The arrest in controversial circumstances, the handcuffing which leads to abuse of force and a preventive admission of guilt which however seems to all still need to be ascertained. It seems like the account of one of the many episodes for which the US police have become sadly known. This time there is an Italian boy playing the victim.
The story is reported by National newspaper, which also publishes the harsh bodycam images of the officers. The one who paid the price on February 25 was the 25-year-old student from Spoleto Matteo Falcinelli, enrolled in a Master’s degree at Florida International University and arrested in North Miami Beach in a strip club.
The boy, according to his defenders, enters convinced that it is a bar like many others (and so it is advertised) only to discover that a woman is “offered” company: 500 dollars for half an hour. It is not clear whether he refuses to pay or asks for the sum back, the fact is that after a drink he realizes that he no longer has his two cell phones. He claims them, a bouncer helps him find them but at the end of the discussion, which seems to have remained only on a verbal level, Falcinelli finds the police waiting for him outside the club.
Convinced that he is in the right, he does not show cooperation with the officers who want to identify him, according to witnesses he points the finger at one of them asking to provide him with his registration number: “Do I have no rights?” he screams and at that point he is arrested, with his face on the ground, handcuffed and a knee on the back of his head.
In the police station Falcinelli then finds himself against four officers in a small room. Barefoot and effectively harmless, he is tied up again, laid on the ground and left for 13 minutes in severe breathing difficulties while he begs “Please, please please”.
Only hours later do his apartment mates manage to track him down and raise 4,000 dollars to set him free. On April 12, the 25-year-old agrees to admit his responsibilities and enters a re-education program which cancels the charges of resistance. The Spoleto’s family is determined to fight, saying they have only now brought the matter to light for fear of retaliation. Ended up in a psychiatric hospital for five days, injured and in shock, Falcinelli attempted suicide several times.