A 28-year-old Bangladeshi national has been arrested in Italy after viciously assaulting two female police officers outside a police station in Catania, Italy.
The migrant, who is understood to be homeless, reportedly became aggressive towards two female officers who left the station to engage with the visibly distressed male after he struggled to make himself understood through the station’s intercom.
The attack occurred at around 3.30 p.m. when the assailant “hurled himself against [the officers], hitting one with punches in the face and shoulder and reacting violently against the other colleague,” according to Giuseppe Sottile, provincial secretary of the Catania police union.
Two officers intervened to apprehend the male and prevent further injuries from being sustained.
One policewoman was hospitalized due to the severity of her injuries to various parts of her body but remains in stable condition. Doctors expect her injuries to heal within 10 days.
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“The attacker is a 28-year-old homeless man from Bangladesh with various precedents for resistance and crimes against a person, and said he attacked his colleagues because he wanted to talk to a man and not with a woman,” said Sottile, who added that the local trade union was “genuinely fed up” with the treatment towards police officers in the port city.
He called on the new interior minister in the right-wing coalition recently formed by Giorgia Meloni to impose harsher penalties on those who attack police officers.
“We express our total solidarity with the two colleagues who, yesterday, were brutally attacked in Catania by a man who made one end up in the hospital after beating her with his fists because he wanted to talk to a man and not a woman,” said Valter Mazzetti, general secretary of the FSP State Police.
“These episodes demonstrate how absurd and unthinkable the dangers are that cops continually face; cops must be able to operate with the necessary guarantees and above all be certain that any aggressive and violent attitude aimed at questioning their function, dignity, and safety is treated with the severity it deserves,” Mazzetti said. He added: “It is time to say enough to a climate of laxity and superficiality that has serious repercussions on the safety of the operators.”
