Italian Student Tortured and Arrested in Miami: A Family's Fight for Justice

"He was tortured: just watch the videos to understand," says the mother of Matteo Falcinelli, the 25-year-old Italian boy who - as shown in a video released by Quotidiano Nazionale - was arrested and hogtied for 13 minutes by the police in Miami. "What happened to my son should never happen again. Matteo, sunny and full of life, had his smile taken away and his dreams destroyed, even leading him to attempt suicide," added Valsta Studenikova, originally from Slovakia but an Italian citizen, interviewed by QN. Matteo Falcinelli, an Italian student arrested in Miami. "Hogtied and tortured for 13'. Shocking images." Who is Matteo Falcinelli Matteo Falcinelli is the 25-year-old from Spoleto arrested in Miami by the police. The young man was in the USA to attend a Master's program at the Florida International University (at the Biscayne Bay Campus) when he was arrested on February 25, 2024. It was not the student's first time in the United States and especially in Miami, as his photos on social networks show. How he is Matteo Falcinelli, who was joined in Miami by his parents after the arrest, was hospitalized for five days in a psychiatric hospital, in shock, and even attempted to end it all. "He is followed by psychologists and psychiatrists - the mother says - initially he was hospitalized due to severe injuries, then transferred to a psychiatric hospital, because he was at risk of suicide. Even now, at night he dreams of the police arriving to torture him and wakes up screaming." "He has nerve damage in both hands caused by the handcuffs tightened to the point that blood no longer circulated: at first, he could not hold a cup in his hand, and now he cannot open a bottle. He also has problems with his neck and back," she added. The complaint The episode dates back to the night between February 24 and 25, but the family of Matteo only now wanted to denounce after the young man accepted the program arranged by the judge that will dismiss the four charges of resisting a public officer, opposition to arrest without violence, and home invasion. The boy was released from jail the same night thanks to a collection made by his friends who raised the $4000 needed for bail. The arrest According to the reconstruction made in the family's complaint, on the night between February 24 and 25, Matteo Falcinelli entered a bar thinking it was just another place. Only after ordering a drink did he discover that he was in a strip club and that the company of a girl cost from 500 dollars upwards. It is not clear whether the boy refused to pay or asked for money already paid back, but after a few drinks and having lost his cell phones, then recovered thanks to a bouncer, Matteo found the police waiting for him outside the club. Hands and feet tied like a goat The young man would have been then thrown to the ground, with his face pressed on the asphalt, then taken to jail. Once in a transit cell at the North Miami Beach police station, four of them hogtied him using the Hogtie restraint. With a strap, they tied his feet to the handcuffs behind his back, pulling for 13 minutes. The scenes of violence would have been recorded by the bodycams worn by the officers, even that inside the police station, which the American lawyer of the young man was able to obtain from the prosecution only on April 12 as part of the trial, effectively concluded with admission to the Pti (Pre-trial intervention), a sort of re-educational program.