VIAREGGIO. You may have seen them, perhaps, while passing along the seafront, maybe on your way home. State police patrol cars that around 7:30 p.m. on Thursday (August 27) were stationed in a row at strategic points in Viareggio, one in front of bagno Teresita in the Città Giardino area and the other two on the north and south sides of the central piazza Mazzini. Checkpoints by the police station, with officers engaged in a large-scale territorial control operation (which ultimately also led to the arrest of a man), first in the seafront area and then also in piazza Dante, in front of the train station. Rodolfo Salemi might have thought these were normal traffic checks. He then took out his phone and opened the Telegram group “Anonymus Versilia” (which has over 5,000 members) and reported the position of the law enforcement officers spotted at that moment to the other connected users. A warning like many others in that chat, created with the specific function of reporting checkpoints on the roads of Versilia.
But while the attempt by ordinary citizens to warn each other about the position of law enforcement – as deplorable as it is because it effectively nullifies the very purpose of the checks and the work of the officers on duty – might be overlooked, what causes a stir is that the current councilor for sports, sea, and future of the Municipality of Viareggio, who also holds significant portfolios such as the port, boating, the State Property Agency, concessions, municipal assets, and youth policies, participated in this “boycott” via chat. An important institutional role to which he is no stranger, having already served as councilor for sports and municipal police during Giorgio Del Ghingaro’s last term.
The screenshots of the conversation, not surprisingly, were already circulating on chats and groups connected to local Viareggio politics on Thursday evening. Causing the obvious outrage, as had already happened last March when Salemi was involved in another incident that stirred emotions in the city (and beyond: it was reported by all national newspapers). At that time, the then councilor for the municipal police was “caught” by the local police with his car parked illegally and with expired insurance, conditions under which the officers could do nothing but seize and have the vehicle removed. In that case, Salemi – who initially denied the news over the phone – promptly (it is worth remembering) regularized the insurance payment.
This time, contacted by Tirreno – which had previously verified that the contact number that sent the message in the Telegram chat matched that of the sports councilor (barring any possible, and unreported, contact cloning) – Rodolfo Salemi preferred not to make any statement regarding the matter. No response or comment was given either by the municipal administration or by Mayor Sara Grilli (although Tirreno tried to contact her).
The Telegram group “Anonymus Versilia” counts (as of yesterday) 5,674 members. The rules for participants in the chat, which specifies in its description that it is a «road reporting group», appear strict: «No questions – reads the Telegram channel description – no comments, no photos, no insults, do not send contacts to the group». The chat also regularly deletes the message history every few hours, “cleaning” itself of all the reports received. Therefore, it is not known whether Salemi has made other reports like the one on Thursday evening in the past.
What is certain is that this type of chat has been proliferating for years on various instant messaging platforms (such as Telegram). In itself, reporting the location of road checks in private group chats does not constitute a crime as it does not cause an interruption of public service. Although the topic has been (and still is) widely discussed throughout Italy: there is indeed a risk of aiding ill-intentioned individuals who, subscribed to these groups, could benefit from certain reports by evading law enforcement checkpoints.
