MONTREAL – Hundreds of mourners packed a historic church in Montreal’s Little Italy to bid farewell to the elderly boss of Canada’s best-known criminal clan.
Nicolo Rizzuto was laid to rest Monday following a sombre, 90-minute ceremony conducted entirely in Italian.
The elderly don became, last week, the latest Rizzuto family member gunned down.
A procession of black vehicles – three town cars, six limousines, and one hearse – filed their way past a crowd of curious onlookers, transporting voluminous white floral arrangements.
The funeral went off largely without incident, except for a bizarre black box left on the church’s front steps early Monday.
The black box – about the size of a shoebox, with a white cross taped onto the top – was said to contain a note. It was seized by investigators.
With police and security keeping close watch on the church, Rizzuto’s gold-coloured coffin was pulled from the hearse and carried inside by pallbearers. It resembled the gold-coloured coffin used for the funeral of his grandson and namesake, who was also gunned down last year.
Ninety minutes later, the funeral service ended with the soothing sound of bells and a quiet retreat for burial.
One family friend painted a picture of the deceased that contrasted sharply with his popular image as a battle-hardened mobster.
"I remember him as a very nice and gentle person," said Francesco Bennici, 71, who knew Rizzuto for about 40 years.
Bennici, who came from the same Sicilian province as Rizzuto but said they met in Montreal, described the funeral as a sad affair and said of the mourners inside: "Everybody’s sorry, everybody’s sad."
Bennici brushed aside reporters’ questions about Rizzuto’s documented Mafia ties.
"What you hear, I don’t know, and I don’t hear the same thing," he said.
A few hundred members of the public gathered on the sidewalk, standing two- and three-deep in some places, mainly out of curiosity. One man, sipping coffee from a styrofoam cup, expressed incredulity that someone would have targeted Rizzuto at his advanced age.
"At 86 years old, it doesn’t make any sense," said Frank Santomassimo, a local resident standing on the sidewalk.
"My own opinion is, if he did something wrong, go get him somewhere else, not in the house with the family present."
The heightened police presence wasn’t just there to protect the Rizzutos. It was also there gathering intelligence.
Police detectives were keeping an eye on who was coming and going, with some officers filming both the mourners and their licence plates.
"At these kinds of gatherings, there are always police around to put our scrapbooks up to date, that’s a fact," said Const. Daniel Lacoursiere.
"To see who’s showing up to these kinds of events."
A number of news reporters attempted to enter the church to cover the funeral. Many were either blocked at the entrance or whisked out by a swarm of burly security guards.
Author James Dubro, who has written extensively on organized crime, was thrown out of the church. He said his pew drew quite a crowd of guards eager to escort him out.
"First it was one and two, and then six and seven," Dubro recounted outside the church.
"I just went in to pay my respects, and I was told I had to leave . . . I was a gentleman and left."
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