Moments of fear right in front of the Duomo of Naples. A homeless man of African origin was hit on the head with a crowbar municipal agent who had invited him to get up from the porch where several other clochards like him have been spending the night for some time. The agent, on the ground, according to the reconstruction provided, fired at least seven shots while the immigrant was still trying to hit him, wounding the man in the leg. On the spot, numerous passers-by who tried to stop the immigrant and then attempted to give first aid to the wounded officer, bleeding and with his face swollen from the blows suffered. The weapon used by the foreigner is an iron rod, the kind usually found inside the pillars.
The state police then intervened to block an attempted lynching against the homeless man who had attacked the policeman. The policemen took the attacker away: someone in the crowd tried to kick him while some women applauded his intervention.
Due to his injuries, the municipal agent was transported to the Ospedale del Mare while the clochard to Vecchio Pellegrini. He’s not in danger of life. This was reported by the Naples Police Headquarters.
The reconstruction of the attack against the agent of the local police unit TESM (Protection of Social and Minor Emergencies) arrives from the Municipality of Naples who, «accompanied by the social workers of the street unit, she was engaged in the usual preparatory operations for cleaning the arcades according to the calendar of sanitization, reclamation and waste removal interventions, organized by ASIA and Napoli Servizi. A homeless young man, presumably of North African origin, invited to get up to allow the cleaning of the places, opposed and hit the face, with an iron stake that he was hiding under the blankets, the 63-year-old lieutenant Salvatore Ruoppolo, wounding him in the head and left eye».
«The agent – reports the note from the Municipality – in defense of himself fired a few shots and wounded the attacker in the leg before collapsing to the ground in a pool of blood. The operators present intervened immediately, even numerous passers-by tried to stop the immigrant, who, although injured, continued to attack the agent, until the intervention of the Army soldiers and police officers who carried out the arrest».
«Both wounded – continues the communiqué from the Municipality – were transported to the hospital; the officer was found to have multiple fractures in both upper limbs, a swollen eye, several stitches were applied to the skull and is undergoing further tests».
Mayor Manfredi and the municipal councilors for Legality and Social Policies, Antonio De Iesu and Luca Trapanese, addressed “feelings of affectionate closeness to the lieutenant of the Municipal Police Salvatore Ruoppolo, who suffered significant injuries following the brutal attack”. These sentiments are joined by appreciation and deep recognition for the delicate and difficult action that, on a daily basis, the women and men of the Municipal Police, the operators of the Strada Unit, of Napoli Servizi and Asia carry out on the territory to report conditions of decorum and cleanliness in some sites with a high concentration of homeless citizens, with respect for their dignity and fragility”, adds the note.
“The municipal administration – explained the councilor De Iesu – is accelerating the procedures for testing the electric pulse gun, which will offer the municipal police a more effective tool for dealing with violent and aggressive subjects, avoiding the use of weapons from fire”. «I am saddened and worried about what happened – the Trapani councilor said – we are experiencing a real emergency that we are facing with the means available. The management of homelessness is complex because it requires various types of interventions: national measures to combat poverty are needed as soon as possible and then the health system must be put in a position to provide the necessary support. Anyone who ends up on the street loses his identity (friendships, personal belongings, habits, freedom of movement, relationship with the city) and therefore today’s episode is the result of the failure to take charge over the years of fragile people with addiction problems and mental. There are no victims and no culprits but only one certainty: it is necessary to build a network that gives personalized answers that cannot be resolved in a bed in a dormitory. Patchy throughout the city, we are setting up micro-structures, small communities capable of welcoming people with their individual problems, mostly of a psychic nature and addictions. This is what we are working on, with street units spread throughout the area and coordinated by an operations center and with the inclusion of a psychiatrist in the team».
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on Il Mattino