Carabinieri student commits suicide, the union: “We need to train managers”
The national general secretary of Unarma, the national Carabinieri union, Antonio Nicolosi, will present a complaint to the Florence Prosecutor’s Office tomorrow, May 16th, asking for full light to be shed on the suicide of Beatrice Belcuore, the carabinieri who took her own life in the marshals’ school in Florence last April 22nd. The regional secretary for Tuscany of Unarma announced it to Affaritaliani.it Costantino Fiori.
The parents’ letter: “Forced to gather at dawn with Covid”
In the file that will be delivered to the magistrates, the letter that Beatrice’s parents sent to Unarma two days ago will be attached, the passages of which reconstruct some stressful situations experienced by the non-commissioned officer student, who, as we read in a passage of the same letter , “in the first days of attending school he had expressed his intention to abandon the path he had just undertaken even though that path had always been his dream, because he had perceived what he told us was an extremely rigid and totalitarian environment”. “Beatrice”, her parents write again, “she cared a lot about her weapon but some of its provisions were not clear to her and she considered them to have no educational value”.
The student, who nevertheless had good grades, had told her father – also a carabiniere, with 40 years of service – that she had been forced to show up every morning at the meeting at 6.15am despite testing positive for Covid, with flu symptoms, not to be able to wear Doctor Martens or Timberland boots during free time. Behind the bedroom door there had to be nothing except water, nothing under the desk, nor beauty cases in the bathroom, the bedroom doors had to always remain open. And no overnight stay for those who had obtained an exam with a grade of 18-19-20.
“The accusation from Beatrice’s family is quite heavy,” says Costantino Fiori, “but he wrote a letter where great dignity emerges, because he is not asking for something just for Beatrice, but he is asking that things can change because excessive militarism without a development of resilience which must have steps can lead to sources of stress that in the end are not even accepted. Expecting that with Covid and fever the girl should go down to the meeting anyway is not militarism, if she was ill she should have stayed in bed”.
What struck you most in the letter from Beatrice’s parents?
It’s reading about this father who is a colleague with 40 years of service who calls the Marshals School, rightly so, and that even the officer who answers him states in a peremptory and arrogant tone that the call appears to be unwelcome and that he was causing a waste of precious time. Then the colleague receives a report where he says that he has disregarded the hierarchical scale. What does this father do then? He understands that the situation could compromise his daughter’s situation and therefore writes an apologetic email in which he says “look, my daughter is my Achilles’ heel ….”
Suicides among members of the police force do not stop. How do you explain it?
In November we presented, through the Honorable Ascari, a project for a commission on suicides where we bring as a fundamental point the training of managers, as they do in the army and air force. It is not enough to put people, who may even be good, who have graduated from official courses, but someone who has adequate training. If you bring me a girl with a fever and with Covid it’s not militarism, it consists in having ethics, morals.
Is it possible that no one noticed that Beatrice was experiencing a strong stressful situation?
Before joining the Carabinieri, Beatrice had been in the Navy, then she won the competition for marshal students, then passed three tests. Her family also told us that her desire was to become official.
Is there psychological support in the Army?
We have been saying for some time that psychological support even outside the structures themselves can help in the Army’s schools. The figure of the psychologist is there inside, but we ask that psychology be outside the schools, in order to encourage the person more to turn, perhaps through the figure of a peer who accompanies you in solving that problem immediately. If the structure is inside, go and create a stigma. We can also remove any type of sign, you know you go there, there is a functional dependency. We put up anonymous questionnaires, we analyze the organizational structure, we do as in the Air Force, where personal tests are also carried out that indicate a person’s risk threshold. We will be demonstrating in front of the Ministry of Defense on June 7th at 10am, we want to be heard because we have been making reports for a long time and have not received a response. We want to be heard
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