I wouldn’t want to live in an apartment above a ground-floor police station in Europe, that’s for sure.
The entire building will be a magnet for spontaneous acts of vibrancy.
Carabinieri police arrested a North African on Tuesday in connection with an arson fire at a police station in northern Italy that killed two and injured a dozen more, authorities said.
The news agency ANSA reported that the fire overnight killed two people living in apartments above the ground-floor police station in Mirandola, north of Bologna, and injured more than a dozen others, two seriously. The victims, a 74-year-old woman and her live-in caretaker, were killed in an explosion.
Italy’s hard-line interior minister, Matteo Salvini, who is campaigning in the European elections on a strong anti-immigrant platform, jumped on the arrest with a message on Twitter, saying “eliminating illegal immigration to Italy and Europe is a moral duty: Everyone home.”
Carabinieri investigating the arson said they were still identifying the suspect and his country of origin. It was not clear if he was a legal resident.
ANSA said the suspect broke into the police station and set the fire. A motive was not clear.