Frank Sheeran and Frank Fitzsimmons: Resentment After Refused Assistance

The relationship between Frank Sheeran and Fitz turns on an unequal bargain: Fitz called on Sheeran to manage a dangerous Teamsters conflict, but when the consequences fell on Sheeran, Fitz did not stand by him. A 1967 shootout outside the Local 107 hall left Sheeran facing arrest, four months in jail, and the loss of a union election. Sheeran later read that experience as an early, smaller version of the betrayal Jimmy Hoffa would suffer from Fitz.

A Crisis at Local 107

In September 1967, a rally outside the Local 107 hall on Spring Garden Street drew about 3,000 people amid a struggle over control of the local. After the rally, Fitz called Sheeran at home and told him to be at the hall the next morning. His instruction was direct: “Get things under control.” Sheeran was not at the rally, but he understood that the next day could bring further violence.

Sheeran called Angelo Bruno and borrowed Italian muscle, including Joseph Ciancaglini and Rocco Turra. He positioned men inside the hall, watching from the windows, and others on the street. As McGreal’s people and those loyal to the local approached from opposite ends of Spring Garden Street, shooting broke out. The first shot came from behind Sheeran and passed his head. Others later claimed that he had signaled for the shooting and pointed at Robert “Lonnie” DeGeorge; Sheeran described a confused battle in which no one could establish who fired at whom or who started it.

Arrest and the Hung-Up Call

Chickie Ciancaglini was shot twice in the stomach. Sheeran pulled him into a car and took him to a doctor, who warned that the wounds could be fatal; Sheeran then brought him to St. Agnes Hospital. Afterward, Sheeran went to an apartment over a bar in Newport, Delaware, to lie low. From there he called Fitz and reported, “One down. Two limping,” referring to the casualties. Fitz panicked and hung up.

The brief call became the clearest measure of the distance between Fitz’s order and his response to its consequences. Sheeran later said that, when Fitz sent him to handle the crisis, he had not imagined that Fitz would refuse to help with expenses after the arrest. The district attorney’s office issued a warrant for Sheeran, and several other men were arrested. Sheeran eventually returned to Philadelphia and surrendered, disguised in a granny dress and bonnet, with a reporter accompanying him to the police commissioner.

The Cost to Sheeran

Chickie survived, and the men tried with him were acquitted within six weeks. Sheeran, however, remained in jail for four months. His lawyer was away in Italy, and Fitz did not intervene. Because Sheeran could not campaign while incarcerated, he lost his election at Local 326 in Wilmington by only a few votes. When released, he had no union position and felt he had lost standing with Fitz despite having risked his life in a violent episode Fitz had asked him to manage.

The legal case continued long after the jail term. Charges lingered from 1967 to 1972, and the Commonwealth requested sixty-eight postponements before the case reached the point of jury selection. Sheeran’s new lawyer obtained a dismissal on a speedy-trial motion. Sheeran distinguished that result from a prosecutor’s nolle prosequi, which could leave open the possibility of reindictment. These later legal developments did not repair the immediate damage: the months in jail had already cost him the election and his place in the local.

A Foretaste of Hoffa’s Betrayal

Sheeran explicitly cast the episode as a preview of what would happen to Jimmy Hoffa under Fitz: before Hoffa experienced Fitz’s betrayal, Sheeran said, he had already felt its smaller version. The comparison rests on a specific reversal. Fitz had relied on Sheeran to carry out a risky assignment, yet after Sheeran was indicted and imprisoned, he received neither meaningful assistance nor recognition from the man who had sent him.

In Sheeran’s account, the distinction was one of scale, not kind. His own loss involved a four-month confinement, a narrowly lost election, and the disappearance of his union standing; Hoffa’s later experience was more consequential. But the earlier episode gave Sheeran a personal basis for interpreting Fitz’s conduct toward Hoffa. Its closing image is not a confrontation or a reconciliation, but a telephone call cut short: Sheeran said that, after taking the risk Fitz had assigned him, “all he did for me was to hang up on me.”