Bologna experts name three contributing causes of death in police restraint case

What the experts concluded

A technical report prepared for the Bologna prosecutor's office, running to nearly 200 pages, names three contributing causes of the death of a 42-year-old man on 19 July 2026. He died in the Pilastro neighbourhood after two police officers held him face down on the ground during an intervention. According to reports, the experts list the compression of his body in the prone position, the intake of cocaine and his heart problems as factors that worked together to cause the acute respiratory failure that killed him. None of the three excludes the others, so prosecutors must weigh how much each one contributed to the final outcome.

The family's lawyer, Fabio Anselmo, relayed the experts' view to the news agency AGI. In his account, the experts found that asphyxia was the real cause of death, because the man lacked air while compressed, agitated and in need of more oxygen after taking cocaine. Anselmo put it this way:

“If he had not been compressed, these last two conditions would not have led to death.”

Six people in the preliminary register

Prosecutors have opened a file for manslaughter (omicidio colposo). Six people are entered in the register of preliminary annotations: the two officers who restrained the man and four Red Cross volunteers who came to Via Svevo when he became ill. This entry is a preliminary step used where a possible ground of justification exists, and it does not yet make those listed formal suspects. The deadline for prosecutors to decide is 19 November, when they must either investigate the six people or dismiss their positions. The expert report was deposited with prosecutors on 26 October.

The restraint and the evidence

The man was agitated when officers pinned him to the ground with his chest toward the floor. Phone footage and a bodycam recorded parts of the restraint, and he stopped breathing after the intervention. The autopsy, carried out on 24 July, found blood in the lungs and signs of compression. At that stage investigators still had to establish whether the compression came from the restraint or from later resuscitation efforts, and how much weight to give the cocaine and any pre-existing conditions. The experts' report now places the compression among the causes of death.

The disputed role of cocaine

Anselmo has argued that cocaine played no independent role, except that together with agitation it increased the man's need for oxygen, which he said was cut off while the officers kept him prone. He pointed to toxicology results showing about 300 nanograms per millilitre of cocaine, which he said is half the amount the literature considers capable of causing death alone. He also said that without the asphyxia component the man would not have died. The experts describe cocaine as reducing lung capacity and count it among the three causes, so the two accounts differ mainly on how much weight the drug carried.

Dates ahead

The three prosecutors handling the case, Morena Plazzi, Domenico Ambrosino and Francesca Arienti, meet on Wednesday, 28 October, to compare the findings and decide how to proceed. They must also assess how much weight each cause carried, since no cause excludes the others. The deadline of 19 November sets the timetable for deciding whether the six people move to formal investigation or are dismissed. The timeline below lists the key dates.