CATANIA – Thanks to the negotiation and persuasion skills of a police inspector, a young man from Catania stopped committing suicide. In recent days, the boy’s father and sister-in-law showed up at the police station in tears, reporting that he had recently left home, leaving a farewell note for his children, from which his intentions were clearly understood; he too had sent a message of the same tone to his wife, from whom he was separating.
The police asked his family for as much information as possible in order to trace him. Shortly afterwards, during yet another attempt by his father to contact him by telephone, the young man responded by sobbing and confirming his intention to end it all. At this juncture an inspector, who entered the conversation, managed to keep the boy on the phone, establishing an increasingly confidential relationship with him. After having acquired the full trust of his interlocutor, in a phone call that lasted approximately 40 minutes during which the young man explained the reasons that had led him to think of an extreme gesture, mainly linked to the end of his marriage, the policeman managed to get them to tell him where he was.
Hesitant, the young man agreed to meet only the inspector, threatening to disappear again if he saw other patrols. Therefore the policeman, alone and in plain clothes, went to the appointment and after listening to the outburst for over an hour and making him understand that it was only a moment of fragility, he managed to convince him to follow him to the police station, where in tears he hugged his loved ones again. In the following days, the family wanted to express their thanks in a letter addressed to the police station.
