From mockery to progressively heavier words. And then, a crescendo of insults and threats culminated in a more serious attack, perhaps in the background there could be issues related to a girl. It was precisely at the height of the argument between two fifteen-year-old students in class that the Swiss army knife appeared and ended up against the back of one of the two teenagers. It happened in Reggio Calabria, inside the “Leonardo da Vinci” scientific high school.
The carabinieri of the provincial command and the prosecutor's office for minors of Reggio Calabria led by Roberto di Palmawhich together with the substitute Angelo Gaglioti went to the scene of the stabbing, they are now investigating to reconstruct what happened. What is certain is that the boy, injured in the shoulder, was also helped and accompanied to the hospital by his father, who the school had immediately notified and who rushed to the school. The fifteen-year-old suffered shallow wounds, taking into account the length of the blade, which did not touch vital organs. Also for this reason the doctors of the Great Metropolitan Hospital, where he was taken, immediately said that the young man's life was not in danger. From the first investigations carried out by the police it emerged that the fifteen-year-old launched three blows against his classmate.
The attacker was reported in a state of freedom to the Prosecutor's Office for minors in Reggio Calabria, who, in the next few hours, after the carabinieri have reconstructed the dynamics of the dispute between the two boys, will evaluate whether to investigate him for serious injuries or, if the circumstances exist, for attempted murder. Both protagonists of the serious episode belong to families not close to criminal circles. The news of the stabbing involving the two students of the “da Vinci” high school in via Poxidenea, one of the central areas of Reggio, spread like wildfire in the city and caused dismay and concern.
The manager: “Reflect on the discomfort of adolescents”
“The episode that occurred this morning in the high school premises leaves us dismayed. The community of teachers, technical-administrative staff and, above all, students is deeply disturbed. After the events, the intervention of the ambulance was immediately requested, as as usual. The injured boy was accompanied to the GOM by his family. I also thank the police for their immediate intervention.” This was stated in a statement by the head teacher of the “Leonardo Da Vinci” high schoolFrancesco Praticò. “I am close – he continued – together with the entire Vinci community to Domenico and his parents in this difficult moment. To find out the causes of the facts, we rely on the Carabinieri and the Judiciary, we can only reflect, together, on the discomfort and the difficulties of adolescents and the role of families. It will be my responsibility, in the days to come, to propose a moment of discussion with the entire community of the “Da Vinci” high school to recompose the mood and allow the peaceful continuation of the school year. “.
Calabria Childhood Ombudsman: “Stabbing of 15-year-olds questions us”
«What was he doing with the knife at school? Where did he get it? Was this the first time he took him to school? With what intentions? These are questions that the investigating judiciary will have to clarify, but which must necessarily question the collective conscience of adults.” The sociologist states this in a note Antonio Marziale, Guarantor for Children and Adolescents of the Calabria Region after what happened at the «Da Vinci» high school in Reggio Calabria where a fifteen-year-old stabbed a peer.
«Why – Marziale wonders – do these kids get out of hand? This is the question that should worry us until we have given answers to a spread of juvenile violence, whose roots also lie in the perpetuation of violence as a method of resolving even insignificant disputes, to the point of rewarding the winners of video games. It is the fault of our abdication and of that belief that today's minors are 'bigger' than we were at their age, which pervades parents as much as legislators, who go so far as to ask for the lowering of the age threshold for any aspect: from car license to rifle permit, not to mention that we are the nation with, shamefully, the lowest age of sexual consent in Europe.”
«Considering them as more mature than their biological age – he underlines – is only useful to put their conscience relatively at ease, but does not correspond to reality. It is the lack of control that generates deviance and juvenile crime, it is the abdication of the correct exercise of parental responsibility, it is making friends rather than parents or educators, it is the inability to dictate the rules even at the cost of making mistakes, it is the excessive permissiveness granted over time. It is all these things put together that give us the answer and the solution is more than obvious, at least to drain the statistics: get back to being parents seriously and even if some teachers started to exercise the authority of the role again, perhaps the school would have fewer wounds from heal.”