They reported lesions judged to heal between 2 and 20 days the three agents of Brescia police force who on Saturday evening found themselves victims of aggression by the people they had gone to help. On the train leaving for Cremona, an argument had been reported between passengers, apparently triggered by heavy comments and, perhaps, even groping directed at a minor girl. The officers, who promptly intervened, found the young woman and her two brothers particularly agitated.
The search for the (alleged) gropers was unsuccessful. In the meantime, the girl and her brothers had begun to insult all the foreign passengers on board the train and therefore, not without difficulty, they had been asked to get off the train.
When the officers tried to calm things down, the three began punching and kicking. The girl even took off her shoe and started hitting the officers on the head with her heel. To restore calm, the soldiers involved in controlling the railway station area and a police patrol intervened. The three agitated men were taken to the police station and reported. A fact that brings further concern to Polfer agents, dealing with a growing incidence of crimes, faced with the lack of suitable equipment to manage these situations.
“When episodes of this type happen – he explains Nicola Grassi, deputy provincial secretary of Siap, the Police Union – there are colleagues who regularly end up in hospital. It is not acceptable. We are the only ones, at the moment, who do not have the Taser (the electric gun). The Milan Department, on which we depend, despite having them available, never proceeded with the delivery, nor with training for use, as had also been promised recently”. AND the now chronic shortage of personnel it does not help to monitor a hot area such as the railway station and convoys. “There are 4 of us per shift, but we would need at least 7 more agents to be able to cope with growing needs and crimes. The strengthening planned at a national level, incomprehensibly, did not take into consideration the Brescia Polfer Section”, explains Grassi.
“Are three more injured operators enough or should we wait further? How will we be able to guarantee the garrison with this defection?” asked the Siap provincial secretary, Daniele Possemato in a note sent to the Department Manager. But, through the voice of the provincial secretary Paolo Faresin, also comes the position taken by SAP, the autonomous police union. “We express closeness to our injured colleagues and have long been asking, loudly, that effective tools such as the taser, which the Brescia Polfer is not yet equipped with, are made available”. For each 6-hour shift, at least between 5 and 7 interventions are recorded. Which become more at the weekend and during the summer. “There are hecklers and – Grassi further underlines – more and more often, those who claim to travel, without tickets, especially groups of kids, especially minors who travel en masse”. But there is an additional source of commitment. “There is a growing number of thefts committed on Freccias. Thieves buying first class tickets and they wait for a moment when passengers are distracted or asleep to steal wallets, but also suitcases, backpacks, bags with PCs and valuables of all kinds. A worrying phenomenon.”
