CROTONE – The Carabinieri of the Investigative Unit of the Crotone Operations Department have arrested, in execution of a precautionary custody order in prison from the investigating judge, four family members of Francesco Chimirri, the 44-year-old killed on 7 October last by a gunshot fired by the deputy police inspector Giuseppe Sortino after having witnessed a road accident caused by the victim.

They are under investigation for the beating of the policeman and accused, for various reasons, of attempted aggravated murder, multiple aggravated personal injuries, resistance and violence against a public official, possession of weapons or objects capable of offending and aggravated damage.

The road accident

The policeman was investigated for murder immediately after the incident. Chimirri, married and father of four children, was a pizza chef and was known for his activism on social media, so much so that he had almost 158 thousand followers on Tik Tok.

According to the reconstruction made at the time, everything originated from a road accident in Isola Capo Rizzuto, a municipality bordering Crotone, which Sortino had witnessed and in which Chimirri was involved, who, instead of stopping to clarify the dynamics of the accident and the related responsibilities, he would have walked away.

Sortino, in civilian clothes and free from duty, would have chased the car driven by the pizza chef, who was traveling together with another to inform him of what had happened, reaching him in Crotone, in the “Campanaro” district which is also known to the police for being the place of residence of numerous criminals.

The shot that killed Francesco Chimirri

Once the cars were blocked, Sortino got out of his car and, after qualifying, asked Chimirri for clarification on what had happened shortly before. What followed was “a brutal attack”, according to what was reported by the Prosecutor’s Office, against the sub-inspector, and a “violent scuffle” at the height of which the policeman fired three shots at Chimirri, one of which reached him, causing his death .

In the subsequent excited phases, among other things, Chimirri’s son, who had witnessed his father’s murder together with other family members, picked up the gun, which had fallen from the hand of the policeman who ended up on the ground trying to shoot the officer without succeeding because the weapon had jammed. Only the arrival of the police restored calm. Sortino was admitted to the Pugliese-Ciaccio hospital in Catanzaro for serious facial trauma.