Miami, Italian student arrested and tied hand and foot in cell for 13 minutes. The mother: “Torture, we want justice”

It is 4.29am on February 25th when inside the North Miami police station, in the United States, four police officers, four thugs, block the arms and legs of Matteo Falcinellia 25-year-old Italian student already handcuffed behind his back, and they subject him toHogtie restraint: with a strap they tie his feet to the handcuffs and pull, pull and pull again. The barefoot boy, immobilized, screams, and they are heartbreaking screams, he repeats “please please please”, a plea of ​​pain. The officers keep him blocked for a while longer, then leave the room, leaving him like that, on the floor, for more than 13 minutes. “We warned you,” they say. Shortly before, in the street, during the arrest, they had slammed him face down, pressing his face against the asphalt, the officer’s knee against his neck.

Video

And the National newspaper to bring out the story of Falcinelli, an original boy from Spoleto, flew to the United States to attend his master’s degree at Florida International University (Biscayne Bay Campus). And it’s always the National newspaper to publish the video taken from the bodycams of the officers who nails them, filming harsh, brutal images.

Falcinelli’s American lawyer requested and obtained those videos from the prosecutor’s office only last April 12th as part of the trial, which ended with the admission to the Pre trail intervention, a sort of re-educational program requested by the judge and accepted by the boy who will make the charges he is accused of: resisting a public official, resisting arrest and trespassing. And this is why only now, when they no longer fear retaliation against their son, the Falcinelli family has decided to report this story that began on the night between 24 and 25 February when the boy was stopped in a club by off-duty officers.

The bar, the argument and the arrival of the police

Falcinelli would have entered there at 10.15pm, without initially realizing that he was in a strip bar. He allegedly ordered drinks but refused to have sex with the girls in exchange for $500. Before leaving he remembers having ordered another drink for himself and one of the girls in the club, then having gone to the bathroom realizing that he no longer had his two telephones, having looked for them with great agitation, found them again, having drunk again and then left after an argument with the bouncer. It is there, outside, that Falcinelli finds a police patrol with two officers, another four will arrive later, who intervened, they claim, because the boy had created problems in the place and had been thrown out.

Violence

What happens then is partly filmed by bodycams. Falcinelli believes he is right, gets angry, wants the names of the officers, points his finger at the name tag printed on the uniform, opposes the arrest. At that point he is pushed to the ground, an officer blocks his neck with his knee. It’s almost four in the morning. Falcinelli is taken to the police station and the rest is what the video published by says National newspaper: the boy is hogtied, he screams, he repeats “my rights, I was just asking for my rights to be respected”.

Mother: “Ready to chain me, it must never happen again”

Not seeing him return, his friends start looking for him until they find his mug shot with a swollen face, abrasions and blood on the left side, the one slammed and pressed against the asphalt. They get the money, pay the bail and on February 27 Falcinelli is free but in shock. He is hospitalized for his injuries and then transferred to a psychiatric ward as he attempts to take his own life. His college friends warn his mother, Vlasta Studenicovanow ready to denounce: “What they did to Matteo must never happen again – reports the National newspaper – I’m even ready to chain myself.”