Security emergency in Milan, what’s happening

Crime incidents have been on the rise in Milan for months, especially in the baby gang area. Is there a security problem? Meanwhile, during the night a policeman was stabbed and on April 25th a Roma was shot dead in the street

MILAN – During the night a policeman was stabbed in the back while trying, together with some colleagues, to arrest a man who was throwing stones at trains and passers-by at Lambrate station. And a couple of weeks ago a man was shot with three bullets in the street, perhaps due to a feud between Roma families. What’s happening in Milan? Is a security ’emergency’ phase starting? What is certain is that episodes of crime and violence, particularly at the hands of baby gangs, have been on the increase for some time.

READ ALSO: Policeman stabbed in Milan: hit in the back during the arrest of a foreigner

WHAT HAPPENED TO LAMBRATE STATION

Policeman Christian Di Martino, 35, was stabbed during the arrest of a 37-year-old of Moroccan origins who was annoying people in Lambrate station and throwing stones at trains. The injured policeman, hit with three blows to the back, was emergently operated onduring the night at the Niguarda hospital.
The ‘flying police’ intervened to Lambrate around midnight, at the request of the railway police who were dealing with the fury of the 37-year-old Moroccan: he appeared to be in a strong state of agitation and had thrown stones at the trains but also at some passers-by. A woman, in fact, had been hit in the head.

THE ROBBERY WITH THE DEAD FROM A FEW DAYS AGO

The robbery of a mobile phone ended in death just over ten days ago, with a man shot dead in Warsaw Street Jhonny Suleimanovic, an 18-year-old Bosnian Roma, killed on the night between 25 and 26 April in front of the entrances to the Milan vegetable market. The man was hit by three bullets which hit him and killed him before the eyes of his mother and brother. The lead is that of the feud between nomadic families: the ambush could be a response to a previous blunder, a settling of scores that ended in blood.

BABY GANG EVER MORE VIOLENT

Between the end of 2023 and this first part of 2024 the gratuitous violence of the baby gangs emerges much more, or at most the more finalized one of the wars for control of the drug markets. Examples? An eighteen-year-old and a sixteen-year-old stopped by the police in March for an attempted murder a year earlier against a young Indian student on Erasmus in Italy. Two stabs in the back for a cell phone and some cash. Also in March, two other 19-year-olds (already in prison) received a second custody order for stabbing a 21-year-old in the posh nightlife Corso Como. Then there is the revenge ‘in absentia’ of a man, who, having argued with a 38-year-old with a mutual exchange of threats while swinging knives, then sent five acquaintances to beat him to death, reducing him to the point of dying when he returned with a dog swatter.

THE SHIVA CASE

And the violence of rappers, the one that comes when it crosses the border with video clip fiction? The photos of Baby Gang are abundant (with the virality fueled by the judges who speak to him as a parent), another follower of the genre who shot two rivals in the legs is the 24-year-old Shiva, arrested in October for attempted murder after a shooting triggered in Settimo on 11 July. Both injured, slightly injured – reticent in hospital and with the police – confirming investigations that have framed the facts in old conflicts between frequenters of the Milanese rap/trap world and Shiva, who would have reacted to an attack. Good news, but only for chronological reasons, the group of girls capable of attacking and slashing a 31-year-old man in Chiesa Rossa with an aluminum drinks can. The cut on the face remained indelible, as also confirmed by the victim on video; the facts date back to December 28, although the carabinieri only traced back a week ago to a 15-year-old and a 17-year-old at the head of a group of five other girls of the same age who operated between Rozzano and the southern outskirts of Milan. The danger of recurrence of the crimes is “concrete and serious”, noted the investigating judge in validating the arrests.

THE HANDS OF THE PYROMALLI

All this testosterone, male and female, while the professionals of violence use it less and less to better infiltrate the loose mesh of Milan that works and produces, consumes and dies. See Piromalli, the historic brand with a controlled designation of origin of the ‘Ndrangheta, who had already bought four food and drink outlets on the island at the “Mercato Comunale”. The Piromallis’ hands then reached out to some Milanese nightlife venues, taken into control through frontmen without any experience. There were then five arrests by the San Donato police coordinated by the Lodi prosecutor’s office to put an end to a drug war which saw two attempted murders on 27 September and 30 November during clashes between two rival factions fighting for control of the square in San Giuliano Milanese. Sticks and knives were also used in the scuffles and house searches of those arrested also revealed a 44 magnum revolver (loaded and ready for use) hidden inside the car of a fourth arrested person. In Barona, however, a historic working-class suburb of Milan, 14 arrests at the end of February interrupted a flow of cocaine that also reached Sardinia. The criminals kept firearms, on behalf of the leaders of the association, in hiding places even inside some public places.