Pushing Past the Night

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Book: Read Pushing Past the Night for Free Online
Authors: Mario Calabresi
wall behind him is the freshly painted slogan ‘Everycrime is political.’ You can see him shooting even while he’s retreating. He is the one who fired the fatal shot. His name is Mario Ferrandi, nicknamed the ‘rabbit’ because of his buckteeth. He did not realize he was your father’s murderer until 1986. The newspapers reported erroneously that Custra had been struck by a 6.35-caliber bullet. Instead it was a 7.65 caliber, so when Ferrandi appeared before the judge, he started babbling that he’d been carrying a 7.65 caliber and had only fired two shots without aiming, so he couldn’t be the killer. (His defense attorney was Gaetano Pecorella, who in those days specialized in red extremists. Pecorella later became an attorney for Silvio Berlusconi—as well as one of his Members of Parliament—and for one of the Neo-Fascist defendants in the Piazza Fontana trial.)
    â€œFerrandi was ultimately incriminated not only by the revolver but also by his boots and the ski mask with the white pom-pom: ten years later everyone still remembered his outfit. In the meantime, he had broken his ties with terrorism. He had still found the time, before then, to kill a drug dealer and carry out his share of kneecappings and bombings. Sad to say, many people would still be alive today if Ferrandi, Memeo, and the other rioters had been arrested immediately. One of them, Marco Barbone, was carrying a sawed-off shotgun and shot a passerby in the face—a news vendor who died from complications of the gunshot wounds. Barbone later murdered the journalist Walter Tobagi, “guilty” of having conducted some of Italy’s best investigative reporting into domestic terrorism. Corrado Alunni, another rioter, was also carrying a weapon that day. He became the leader of one of the most violent terrorist groups, Prima Linea, responsible for dozens of political assassinations. Prima Linea was actually born that afternoon on Via De Amicis, in a baptism by fire that no one could extinguish.
    The story behind the famous photo is shocking. There were actually five photographers on the street that day, four men and one woman. Unfortunately, the terrorists were able to track downfour of them before the police did. Two of the photographers were at the main entrance to number 59: Paolo Pedrizzetti and Paola Saracini. In the sequence of images that was used at the trial, Memeo, after firing his gun, noticed the photographers to his right and retreated. Pedrizzetti managed to escape, making it through the front door and up the stairs to the top floor of the building. He delivered his roll of film to the newspapers and then to the police. As a result of his actions, he was subject to repeated threats by the terrorists. Saracini, in contrast, was too paralyzed by fear to move. Memeo shoved his pistol in her face and forced her to open her camera to expose the film to sunlight. She fell to her knees while the boy in the black ski mask continued firing at the police. The third photographer, Antonio Conti, captured this scene from the other side of the street. He originally told the police that his roll of film had been “violently yanked” from his camera by the protesters, who had attacked and threatened him. But as it turns out, not only was he a relative of one of Italy’s leading militants, he was also considered a sympathizer within terrorist circles, and he hid the photos to protect them. No one cast any doubt on his version of the facts until 1989.
    The fourth photographer, Dino Fracchi, was able to save his images of the three high school students fleeing the police with revolvers in their hands. He published them, an action for which he paid dearly. One month later, someone set fire to his Milan studio, destroying it and forcing him to live abroad for a period.
    â€œThe fifth photographer was Marco Bini. He was wearing a white raincoat that concealed his Zenith camera, and he was able to take

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