1977

September 30, Rome
Walter Rossi, 20 years old, student

Following the wounding of Elena Pacinelli, a protest leaflet was organized for the next day in the Balduina area, a historic Missina stronghold in the capital.
On the evening of September 30, a group of about twenty left-wing activists, including Rossi, started from Via Pietro Pomponazzi in the Triumphal district and went up the avenue of the Gold Medals until reaching the height of number 128c, which at the time housed the Balduina section of the Italian Social Movement: from the latter came out some right-wing militants who soon opened a pebble to them. The group with Rossi then backed about two hundred meters downstream, at the intersection of Viale delle Medaglie d’Oro and Via Marziale, in front of a gasoline pump. The missini, sheltered behind a police armor, then slowly descended the avenue of the Golden Medals until they reached the intersection, then from the troop some gunshots started, one of which hit Rossi in the back of the neck, who died before arriving at the hospital, and another slightly injured the gas station attendant Giuseppe Marcelli.
In the following days, parades and protest demonstrations for the murder were held in various cities in Italy, and missine venues and alleged gatherings of right-wing activists were devastated or set on fire. During a procession organized by Lotta Continua in Turin on 1º October 1977, the assault on the disco “Angelo azzurro” took place whose fire, caused by the launch of Molotov bombs, caused the death of university student Roberto Crescenzio.
The funeral of Walter Rossi, which took place on October 3, was attended by about one hundred thousand people who gave him the extreme greeting on the notes of L’Internazionale. Later on, a commemorative plaque was placed at the scene of the murder in Viale delle Medaglie d’Oro and Piazza Igea, where the wound of Elena Pacinelli had taken place, was named after the young man killed.
An hour after the fact, among the dozens of curious people who in the meantime had gathered in front of the MSI section, seventeen people were stopped: of these, some Missini militants including Flavia Perina, future deputy of the National Alliance, Andrea Insabato who in 2000 would have carried out an attack on the headquarters of the communist newspaper il manifesto, and Riccardo Bragaglia who tested positive for the paraffin glove but was later acquitted after a further test related the traces not to gunpowder, but to elements typically present in matches such as those he had used to light. Cigarettes just before the exam. The arrested, once they arrived at the local police station, were asked to testify about the fact and a few hours later the arrest warrant was issued against them. After a long trial, the seventeen will then be freed from the initial charges of murder, attempted murder, seditious rally, abusive carrying of a 9 caliber war weapon (the gun, never found, with which Walter Rossi was killed) and reconstitution of the PNF; for some of them only the accusation of aggravated fight will remain without, however, that any witness has recognized them in the group.
No action was taken against the numerous policemen present at the scene: ten of them were on board the armored van, three in a nearby steering wheel and at least two on foot in plainclothes; however, they were charged with accusations of collusion with the attackers. In particular, all the witnesses present at the fact assured that nothing was done to stop the neo-fascists before, during and after they exploded the gunshots and that immediately after the police for several minutes hindered the rescue of Walter Rossi both by hitting those who tried to approach the agonizing young man on the ground, and by omitting to call an ambulance.
In 1981 some repentants indicated in the people of Cristiano Fioravanti and Alessandro Alibrandi the possible murderers, confirming the testimonies of the young people of the left present at the fact; Cristiano Fioravanti, later arrested on the accusation of belonging to the Nar, admitted that he had been part of the group that came out of the section of the Social Movement together with Alessandro Alibrandi and that both were armed, however attributing to Alibrandi the mortal blow as his weapon would have jammed preventing him from shooting; his statements were subsequently refuted by the testimonies made by the companions of Walter Rossi, who all claimed that this blow was instead Exploded by Fioravanti.
Following the death of Alibrandi, which took place in a firefight with the police on December 5, 1981, the criminal proceedings were closed; Fioravanti was sentenced to a sentence of nine months and 200,000 lire of fine only for crimes concerning the possession of a firearm. The judicial affair ended definitively in 2001 with the indictment of three of Rossi’s comrades for false testimony and the lack of place to proceed for not having committed the fact against Cristiano Fioravanti who since then lived free, under another name, protected by the State.