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‘Papa! Papa!’ Gambino Boss Frank Cali Shot Dead Outside Staten Island Home

Gambino Boss Frank Cali Shot Dead
Source: Getty Images

March 14 2019, Updated 4:22 p.m. ET

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Infamous Gambino boss Francesco “Franky Boy” Cali is dead. The mobster was shot outside his home in the first hit on an NYC Mafia don in over 30 years, RadarOnline can report.

Police told reporters Cali, 53, was shot six times in the torso and then run over by a blue pickup truck outside his Staten Island home on Wednesday, March 13, at 9:15 p.m.

His wife and young children were inside the house at the time. Upon hearing the gunshots, one family member ran outside, collapsed near Cali’s body and cried, “Papa! Papa!” according to reports.

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Meanwhile, a woman shouted into her phone: “Why doesn’t the ambulance come? He’s not breathing!”

Cali was transported to Staten Island University North Hospital after the shooting, where he was pronounced dead.

Witnesses told New York Daily News “there were like six shots, and then there were three more.”

“The man was on the ground face-up. His head was by his SUV, and the truck was open,” the witness told the outlet.

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No arrests have been made in connection to the killing, and the investigation is ongoing.

Cali's murder is the first hit on a Mafia boss since “Dapper don” John Gotti arranged the assassination of “boss of all bosses” Paul Castellano on December 16, 1985. The hit put Gotti at the top of the New York Mafia circle.  He soon took Castellano’s place as Gambino crime boss.

Castellano’s shooting took place outside Manhattan’s Sparks Steak House.

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“Even Gotti had more respect... he did it out in Manhattan,” a source told the New York Post, referring to the fact the hitmen killed Cali in his own neighborhood, outside his family home, breaking the mafia's code of honor.

One of Cali's neighbors, Salvatore, 58, told the New York Times he heard around seven gunshots before seeing the havoc. “I just heard the pow-pow-pow-pow-pow,” he said, adding, “You never know who your neighbors are.”

Investigators, including the FBI, are looking into whether the hit was planned and approved by one of New York’s five Mafia families, or carried out by an outside criminal.

Stay with RadarOnline.com for updates.

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