Acerra – This time, it was a near miss. Only chance, or perhaps luck, prevented another young woman from being killed for having the "daring" to end a relationship.
The victim was a 19-year-old woman from Acerra, attacked along with her friends by her ex-boyfriend, a worker with no criminal record, just twenty years old. He swooped down on them on a scooter, ran them over, and then fled. No one was killed this time. But it could have ended in tragedy.
A familiar story. But ever younger.
I police They arrested him a few hours later: the young man is now in Poggioreale prison on charges of stalking, mistreatment, assault, and battery. But the question is broader: who teaches boys—already men in their actions, children in managing their emotions—that a woman's freedom is not a crime? That the end of a relationship is not a death sentence?
The young man couldn't accept the end of their relationship, which lasted nine months and ended five months ago. His ex had left him because of excessive jealousy and his increasingly obsessive and violent behavior.
An escalation that was never reported but documented by the victim, who had kept photos of the wounds and bruises caused by slaps and bites.
An attack that could have been a murder
The incident occurred in the middle of a summer evening, in the municipal gardens on Via Palatucci. The girl was sitting on a bench with her friends, simply seeking a bit of normalcy, a moment of lightheartedness. But he was looking for her.
When he found her, he lost all restraint. The screams, the slap, the run to escape. Then the attack: riding a scooter, he headed straight for her and the other three girls, hitting them. Injured, but alive.
The next day, the 19-year-old finally found the courage to report everything. She also told investigators about the previous incidents: the threats outside her home, the verbal assaults, the damaged car, even a spat in the middle of the city. A constant, unrelenting harassment.
Ignorance that kills: when rejection becomes a motive
Faced with events like these, the question is always the same: how many more times? How many women must be hurt—or worse—before the cultural urgency of the problem is recognized? This isn't just crime news. It's an educational failure. A twenty-year-old who views the freedom of others as an affront is a direct product of a society that still tolerates, minimizes, and justifies.
Who teaches these kids that love isn't possession? That there's no such thing as "I can't live without you" that justifies violence? And where are we—as adults, families, schools, institutions—when these signs begin to emerge? This time, the girl is alive. But it wouldn't have taken much. Too little.
Reading the article, I wondered how it's possible that in such an advanced society, there are still men who react violently to a broken relationship. It's a matter of education; we must intervene before it's too late.