of Attorney Frank Flannery in the cash block of Main Street, Pittston, at 11:45 this morning,&rdquo; the Evening News reported Feb. 17, 1928.
				Two days after Agati&rsquo;s slaying, &ldquo;Big&rdquo; Sam Grecco, a member of the grievance committee with Local 1307, was shot in the face as he walked with his wife near their home in Pittston on Feb. 18, 1928. Grecco survived his injuries.
				About two weeks after Agati was killed, Local 1307 organizers Alex Campbell and Peter Reilly were killed when their vehicle was riddled with bullets on Railroad Street in Pittston on Feb. 28, 1928.
				Three men &#8211; Ralph Mellissari, 23, of Port Chester, N.Y., Vincenzo Daminni and Peter DeLuca &#8211; were indicted for the killings of Campbell and Reilly.
				In court for the Agati murder
				A Luzerne County jury convicted Bonita on a manslaughter charge and was sentenced in April 1928 to six to 12 years of hard labor in the Eastern Penitentiary, the Times Leader reported April 18, 1928.
				After a four day trial at which Mendola testified in his own defense, a jury on June 3, 1928, convicted him of manslaughter. Mendola was sentenced July 17, 1928, to four to eight years at the penitentiary.
				Moleski was indicted but was never brought to trial. Moleski was elected president of Local 1307 in December 1928.
				In court for the Campbell and Reilly slayings
				Mellissari, who was arrested in New Orleans, La., faced two trials for the two victims. A jury in September 1928 acquitted Mellissari for killing Campbell. Another jury deliberated five hours after a three day trial in November 1928 convicted Mellissari of first-degree murder for the Reilly slaying. He was sentenced to life in prison at the penitentiary.
				DeLuca, who used several aliases, was captured in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1931. He was extradited to Pennsylvania in April 1932. A jury convicted DeLuca of first-degree murder after an eight day trial in June 1932 and was sentenced to life in prison at the penitentiary.
				Daminni, who was found hiding in New Orleans, was extradited to Pennsylvania but prosecutors withdrew charges when a witness refused to identify him before a county grand jury.

Lookback: Unionized mine workers caused ‘blood harvest’ in 1928