1970

September 17, Reggio Calabria
Angelo Campanella, 45 years old, worker

The second outbreak of violence of the Reggio Calabria revolt began in September 1970. This time a real urban guerrilla war broke out. The peak of violence was reached on September 17th. The clandestine broadcaster “Radio Reggio Libera” broadcasts the following proclamation: “Reggini! Calabrians! Italians! This is the first Reggio Libera radio broadcast. The battle against the hypocrisy and excessive power of the political mafia and the red barons concerns the future of all Italians. It will only cease upon victory with the establishment of true democracy. Long live Reggio capital! Long live our Calabria! Long live the new Italy!”. In the evening, the second victim: Angelo Campanella, 45 years old, driver of the Reggio Municipal Bus Company, was killed on the Calopinace bridge.
Fires are raging everywhere, some suburbs are in the hands of rioters. The city bells ring out loudly. Late at night it is still not possible to know who shot and killed. Some say it was the demonstrators, others say it was the police.
At the last minute this version seems plausible: Carabiniere Giuseppe Morabito, 21 years old, together with other colleagues tried to disperse the demonstrators who wanted to prevent the firefighters from putting out a fire. Shotgun shots were fired from various sides and one hit him in the eye. Meanwhile, in a nearby area, 3 carabinieri had been isolated by the rioters and attacked: to save themselves they fired some shots. One of these hits Angelo Campanella.
Ciccio Franco and the former partisan commander Alfredo Perna, both of the “Action Committee”, are arrested. The reaction is devastating: two armories are attacked, five hundred people attack the police station, a policeman, Curigliano Vincenzo, 47 years old, dies of a heart attack. Archbishop Giovanni Ferro takes to the streets to try to calm things down.
On this same day, in Milan, the car of a Sit-Siemens manager was set on fire: it is the first action signed with the symbol of the five-pointed star and the writing Brigate Rosse