David Hennessy

David C. Hennessy (1858 – October 16, 1890) was a police chief of New Orleans. As a young detective, he made headlines in 1881 when he captured a notorious Italian criminal, Giuseppe Esposito. In 1888, he was promoted to superintendent and chief of police. While in office he made a number of improvements to the force, and was well known and respected in the New Orleans community. His assassination in 1890 led to a sensational trial. A series of acquittals and mistrials in March 1891 angered locals, and an enormous mob forced open the prison doors and lynched 11 of the 19 Italian men who had been indicted for Hennessy's murder in the largest known mass lynching in U.S. history. Early life David C. Hennessy was born in New Orleans to Margaret and David Hennessy Sr., Irish Catholics living on Girod Street. David Sr. was a member of the First Louisiana Cavalry of the Union Army during the U.S. Civil War, formed after the state was occupied by Union troops. After the war, during the Reconstruction era, he served with the Metropolitan Police, a New Orleans force under the authority of the governor of Louisiana. Local white Democrats generally considered the Metropolitan Police as a military occupation army, in part because it protected the right of freedmen to vote, in accordance with the Fifteenth Amendment. David Sr. was murdered in 1869 by Arthur Guerin, a fellow policeman. Career Hennessy joined the New Orleans police force as a messenger in 1870. While only a teenager, he caught two adult thieves in the act, beat them with his bare hands, and dragged them to the police station. He made detective at the age of 20.