by Marco Merlini
The police operation in 15 facilities: the checks started from the operators’ reports. The police commissioner: «We want to save them from failed integration»
A blitz with over 200 agents to comb through the city communities where unaccompanied minors are hosted. A “High Impact” service ordered by the Central Anti-Crime Directorate.
The operation by the police, which arose from some reports from the leaders of the same communities and from the results of investigations into illegal acts committed by minors, led to the seizure of baseball bats, screwdrivers, medium-sized knives, narcotics (in particular hashish), and various stolen goods, in particular 12 cell phones, numerous laptops and other goods.
Police checks in 15 communities in Bologna
In the 15 communities where the intervention took place, 12 of which in Bologna, 2 in Valsamoggia and one in Monghidoro, 206 minors were subjected to checks. The premises that led to the blitz are not only repressive in nature, as explained by the police commissioner Antonio Sbordone, but also respond to the need “to save” children who show “difficulties in integration” and “relational deficiencies”. The checks, continues the commissioner, “originate from reports from operators who tell us of objective difficulties in dealing with children who have difficulties”.
«In the videos on social media they blatantly showed the weapons»
Of course, this was also accompanied by intense investigative activity that began with the analysis of some criminal episodes and numerous social profiles “in which the availability of weapons by minors was blatantly highlighted”. In fact, investigators have long been focused on the phenomenon of crimes committed by young people hosted in these facilities: in the period January-June 2024, the police carried out a total of 8 arrests on their own initiative for the crimes of murder, attempted murder and robbery; 6 minors were arrested in the act of committing robbery; another 52 were reported at large for the crimes of drug dealing, robbery, assault, possession of improper weapons, receiving stolen goods, threats, theft and resisting a public official.
The shortcomings of the system that is being relegated to a “baby gang”
A long series of crimes that cannot be easily dismissed as a passing phenomenon or under the convenient heading of “baby gangs”. The countries of origin of the minors who are the object of the investigative activities are Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Albania. And this is already a signal that should impose reflections.
Following the complaint made in recent days by the regional guarantor of prisoners, Roberto Cavalieri, who asks for intervention on the welfare front to help young people who increasingly end up habitually committing crime, the police operation highlights the shortcomings of a system that is struggling to find normality.
It is no coincidence, perhaps, that on Tuesday there was also the escape of a minor of Tunisian origin from the Pratello prison. Yet another episode that also denounces the difficulties in which the operators find themselves working.
The Bologna Police Chief: «Prevention activities in multiple areas»
For this reason, the police commissioner does not lower his guard and calls for a collective sense of responsibility to lend a hand and concrete answers to these young people. “It is an activity that we are conducting together with the institutions – he explains – such as the municipal administration, but also with the religious authorities. Not only the Catholic one, also because the majority of the young people involved are Muslim. But we trust that even from the conversations with their religious references a positive effect can arise”.
What awaits the entire community is a real fight for survival. “It is a topic that concerns prevention activities – insists Sbordone – because the impact on the overall safety of the city life of these kids is palpable for everyone. For this reason we have the duty first of all to help them and save them, beyond any rhetoric because otherwise we will lose them. We cannot afford it, it is in everyone’s interest”.
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July 4, 2024
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2024-07-04 05:32:49
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