The episode dates back to April 5, but the strength of the images of the video that has been circulating on the internet for days push us to highlight what happened in Florence where some passers-by intervened to rescue a street vendor held on the ground by the plainclothes policemen who they had stopped for a check.
The incident happened on Lungarno Acciaioli, in front of the Ponte Vecchio. The same passersby rushed to stem what was happening, they would have shot the video, then shared on the web, and asked the agents to stop the intervention that sees the man lying on the ground screaming and invoking help for shortness of breath. “Look what they do, look what they do to this man. In front of Ponte Vecchio, Florence. Well done. Congratulations, look at this man’s face, look at his face », is heard in the audio of the video. The police respond, they explain that they are working, the confrontation becomes intense.
A situation that brings the collective memory back to the tragic American story of George Floyd, forcibly kept on the ground by police officers and died a few hours later. The story dates back to May 2020 and happened in Minneapolis where Floyd was blocked by two police officers after buying a pack of cigarettes with fake dollars. One of the officers had been raging on him for 8 long minutes, holding him to the ground with one knee pushed to his chest. Floyd kept repeating “I can’t breathe,” but the policeman didn’t give up. The detainee, a 46-year-old black man, died shortly after in hospital. The fact had sparked the protests of the African American community of the entire nation, giving life to the movement “Black lives matter, black lives matter”, unleashed against the then president Donald Trump and against the police forces.
The unauthorized seller in Florence was then “detained for identification and reported on the loose for resistance, injuries and refusal of general information”, he would have refused to provide his personal details and deliver the goods and would have first yanked an agent and then pushed and punched another who for this reason tried to immobilize him. The managers of the Municipality report that “the officers involved reported injuries that could be cured in three and five days, while there would be no injury or access to the emergency room by the arrested”.
“We will lodge a complaint with the prosecutor on Monday in order to allow the judicial authority to assess whether the work of the law enforcement agencies intervened was respectful of the procedures and limits that are imposed on the public security and judicial police authorities”.
This was stated by the lawyer Cosimo Magazzini, lawyer of the two people, as well as authors of the video, who intervened in support of the illegal seller immobilized on the ground.
“My clients intervened – continued the lawyer – while the arrest was already in progress and therefore not knowing the reasons that imposed it, we submit to the competent authority the evaluation of an operation that appeared to us at the moment not proportionate with respect to the behavior of the arrested ».