Andy Warhol Chronology

At the age of sixteen, Joe Dallesandro, living with his father in Queens, stole a car (one of many) and crashed through the toll gate at Holland Tunnel, pursued by six squad cars. The cops stopped the speeding vehicle with a road block. The officers came out of their cars with their weapons drawn.

When Joe opened the door and started to step out of the stolen car, one of the officers opened fire, the others followed, and Joe retreated back into the car which he then proceeded to drive straight at them. One of their bullets wounded him above the kneecap in his right leg. He managed to escape the cops, sinking the car in the Hudson River, and stole another car which he drove back to his father’s house.

His father took him to the hospital and he was arrested and charged as a juvenile. He was sentenced to four months in the Camp Cass Rehabilitation Center for Boys in the Catskills, where (according to him) he tattooed himself with the Little Joe tattoo.