Young man stabbed in attack, father's anger: "We're living under siege."

Ravenna, November 8, 2025 – It was about to happen again. A few months after the stabbing in Piazza Duomo, which shook Ravenna and sparked a national debate on youth safety, the son of engineer Francesco Patrizi was once again the victim of an attack. A veritable ambush , this time in the Speyer Gardens, a highly charged area long monitored for the presence of rowdy groups. It was mid-afternoon, the city immersed in the apparent November calm. Then, suddenly, the silence was broken.

The father's story

"My son was walking to his mother, who was waiting for him after school," Patrizi says. "He hadn't noticed the group of kids sitting on the marble benches, hidden by a hedge. There were some Tunisians and a Romanian. The Romanian is the same one who verbally attacked my daughter on July 15th, and to defend her, my son was stabbed by one of the group." The latter is being held in Caserta; he was the leader of a gang dismantled by the police. It seemed like a closed chapter: the leader behind bars, the others scattered across various communities. But the bonds, evidently, haven't been broken. Some of those kids, children of no one and of too much silence, continue to move around the city between the station, the parks, and the city center. They've lost a leader, not their anger.

My son didn't take up the challenge but...

“At a certain point,” Patrizi continues, “the Romanian man gets up and says, ‘What are you doing, not saying hello to me?’ My son doesn’t take the hint and walks away toward the parking lot. He follows him and hits him on the shoulder. My son tells him to leave him alone, then, out of anger, replies, ‘What do you think, that we’re afraid of you?’ It’s at that point that the Romanian lifts his shirt and shows a knife tucked into his waistband.” The gesture inflames the other members of the gang. “A Tunisian friend of his approached my wife and said, ‘I’m not doing what he does, I’ll kill you.’ Do you understand? These aren’t just verbal threats, these are people using knives.” The scene unfolds in a matter of minutes: several people call 911, the Carabinieri and local police arrive. The intervention prevents the worst from happening. The police are proceeding with aggravated threats against the two young foreigners.

The affair reopens an open wound

“When my wife called me,” Patrizi continues, “I had just returned from a business trip. She told me, ‘They want to stab our son again.’ I felt like I was dying. I ran to the gardens, and the Carabinieri told me they were already on the scene. Luckily, everyone was fine.” The incident reopens a wound that seemed to have healed. Last July 15th, in Piazza Duomo, young Patrizi was stabbed by a Tunisian minor while defending his younger sister from harassment by a group of peers. "We thought we'd overcome that fear," says his father, "but that's not the case. My son is now afraid even to go to school. We live within the law; we don't take justice into our own hands. Demanding legality isn't fascist."

The silent march promoted by Patrizi

That July attack also sparked the silent march, organized by Patrizi himself to put an end to youth violence. "That Romanian is also the same one who provoked the attack during the demonstration. And this evening, while we were filing the complaint at the police station, he was shouting from his cell, calling the police officers racist: 'I filmed the whole thing.'"

The engineer , now a face on social media and a guest on programs like La Zanzara, doesn't hide his anger. "They tell us it's just a perception, but we're living in a situation of real insecurity. That's why we're calling for the Army to come in. I've filed a complaint with the Carabinieri. And let him write it down: Patrizi doesn't take justice into his own hands; he seeks justice and lives within the law. And that's why he's not a fascist."