A few days ago we raised many doubts with an article on Youtuber rounds Simone Cicalone and his associates, hunting for pickpockets in Rome metro stations. We then discovered that the CGIL, with a letter to the Prefect Lamberto Giannini, had also raised many doubts about what was happening, expressing concerns about the possible consequences.
The news is from yesterday brawl between Cicalone and his companions on one side, all very fit martial arts and boxing championson the platform of the station Spain metro, and another group of people. According to the Youtuber one gang of pickpockets of South American originwho he and his group have been harassing for weeks in an attempt to prevent him from shoplifting travellers, allegedly set up an ambush waiting for them with cell phones in hand and surrounding them to provoke a reaction. A scuffle ensues where Cicalone can be seen grab one of the suspected pickpockets by the neck with a decidedly dangerous martial arts move.
In the meantime some girls are taking it out on the operator who works with the face of “Scuola di Botte” and “Quartieri Criminali”, Cicalone intervenes and by his own admission hits one of them slamming her against the wall. The two young women then flee, taking the subway tunnel on foot! They will be stopped shortly after by the police and one of them will go to get a medical report for the push she received. Cicalone in turn will get a medical report at the emergency room (five day prognosis), as will his operator who will receive a ten day prognosis.
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Could this story of the Youtuber boxer patrols on the subway end in any other way? No, in fact we should be happy that it only ended with a few days of prognosis and an exchange of cross accusations between the “Peruvians” and Cicalone regarding the dynamics of what happened. The real question is how was it possible that the police, Atac and Roma Metropolitane tolerated this situation?leaving full freedom of movement to Cicalone and his crew of running, chasing, filming, surrounding people.
What we are trying to say here is not that pickpockets are victims, but that it is not up to YouTubers to fight the phenomenon. But evidently the views of the videos were too good to give up. In the end, we really have to console ourselves with the fact that no one fell under a moving train or while escaping through a tunnel, and that no one got too hurt in the end. If we want to take Cicalone’s version at face value, who claims to have been lured into a trap and provoked into a reaction by the gang of pickpockets fed up with being disturbed in their activity so as to put him in a bad light, we can say that the result was everything in the introduction.
Yesterday in a reconstruction video the Youtuber said himself sorry for having set “a bad example”sorry “even just that the girl fell and could have hurt herself”, and then reiterated that he had tried to “protect Evelina (the cameraman ed.) from some girls who had started hitting her”.
The point is that he set a bad example when he decided to start patrolling, and the real problem is that the institutions not only did not intervene to stop him, but judging by how he moved around the stations, often side by side with vigilance, have in fact facilitated him in his mission.
Freelance journalist and area manager of Roman news for Fanpage.it. I collaborated first before arriving at Fanpage.it on il manifesto, MicroMega, Europa, l’Espresso, il Fatto Quotidiano. In addition to Roman facts and politics, I deal with right-wing cultures and neo-fascism. I wrote for Edizione Alegre “The politics of the bulldozer. Salvini’s League and the new European right” (2015) and for Fandango Libri “Mainstream Fascism” (2021).
