He fell asleep in bed in front of the TV while watching the game. Suddenly he felt himself being pulled by the collar of his pajamas: he opened his eyes and found himself in front of two young people with their faces covered by balaclavas, holding a crowbar in their hands. “The money, the money!” they shouted at him. He, an 85-year-old former financier – 86 in July – stretched out his hand and said “I’ll give it to you now, wait.” Instead he took the .38 caliber revolver he had under his pillow and shot. Blindly, to scare them, he told the police flying squad officers on Sunday. He didn’t point it at them, but he grazed one of the robbers in his neck.
They were moments of terror
Moments of terror were experienced on Saturday evening in a terraced house in Longuelo, where the retired financier lives with his wife. It wasn’t even the middle of the night when the two robbers broke into the house. It was 9.30pm, the man was in the bedroom on the mezzanine floor while his wife was in a room upstairs, intent on reading. A quiet evening. She, a freelancer, had returned after a week away from home and her husband, who has some hearing problems, was left alone and had preferred to sleep with the gun under his pillow.
On Saturday evening he did not hear the noises while the two broke into the French window of the bedroom using a crowbar. He was watching a football match on TV and dozed off. Suddenly he felt himself being pulled. One of the robbers grabbed him by the collar and made him sit on the bed. “The money, the money!” he yelled in his face. In those terrible moments his thoughts immediately went to the gun, there under the pillow. He pretended to reach out for the money and took it out. The two robbers, who had already taken his purse containing 200 euros and documents, did not expect such a move.
The 85-year-old fired one shot – to intimidate them, he then told – about his 38 caliber revolver regularly held for sporting use. He grazed one of the two bandits in the neck. A matter of millimeters and it could have been much worse. The two, as scared as the former financier, hurriedly ran down the stairs. The wife, hearing the bang and the noises, thought that her husband had fallen. She looked out from upstairs and her husband shouted “the thieves, the thieves!”.
The two ran away from the back and then, going around the garden, they climbed over the entrance fence and headed one towards the entrance to the asphalt road and the other towards the nearby lawn. The pensioner’s wife immediately called 112 telling her what had happened, in the meantime a neighbor also came running.
The first robber was immediately arrested
At the same time, 112 received a phone call reporting a boy injured in the street, at the intersection of via Longuelo and via Astino: yesAn ambulance and a patrol from the Flying Squad have arrived. The injured man was loaded into an ambulance and transported in code yellow to the «Papa Giovanni XXIII» hospital. A patrol followed him to the emergency room, where he was treated and released for the superficial wound. In the morning, arrested for aggravated robbery, he was taken to the prison in Via Gleno. This is a 27-year-old young man of Albanian origins without a fixed address, with no criminal record. The agents of the Flying Squad collected the first testimonies of the former financier and his wife and carried out all the investigations to reconstruct the dynamics of the robbery, while the forensic team took care of the findings of any footprints and traces left by the two. The revolver was seized, while the purse has not yet been found. They also searched for him on Sunday morning, in broad daylight, but the robbers probably got rid of him during their escape.
The former financier was interviewed yesterday morning at the police station for several hours and he reconstructed the facts in detail. At the moment no action has been taken against him in relation to the gunshot fired and the wounding of the robber. The investigations are coordinated by the deputy prosecutor Laura Cocucci who will have to evaluate her positionin particular regarding the justification of self-defense. According to initial findings, the weapon was held regularly and under the supervision of the owner, as required by law.
The break-in and capture of the second thief
On Saturday evening while colleagues were in Longuelo’s house carrying out investigations, other police patrols began hunting for the accomplice. There are few details about him, given that both had their faces covered by balaclavas and the former financier was unable to grasp, in the darkness, any details useful for identifying them. The alarm system was turned off because it was still early and both spouses were at home. Unlike when, in January 2011, thieves entered the house and stole six paintings, worth around 12 thousand euros, using the small hole in a shutter technique. On that occasion the burglar alarm was activated and the thieves fled (taking the loot anyway).
The neighbors’ surveillance cameras were in operation on Saturday evening and were immediately acquired by the police. During the morning, checking the databases starting from the name of the young man arrested, the investigators managed to trace the accomplice: the two used comand operational base in an apartment not far from the robbed house.
Late in the morning the officers raided the apartment. The young man escaped from the third floor by lowering himself from balcony to balcony. Once he reached the street he attempted to escape but was chased and captured. He was arrested for aggravated robbery (the crime was now over) and arrested for resistance. He too, after being taken to the police station, ended up in the prison in Via Gleno. He is a 26-year-old young man of Albanian origins, homeless, with a criminal record and illegal, having been expelled three years ago from the national territory. The two will be questioned in the next few days by the judge for preliminary investigations to validate the measures. In the morning the financier was summoned to the police station, while his wife remained at home: she did not witness the scene or see the robbers, but she only heard the sounds of their footsteps on the stairs.
The two young people are suspected of being “commuters” of the robberies: they move every two-three months to different places, taking advantage of homes made available by acquaintances, they pull off the heists and go to other provinces or regions.
