Bologna, July 20, 2026 – “In those cries for help, in that terrible scene, I saw my son again.” Thus Lino Aldrovandi, father of Federico, the 18-year-old student from Ferrara who died while being pinned to the ground by three police officers later convicted of “negligent excess in involuntary manslaughter” to 3 and a half years, comments on the video of Abderrahim Fakir, a 42-year-old of Moroccan origin, who died during an intervention by officers in Pilastro.
“I wonder why they didn’t stop at those cries for help”
“They were holding him down with three, two officers and a third person blocking the man’s feet. I wonder why, faced with such clear cries for help, they didn’t stop. Then I don’t know what that man had done, but he had neither knives nor weapons, in some cases common sense must intervene.” Lino Aldrovandi also speaks as a former local police officer: “I too have faced delicate situations, I understand the tension of the moment, but I have always tried to be balanced. Sometimes there is a lack of training, I believe that police officers should be better trained to handle these cases.”
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The reconstruction
Yesterday morning Fakir lost control, prompting citizens to call the police. Once on the scene, the police alerted emergency services reporting “a subject in psychiatric crisis”. The man had just damaged a garage and the car of a person who had arrived in the courtyard, also attacking the latter. Fakir also had a head wound: investigators are now trying to clarify whether he inflicted it on himself during moments of intense agitation, or later, when the officers brought him down. Pepper spray was also used to contain him.
