Italian police hope horrific footage of a daytime murder will catch the suspected killer. The embedded video — not suitable for all viewers — also shows seemingly unfazed bystanders when the victim was shot in the head.
The video above is chilling, to put it mildly: a man walks up to another man smoking a cigarette outside in Naples, shoots him three times (once in the back of the head) and calmly walks away. Blood spreads on the pavement beside the slumped body.
This assassination is believed to be Mafia-related. Police say the victim, Mariano Bacio Tarracino, 53, is connected to a Mafia clan involved in a drug trafficking turf war with a rival group.
The murder, which occurred five months ago, was caught on CCTV cameras but only recently have investigators released the footage in an attempt to catch the killer still at large. The footage prompted a member of the Green party in the Campania region around Naples to offer a €2,000 (£1,800) reward for information leading to an arrest, according to the London Times.
As shocking as the daytime murder is, some say the more chilling aspect is the apparent indifference of bystanders. One woman doesn’t look too startled when the shots ring out; she apparently finished scratching her lottery ticket.
According to the Telegraph , an investigative journalist who wrote about the Mafia family Camorra, Roberto Saviano, believes the indifference of bystanders was perhaps the most shocking element of the video.
Saviano adds: “When a city’s at war, people stop caring about the things they see around them. This video shows that in some parts of Italy, life isn’t worth anything.”
