In case of Matteo Falcinellia 25-year-old Italian student pursuing a master’s degree in Floridahas generated outrage after the release of videos showing the use of brutal methods by the police in Miami during his arrest. The young man’s family has raised their voice, denouncing the violent treatment to which he was subjected, evidenced in the images captured by the agents’ body cameras and released by the newspaper ‘Quotidiano Nazionale’ in Italy. In the video, you can see how the agents used a strap to tie Falcinelli’s hands and feet, while a knee pressed against his neck, immobilizing him for 13 minutes, despite his heartbreaking screams of pain.
The incident, documented by the Italian newspaper, took place during the night of February 24 to 25. However, the family chose to file the complaint at this time, after Matteo accepted a re-education program, which resulted in charges of resisting a public officer, resisting arrest without violence, and criminal trespassing being dropped.
The shocking images of violence, recorded by the officers’ body cameras, including inside the police station, were obtained by the young man’s American lawyer on April 12, as part of the judicial process that culminated in the aforementioned re-education decision.
Drafting
The family of the 25-year-old student is determined to denounce what happened as an act of police “torture.”
The reconstruction of the events in Miami
According to the reconstruction provided by the relatives themselves, the young man went to a place and only inside did he realize that it was a strip bar. He ordered drinks but refused to pay for having sex when he left. He had an argument with the doorman of the establishment and then saw a patrol arrive and intervene because “the young man had created problems.”
The young man resisted the police, considering that he had not done anything and asked that his rights be respected while he was arrested.
Not seeing him return, his friends begin to look for him until they find Police station With a swollen face, abrasions and wounds on his left side, which was beaten and pressed against the asphalt, after paying bail he was released from jail on February 27.
In this regard, the Italian Foreign Ministry confirmed in a statement that “that Falcinelli was subjected to especially violent custodial treatmentas witnessed by the body cameras of the police officers who carried out the arrest” and that therefore “in addition to following the case and providing assistance to the family in the legal aspects, the consul general in Miami stressed to the local authorities that it was “the treatment to which the young man was subjected is unacceptable.”
The text specifies that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Antonio Tajai, “has already requested maximum attention to the case of the United States ambassador to Italy, Jack Markell, recalling that the Italian Government diligently follows each case of detention of Italian citizens in the foreign”.
