Victoria Ramanenkamother of Leonardo Calcinathe 15-year-old from Senigallia who took his own life with his father’s service pistol because he was the victim of alleged bullying episodes, recounts his pain. 39 years old, originally from Minsk, Viktoryia is an accountant with a degree in economics and business. The relationship with her son was symbiotic, of pure love. «He was my copy, we also resembled each other in character, serious and stubborn, an iron memory, handsome and muscular, he was growing visibly, swimming and judo, 45 feet, he dreamed of wearing a uniform, a firefighter or navy”, said the woman in a long interview with Corriere della Sera.
The story
«At a certain point during the ceremony the principal of Panzini approached me to offer his condolences, and Leo’s coffin was just a stone’s throw away. I just told him: “I beg you to get away from me please”» said Viktoryia remembering his son’s funeral. Now «time will no longer pass, even if now I demand justice: that those bullies go straight to reform school. And whoever made a mistake among the teachers should deal with the judges. It is a duty for teachers to protect children, we entrust them to them.” Thus, to La Stampa, the woman reports Leonardo’s stories: «On 7 October during a walk he vented to me and his father: two boys and a girl made fun of him, bullied him, and he couldn’t stand it any longer. the shame and the suffering suffered. He was the victim of continuous torment.” The boy also turned to a professor: «Yes, on October 9th, but unfortunately this person did not intervene in the right way. Leo sent me WhatsApp messages to tell me that he had explained to the support teacher that he couldn’t take it anymore and that he wanted to leave school. But the teacher replied that school is compulsory until the age of 16. And also the professor didn’t warn me or my ex-husband. According to Leo, other professors also pretended not to see.”
The complaints
The mother had also suggested that her son contact the police: «Yes, we wanted to go and report it to the police, but Leo preferred not to because he was afraid, because he hoped to solve everything by talking to those kids. He was really a good guy, he even shook hands with the bullies thinking of closing the matter. But it didn’t happen that way». The woman has already presented two complaints to the police to report acts of bullying at school and the indifference of teachers and will make others: «Yes, always together with my lawyer Pia Perricci, who has been a dear friend to me for ten years, this afternoon (yesterday for those reading, ed.) we will go to the Carabinieri in Marzocca to report other cases of bullying at Panzini that we have become aware of. We will also present some documents.” To the boys who had targeted Leonardo, he explains in an interview with Qn, he would say “that they took my son away from me”. And she adds: “At this moment I am not ready to forgive them, but I pray for them that they understand what they have done and that they never behave like this towards anyone again.”
Senigallia is divided
Meanwhile, the community of Senigallia is divided. The day after the funeral, there was an air of controversy and mutual accusations in the city. Parents against educational institutions, principals against teachers, students against other children, adults against young people. And few act as peacemakers. The funeral ceremony was not enough to bring people together, the presence of the two school directors of the Corinaldesi-Padovano institute, attended by the young man last year, and Panzini of Senigallia, where attendance had only begun in September, was not enough, for silence some of the accusations. The witch hunt has begun. The main and most serious accusation is that aimed at the school management and Leonardo’s teachers: not only for many they are responsible for not having noticed what was happening in the school, but according to some they pretended not to see the bullying episodes that “it was impossible not to see”. As if they were therefore accomplices of those who – this is the accusation of the 15-year-old’s family – bullied him. But there are also those who point the finger at the same classmates, talking about silence and declining it in this provincial reality. «No one understood how much this little star suffered… everyone understands when tragedy happens – writes a woman on social media. It’s possible that the teachers didn’t understand in a year, not even the friends…”. But there are many comments of this nature. However, the family is also in the sights of the haters. “It’s possible that the parents didn’t notice those signs before that such a big change and with such strong motivations always brings with it “Where did the family go?” others ask. The Carabinieri’s investigations are continuing, coordinated now by the Ancona minors’ prosecutor’s office for the accusations made by Leo’s parents against three minors, while the ordinary prosecutor’s office has not identified any crimes against the school. Those who try to support the students of the two institutions are the school directors who have also listened to various voices to reconstruct the story without however having gathered certain elements on acts of bullying in the two schools. Minister Valditara’s inspectors will take care of this, immediately intervening to understand if the seeds of bullying have actually matured in that institute. The former regional guarantor of the rights of minors in the Marche, Andrea Nobili, asks us not to point the finger at other very young people and educational institutions, because this is not the right way “to address dramas that have much deeper roots and which require us to reflect and serious interventions on the topic of youth hardship”.
