Commentary
Bound by law and justice? When the state becomes violent
How could we accept that a life is worth less than compliance with a traffic stop? Ramy and his friend could have been anyone, two criminals or two kids who were afraid.
What can be seen and heard in the videos recently made public about the death of Ramy Elgaml, which occurred on November 24 in Milan after a police chase of around 20 minutes involving the carabinieri, is extremely serious.
As we already knew, Ramy was on a scooter with a friend. The two did not stop when signaled, and the carabinieri pursued them in two cars. In the dashcam videos released, one can see footage of this chase through the streets of the city, including on the wrong side of the road. One can hear the carabinieri's voices saying things like, “Cut him off, cut him off, cut him off so he’ll fall down; no, shit, he’s not down.” One can see (or at least that’s how it appears) that in the end, the scooter was in fact rear-ended by one of the two cars; and one can understand (or at least that’s how it appears) that this rear-ending caused the scooter to crash into a traffic pole (resulting in Ramy's death). One of the carabinieri can be heard reporting “they’re down,” and another voice answers “good.”
What observations can we make? First of all, the carabinieri's indifference to the danger the pursuit might have posed to other people (it was nighttime, but even at night people could be crossing the street). Secondly, their deliberate intention to bring down the scooter on which Ramy and his friend were riding, accepting the possibility that the fall could cause their death. Isn’t this information extremely serious all by itself? Doesn’t the behavior of the carabinieri run against every elementary norm of measure and balance? Isn’t a respect for measure and balance something that should be part of the behavior of everyone, including the forces of law and order, as well as what we all expect from others with whom we interact, all the more so when the latter are the forces of law and order? Is it acceptable, in a state under the rule of law, for the state itself – of which law enforcement is an expression – to engage in behavior marked by violence, disproportional both in the acts themselves and in their ultimate consequences?
Some will say (as many have already said) that the danger wasn’t caused by the carabinieri, but by Ramy and his friend; that those who don’t stop when signaled should be pursued, as simple as that; that the carabinieri were only doing their duty; that it was first of all the carabinieri themselves who were put in danger. But that is an argument that presupposes the commensurability of the behaviors involved (that of Ramy and his friend, on the one hand, and that of the carabinieri on the other), on the assumption that they are behaviors that can be assessed by the same criterion. And from this particular point of view, there is no doubt: at the exact moment they failed to stop when signaled, Ramy and his friend placed themselves outside the law, legitimizing a reaction on the part of the carabinieri.
However, the situation could not justify a reaction that envisioned the death of Ramy and his friend, or others, as its possible consequence. And this is a consideration that would be sufficient on its own: how could we accept that a life is worth less than compliance with a traffic stop? Ramy and his friend could have been anyone, two criminals or two kids who were afraid of having to explain to their parents that they’d had a little to drink. But the reaction by the carabinieri was adopted self-sufficiently, simply as a consequence of the failure to comply with the signal to stop.
That’s not all, however. As a more general principle, the behavior of those who place themselves outside the law, and thus behave as if unbound by it, can never be interpreted and evaluated in the same way as that of the state, which by definition must always remain bound to the law and to justice. This is true by mere epistemological considerations, regardless of the elements of the concrete case. To deny this would amount to nothing else than turning the law and lawfulness into their opposite: no longer instruments to restrain force, founded on compliance with the principle of proportionality, but instruments of disproportionate force in their own right – a complete debasement. This kind of reversal is one that we are all too often forced to witness, occurring more and more and now almost daily.
Let me be clear: this is not intended to blame law enforcement as such, or to express a lack of appreciation towards those who work for them. Quite the opposite: it is precisely a rightful recognition of the high value of the tasks performed by the police that requires that the problems be addressed, as Roberto Cornelli wrote in one of his important essays on these issues (La forza di polizia, “The Police Force”), “with tools and scrutiny capable of going beyond scandal and indignation, on the one hand, and embarrassment and reflexive defense of the authorities on the other.”
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/morte-a-milano-quando-la-forza-e-il-rovescio-del-diritto on 2025-01-12