Milan deploys 500 paratroopers and drones after youth riots and mass arrests

Mass arrests of minors

Some 80% of the 271 people arrested in Milan after the weekend clashes were minors, and the youngest was 11, according to justice minister Carlo Nordio. Speaking on Sky TG24's Start programme, he said a wave of arrests of minors on this scale had never happened before.

Unfortunately, there are times when it becomes necessary to put these violent minors behind bars.

Nordio said the juvenile prison system is under strain. A meeting on 21 October looked at using the limited funds available to add capacity, and at whether sections of adult prisons could be given over to minors. He also said youth discomfort must be addressed without letting racism take hold, since many of the young people are Italian and come from good families, and he called the problem the most urgent to solve.

Custody orders in Milan

The investigating judge, Maria Idria Gurgo di Castelmenardo, ordered house arrest for a 21-year-old from Milan. He was arrested on 18 October over the clashes in central Milan, including the assault with devastation and looting of the Decathlon store in Piazza Cairoli. He told the judge he wanted to feel emotions, and the order notes that he is in treatment for psychiatric problems. A different 18-year-old, born in Switzerland, was placed in prison, and the judge wrote that he came to Milan from Switzerland specifically to take part in the disorder and showed no remorse. In her order the judge wrote:

Gatherings of large numbers of young and very young people, induced by social networks into insurrectionary dissent, can act as an exponential detonator of violence.

A third man, accused of further devastation, looting and aggravated resistance, was ordered into custody on Thursday, 22 October.

Paratroopers and armoured vehicles

Matteo Salvini, deputy premier and transport minister, said 500 paratroopers from the Folgore Brigade, with an average age over 40 and experience abroad, will be posted in dozens of squares and sensitive sites in Milan. Speaking at the Milan prefecture after a Council of Ministers he joined by video link, he said the city and its train stations would be watched.

Milan will be under surveillance, as will its train stations.

Salvini said the soldiers would work alongside other police forces and could use Lince armoured vehicles and drones to intervene quickly. He said they would be deployed for months rather than a single weekend, and expressed the hope that they would stay for years. The soldiers will not have police powers, as originally planned, after an objection from President Sergio Mattarella.

Decree on juvenile crime

Mattarella signed a decree-law titled 'Urgent provisions on public security and combating juvenile crime' and authorised the bill to convert it into law to be submitted to parliament. The decree also covers violent demonstrations and the way they are organised. Nordio argued that sudden events of this kind cannot be dealt with by fine words alone, and that the government must act on youth discomfort. The decree and the paratroopers' deployment were both announced on the same day, Thursday, 22 October.