2 Americans Found Guilty of Murder of Italian Police Officer

[Coventina]

Source: NYT

ROME — Two American men were found guilty of murder on Wednesday and sentenced to life for the killing of an Italian military police officer in July 2019, when the two young San Francisco natives were vacationing in Rome.

Ending a 14-month trial held mostly behind closed doors because of pandemic restrictions, a jury found Finnegan Elder, 21, and Gabriel Natale Hjorth, 20, guilty of the murder of Deputy Brig. Mario Cerciello Rega, 35.

Gasps were heard across the courtroom as the verdicts were announced, and the slain officer’s widow leaned against her lawyer and sobbed.

The two Americans were in their teens on July 26, 2019, when an early-morning scuffle on a deserted street corner with two plainclothes police officers — Brigadier Cerciello Rega and another officer, Andrea Varriale — turned deadly.

Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/05/05/world/europe/americans-murder-italian-police-officer.html

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Young, entitled idiots wanted cocaine and decided to stab an undercover police officer when the drug deal went bad.

Not feeling overly sorry for these "affluenza" kids.....

[BobTheSubgenius]

1. "This drug deal is not going to my liking. Time to get stabby."

[róisín_dubh]

2. Play stupid games in foreign countries...

win stupid prizes.

[Polybius]

3. How come they weren't shot?

Did the cop not have a gun?

[Blue_Tires]

4. They're going to LOVE prison in Italy...

[maxsolomon]

5. It sounds like there was some gray area in the altercation.

The undercover police assert they ID'd themselves. If it was in Italian, the Americans may not have understood it, or didn't believe it.

Life in Prison, in particular for the kid who didn't stab anyone, seems over the top for a crime that wasn't premeditated, but they'd both probably get the same in America.

If cocaine was legal, this crime doesn't happen.

[Coventina]

6. Someone who would stab someone else 11 times over drugs needs to be put away for life.

Full stop.

I could have been sympathetic toward the other kid, but then he did not do anything to stop the attack, and then hid the murder weapon after the fact.

Fuck him too.

[maxsolomon]

7. You'll find there are many who feel it is not so clear cut.

I remember Amanda Knox's railroading, and this isn't that case, but it made me skeptical of the Italian Justice system.

Interestingly, at dinner tonight my daughter laid into me for defending, or at least reserving judgment on, the sentence. "You always take the side of the cops."

On DU, I clearly don't.

[Coventina]

8. Both of the defendants admitted to the facts of the case.

Their defense was that the murderer panicked.
And that they did not know the victim was a cop.

11 stabs is more than a "panic."

And, it doesn't matter who the victim was. Cop or not, you don't kill people.

[maxsolomon]

10. Jeez, how many stabs IS a 'panic'?

Sounds like you've got a number in mind.

[Coventina]

11. Yep. 3.

[greenjar_01]

9. Both these idiots will be back in California before they're 40