Naples, the investigating magistrate on the murdered police officer: ‘The 28-year-old was driving under the influence of alcohol and cocaine.’

Naples, 5 November (LaPresse) – Twenty-eight-year-old Tommaso Severino allegedly caused the road accident in which State Police officer Aniello Scarpati lost his life while driving an SUV “under the influence of alcohol and cocaine”. This was written by the investigating magistrate of the Court of Torre Annunziata, who validated the arrest of the 28-year-old and ordered his preventive detention in prison for the crimes of vehicular homicide, vehicular personal injury, and fleeing the scene of an accident resulting in death and injury. After causing the road accident in which police officer Aniello Scarpati lost his life and his colleague Ciro Cozzolino was injured, the investigating magistrate reconstructs that the 28-year-old smoked a cigarette at the scene and then left without providing assistance to either the officers he had hit or the other passengers in the car he was driving, including three underage girls. In validating the arrest, the judge considered that it was almost flagrant and that it was mandatory and in any case justified by the seriousness of the facts and the personality of the suspect. According to the reconstruction carried out by the investigating magistrate, the suspect’s conduct was characterised by a “very high level of culpability”, as he drove the car “under the influence of alcohol and cocaine, having tested positive for cocaine and having a blood alcohol level above the legal limit, and having travelled at very high speed, despite the fact that some of the passengers in the car he was driving had repeatedly asked him to slow down” . In the precautionary measure, the investigating magistrate states that “the suspect showed a remarkable potential for harm by driving a vehicle in an obviously altered state, such as to alter his perception of reality, travelling at very high speed, so that the tragic event that unjustly cut short the life of an officer who was only doing his job, and endangered other lives (not only that of the injured officer, but also those of the passengers in the car driven by the suspect), the life of an officer who was only doing his job and endangered other lives (not only that of the injured officer, but also those of the passengers in the car driven by the suspect, including minors), was a likely and foreseeable consequence, directly linked to his reckless and reckless conduct.” In applying the precautionary measure of detention in prison, the investigating magistrate considered that ‘ the absolute gravity of the conduct and the personality of the offender (who violated multiple precepts) lead to the conclusion that the defendant is totally incapable of restraining his criminal impulses and, consequently, incapable of complying with the requirements imposed by non-custodial measures‘ and that ’it is not possible to make a favourable prognosis regarding the future commission of crimes” .