Marrakech – An Italian penitentiary police officer is under investigation for attempted murder after firing three shots inside a hospital emergency room in Prato, wounding a 22-year-old Moroccan man in the leg as he tried to escape. The shooting took place shortly after 4:30 p.m. on Sunday, August 16, at the Santo Stefano hospital.
According to Italian media, the young man had been arrested hours earlier outside Prato’s La Dogaia prison. He was caught throwing five packages over the perimeter wall, each carrying a share of 600 grams of hashish along with two cell phones. Three packages landed in the medium-security exercise yards, while two fell inside the wall.
Prosecutor Luca Tescaroli’s office described an organized operation. The 22-year-old was not acting alone. Two accomplices worked with him outside, and a detainee inside recovered the material once it cleared the wall. All four were arrested.
During the arrest, the man fell and hit his head, so officers took him to Santo Stefano by ambulance for checks. What followed turned the emergency room into chaos.
Though handcuffed, he grabbed a fire extinguisher, sprayed its contents across the rooms, and hurled it at his two escorts. One officer suffered a fractured hand with a 30-day prognosis; the other, the officer who later fired, was given 10 days.
He then bolted toward the covered ambulance bay. There, the officer fired three shots. Two missed, and the third struck the man’s leg, leaving only minor injuries. He was later transferred to a hospital in Pistoia. No patients, visitors, or medical staff were hit. Carabinieri, police, and private security responded to the scene.
The officer, 29 and from Airola in the Benevento province, had served for 18 months. He was questioned by prosecutors and is now undergoing psychological support.
His lawyer, Vittorio Luigi Fucci, described a chaotic moment worsened by the fog from the discharged extinguisher, and stated that his client fired two shots upward and a third toward the ground after his colleague called for help.
Fucci wants Italy’s new security decree applied. The measure amended the criminal procedure code to allow a preliminary annotation that avoids automatically registering an officer as a suspect when a service act suggests grounds for justification.
Tescaroli’s office stressed that registering the officer for attempted murder is an investigative step, not a finding of guilt. Acquired footage will help determine the distance, the sequence of the shots, and whether the conditions for using the weapon existed.
The case drew political and union backing. Deputy Prime Minister and Infrastructure Minister Matteo Salvini offered “total support” to the officer, arguing that he “simply did his job.” The Sappe union voiced solidarity and pointed to the daily pressures on penitentiary staff.
Italian coverage also noted that these officers remain without alternatives to their service weapon, such as Tasers, with pepper spray only entering a trial phase in early 2026. A doctor present put it bluntly: the officer, he stated, “now risks losing his job and jail for having saved our lives.”
The episode was not isolated. Tescaroli reported a continuing wave of violence at La Dogaia, where a Maghrebi detainee was recently stabbed and hospitalized with a 20-day prognosis.
The shooting adds to Moroccan anger over Italy’s handling of its nationals. Weeks earlier, on July 19, 42-year-old Moroccan Abderrahim Fakir was killed in Bologna after being pinned face down and restrained by two police officers as ambulance workers stood nearby, repeatedly crying out for help before falling silent.
Preliminary autopsy findings showed blood in his lungs and signs of compression, with investigators examining asphyxia as a possible cause of death. Two police officers and four Red Cross paramedics remain under scrutiny as prosecutors investigate the case for negligent homicide, while further forensic testing is still pending.
