Peaceful Protest Dissolves into Riots in Rome
What began as a peaceful protest inspired by the Occupy Wall Street movement soon descended into chaos on Saturday when a group of rioters broke away and caused mayhem.
Tens of thousands of citizens gathered at the Colosseum to march in protest against monetary policy and unequal wealth distribution. Within minutes of the march beginning, a group of rioters dubbed “Black Bloc” began to part from the crowd. The anarchist group lit cars on fire and broke windows along the protest route.
Wearing masks, black hoodies, and motorcycle helmets, the group of 200 to 300 rioters hijacked what had been planned as a peaceful demonstration.
Other protestors challenged the extremist group and tried to restrain rioters, shouting “No to violence!”
As the day progressed, the violent acts intensified. Rudimentary bombs were used to set fire to unoccupied cars along the protest route. The fires soon spread to at least one building, rumored to be an annex of the Department of Defense.
ATMs were destroyed, bank windows attacked with bats, and one grocery stores looted. At least a dozen cars were set alight, including an armored police van.
Police seemed unprepared for the violent turn and have been criticized for being slow to intervene. As the rioters fled towards San Giovanni, police used water cannons and tear gas to contain them.
135 people were injured in the riots, including 30 policemen. Rome’s mayor, Gianni Alemanno, has estimated the damage to public property to be at least 1 million Euros. A Roman business organization has said that the damage done to shops and other businesses will exceed 1 million Euros as well.
The violent protests came just one day after Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi survived a narrow confidence vote. The premier managed to get the bare minimum votes needed to continue running the government.
Authorities have vowed to bring the rioters to justice.
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I still cannot see how a peaceful march could be identified with a riot. What I find interesting was that some people managed to get photographs of the rioters and a lot of them were older men above 35 years of age with big bellies...this means that they were not all giovani (young students in their twenties) as some reports stated. They look more like the type of hooligans found at soccer matches. And In another photo of a man leaning next to a wall next to two men smashing a bank window with a pole. Someone has identified the man as being a policeman. Who knows?...it is a controversial situation. Some say it was a manouvre for the government to put a clamp down on all protests so that a future 'occupy wall street' scenario would not happen in Italy...while others say it was a freak situation where a group of hooligans took advantage.
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