Eight months of work in which agents of Verona's mobile squad quietly investigated, with the help of recorders and video cameras, the work of five colleagues, bringing to light episodes of violence and torture that took place within the walls of the police headquarters. Ending up under house arrest, in a measure taken yesterday, were an inspector and four officers, accused of abusing people in their custody on at least seven occasions. The five officers, the investigation says, allegedly slapped, insulted and blinded the victims with pepper spray. In one of the incidents cited by the judge, two police officers allegedly not only beat a person subjected to identification detention, but also forced her to urinate in the custody room, then pushed her into a corner, causing her to fall to the floor and using her "as a mop to clean the floor". In another case, an officer is reported to have slapped the face of one of the detainees so "vigorously that he was unconscious for several minutes". In addition to torture, the five were also charged in various capacities with crimes of injury, forgery, omission of official acts, embezzlement, and abuse of office. The officers involved had already been transferred to other assignments in the aftermath of the closure of the investigation activities, thus several months ago. The investigation had casually started from the wiretap of a police officer as part of another proceeding. Other officers, who allegedly witnessed the violence and did nothing, are also under investigation in the investigation. In fact, Verona's quaestor, Roberto Massucci, also ordered the removal from their posts of 23 other police officers who, although they did not directly take part in the violence, may not have prevented or otherwise reported the abuse.
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