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Mayor of Naples blames hit TV mafia series Gomorrah for increase in crime
The mayor of Naples has blamed the gritty television series Gomorrah, which chronicles the dark world of the Camorra mafia, for a rise in violence on the streets of the port city.
Luigi de Magistris claims that acts of violence spike every time an episode of the award-winning programme is broadcast on Italian screens.
He accused the series of glamourising drugs, violence and guns, saying that it was seducing young people into a life of crime.
“On evenings when the series is shown, acts of violence increase – it happens often,” the mayor told an Italian radio station, Radio 24.
“Symbols of evil are dangerous. I see many young people who are fascinated by them. They no longer want to choose culture, honesty and redemption, but violence, gangs, arrogance.”
Billed as “the epic inside story of the Neapolitan crime syndicate, the Camorra,” Gomorrah is broadcast on Sky Atlantic. It has been described as “Italy’s answer to Breaking Bad.”
In a Facebook post, Mr De Magistris described the characters portrayed in the series as “heroes of shit”, accusing the TV show of “corroding the brains, minds and hearts of hundreds of young people.”
The centre-Left mayor, a former magistrate, added: “Don’t make the mistake of underestimating this beguiling symbol of evil.”
His remarks followed a shooting in broad daylight on Friday in which a three-year-old girl was caught in the cross-fire.
The girl is in critical condition in hospital. She was shot by accident when a gunman fired six bullets at his intended target, a 31-year-old man with a criminal record who was sitting at a bar. The victim survived, while the gunman escaped and is being hunted by police.
The mayor’s outburst against Gomorrah, which is based on an award-winning book by Italian investigative journalist Roberto Saviano, was met with scepticism by some Neapolitans.
They blamed violence in the city on poverty, a lack of jobs and chronic neglect by the Italian State.
“There are entire quarters in the centre of the city that have been abandoned to their fate, where kids have only one possibility of finding work – to accept offers from the Camorra,” Bruno Vallefuoco, whose 24-year-old son was killed by the mafia after being mistaken for someone else, told La Stampa newspaper.
His son, Alberto, was gunned down by a Camorra gangster armed with a Kalashnikov assault rifle in July 1998.
Gianluca Torelli, 32, a member of a civil society group that organised a protest on Sunday against gun violence and the wounding of the little girl, said: “So many politicians have promised to intervene in the situation in the last few years – ministers, presidents of the region, prime ministers. So many words, and yet almost no action.”