ANCONA “I’ll cut your throat” is his promise, addressed first to the people queuing in front of the ATM in Via Colombo and then to the owner of a supermarket in Piazzale Loreto. These are the deeds of a 30-year-old African who caused panic in the Piano yesterday morning, just before lunch time. They even saw him brandish a knife, all to try to extort money from passers-by and steal from the market shelves.
The identikit
For now, only a brief description of the criminal remains: dark-skinned, wearing a green hat and a dark backpack. His gait was also particular, staggering as if he had drunk too much. Daniele Bargellini, owner of Coal in Piazzale Loreto, confronted him directly. «He wanted to take the goods but he didn’t have the money – he says. When I took it away from him he got upset. He told me “don’t touch me, I’ll cut your throat”. And he left.” Bargellini himself is among the signatories of the petition promoted by the residents of the Plan to ask the Municipality that the anti-degradation patrols of the local police be more present. The other day he told Corriere Adriatico about the degradation we experience at every hour of the day, about how people no longer feel safe leaving their homes. But beyond the fear, mockery also arrived for Bargellini yesterday. «I called 112, they passed me the police but they told me they couldn’t come because they didn’t have patrols available» he reports. So much so that the attacker then managed to disappear calmly, since no one showed up afterward. Moments of fear that even the customers of the market had to witness, immobile behind the tills.
«In the end I kicked him out because he bothered the customers. She tried to come back but I stood in the doorway and stopped her »continues the owner of the store in Piazzale Loreto. Returning to the theft attempt, the market owner recounts those moments.
«He wanted to eat, he was having tomato puree. He told me that he wasn’t stealing because he didn’t have the money to pay but he was telling me that he couldn’t pay for the goods » she says. A way to exorcise stress. And fear. “You never know who’s in front of you, what if he pulled out the knife?” he wonders afterwards. «Moreover, he threatened to cut my throat in front of my son». Meanwhile, an unknown remains: what if he returns? Maybe with worse intentions. Bargellini’s wife, having heard our question, takes pepper spray out of her bag and shows it to us. “I use this,” she says. A standard equipment for those who live the Plan at all hours, perhaps alone. Desperate times call for desperate measures. Stories from a suburb where public order and security are in the hands of the victims themselves. At least until the blood flows on the asphalt again.
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