The Sad Tale of Fabio

Once upon a time, there was this Italian kid named Fabio.  A good kid....a nice kid...an intelligent kid...an innocent kid, at least by what Fabio's mother would say.

One day, Fabio decided to go from Belluno, Italy (near the Alps in northern Italy) to the G-20 Summit in Hamburg, Germany.  It's a distance of 1,150 km....roughly fourteen hours by car (on a good day).

There in Hamburg for the G-20 Summit, Fabio would mix it up with the Antifa folks and end up being arrested for criminal act.  Fabio....roughly eight weeks later....is still being held at a detention center in the Hamburg region....awaiting his court case.  Fabio's mother has come to Hamburg and wants her poor son to return to the homeland of Italy.

I sat and watched this NDR (regional public TV) news piece.

Various folks were herded out by the news folks to condemn the way that the cops and prosecutors/judges are handling these Summit cases.

At some point, I kinda started to wonder....how exactly did the eighteen year old Fabio travel to Hamburg?  Train? It's at least 150 Euro...one-way.  Car?  Who paid for the fuel?  The news people skipped over this part of the story....maybe just by accident or intentionally....it doesn't matter.

A 'hired-thug'?  It would be curious to ask Fabio how he got to Hamburg and who funded his little adventure, but I doubt that he'd be willing to tell that part of the story.  I think he's like a lot of American protesters....hired and transported from event to event.

The judge?  He's in a tight spot.  Lots of people around Hamburg want all of the protest crowd to spend some time in jail and pay in some way for their actions.  The cops may have screwed up on several episodes and poor leadership by the city is readily demonstrated.

The easiest way for the judge to get out of this?  Write up a simple six-line agreement....Fabio gets released to his mother and leaves Germany.  Fabio agrees not to enter Germany for a period of five years.  If Fabio is arrested within German borders at any protest movement in the next five years....he comes back to Hamburg and does a full year in prison.

And my question to Fabio's mother....is it a regular thing that Fabio runs off to protest events on a regular basis?  Maybe you need to sit down with Fabio and talk about consequences in life.