1979
November 27, Rome
Domenico Taverna, 58 years old, Chief Warrant Officer of Public Security

Domenico Taverna had fought during the Second World War as a non-commissioned officer in the Italian Army. During the war, he was wounded in the thigh on the Russian front and carried, lodged in his femur, the bullet that had seriously wounded him; in 1948 he enlisted in the Police Force. Throughout his career, he had never been involved in investigations related to politics or terrorism. Married and father of a 22-year-old girl, suffering from diabetes, he was close to retirement. On the morning of October 27, 1979, he was going to pick up his car from a garage in via Cherso, 32 in Rome, when two men, from the “28 marzo” Brigades, armed with a pistol, arrived behind him and opened fire. Taverna was hit by eight bullets that struck him in the back, legs, and chest. The terrorists then fled, joining other accomplices who had remained nearby as their cover. His murder was claimed by the Red Brigades, framing it as an action included in their military campaign against the state forces engaged in the anti-terrorism struggle; during the same period, the Red Brigades killed the officer Michele Granato (November 9) and the Chief Warrant Officer Mariano Romiti (December 7), both killed in Rome, while in Genoa the carabinieri Vittorio Battaglini and Mario Tosa were killed (November 21).