Bologna, August 10, 2026 – “Four years later, the story of Davide remains an open wound for Bologna, not only for the family. It is the memory of an absurd violence that shattered the life of a young man and that of those who love him. And it is, at the same time, the testimony of a city that chose not to stand by: to consider every citizen, wherever they are, part of a community that does not abandon them when suffering knocks at the door.”
Davide was beaten to death in Crotone on August 11, 2022
These are the words contained in the long message from Mayor Matteo Lepore, on the fourth anniversary of the attack on Davide Ferrerio, the young man from Bologna, then 20 years old, beaten to death in Crotone on August 11, 2022, due to a case of mistaken identity and since then in an irreversible coma because of the very serious brain injuries sustained.
“Davide’s story is one that Bologna has never stopped considering its own”
“The story of Davide Ferrerio – recalls the mayor – is a story that Bologna has never stopped considering its own, because of the bond his family has with the city, for Davide’s love for his favorite team, for the affection and solidarity he was able to generate. Yesterday, once again together with his mother Giuseppina, we remembered the shared journey, the embraces and the legal battle that the City Administration also fought alongside the family, constituting itself as a civil party before the Court of Crotone.”
This, the mayor emphasizes, “is a gesture that, in Italian administrative practice, is by no means taken for granted: a local authority normally constitutes itself as a civil party for crimes committed on its territory or against its property and its community in the strict sense. It is not a purely symbolic act. The constitution as a civil party involves a concrete commitment, legal and communicative: it means that the city, as an institution, takes on the responsibility of publicly representing a collective value, safety, dignity, the right of every person to return home, even when the event happened elsewhere.”
