Carabinieri Deployed to Palermo to keep the Peace
Palermo was rocked yesterday as first responders uncovered a brutal scene at La Sala Del Popolo in the downtown section of the city. La Sala Del Popolo, which had once served as the headquarters for the local Sicilian Communist Party, was reduced to smoldering ruins last night in the wake of an interrupted communist party meeting. Palermo’s Police and carabinieri had first arrived on scene around midnight last night with firefighters, as the firefighters struggled to put out the blazes that had engulfed the building. The fires were finally put out at around 4 AM, after which police and emergency medical services could begin unearthing the horrors that were buried in the charred rubble. Though clean up efforts are still underway, police have unearthed a staggering 48 bodies, after only clearing out part of the rubble. Palermo’s first responders estimate that the total body count could climb past one hundred once clean up operations end later this week. Among those that were recovered include Leonardo Grieco, Deputy Secretary of the Communist Party, and Armando Del Russo, General Secretary of the Party and the communist nominee for the Premier of Sicilia.
Angela Gianni, Chief of the Palermo Police Department, issued a statement on the incident, outlining the department’s belief that the massacre was the work of the mafia, due to the brutal nature of the killings and the destruction of tangible evidence. The mafia and the communists have feuded over control of the island since the 1940s, as the communists sought to wrestle control of the island from the iron grip of the mafia, and the mafiosi viewing the communists as one of the most significant threats to their operations on the island. Much to their dismay, the communists have made progress on the island and in Italy as a whole, as the communist party was officially included in the center-left wing coalition that gained control of Roma during the 1986 General Elections. The communists and their allies in Roma have since pushed policies to check the mafia’s increasing power on the island, with several communist officials labelling the mafiosi as “enemies of the revolution.” The heightened aggression has also boiled into physical confrontations, as goons from both sides have been reported to participated in beat downs, stabbings, and even shootings as both sides grow increasingly belligerent
As the feud between communist and mafioso spirals out of control, Sicilia’s Polizia del Stato have been mobilized to the capital in an attempt to thwart any further escalation. Local law enforcement will continue to investigate the killings, despite the foregone public opinion that the perpetrators swear allegiance to Sicilia’s criminal underworld. However, the Federal Government has expressed interest in the case, with the Justice Department putting pressure on Palermo to hand jurisdiction of the case over to federal law enforcement. Palermo has not commented on this pressure as of now, but if the case were to develop in the manner as Roma wishes it to develop, what was once a local issue will boil over into a national spectacle. And, as the 1990 General Election draws closer and closer, there is no doubt that such issues will rear their ugly heads once more in October. While the City of Palermo, the State of Sicilia, and the Federal Government butt heads over case jurisdiction, the now decapitated communist party in Sicilia will be forced to scramble to place candidates on the ballot before October. However, the now critically wounded beast may now suffer permanently from the sudden and abrupt destruction of the party’s leadership.
Page 3: Carabinieri to be sent to Palermo in greater numbers.
Page 8: Mafia Boss denies Killings
Page 9: Crates of Ammunition discovered in Palermo Ruins