Four minors purchased yellow Pokémon T-shirts from a Milan shop before stealing a car on Monday. The group, including children as young as 11, sped through the city’s outskirts and struck 71-year-old Cecilia De Astis at high velocity while she walked along Via Saponaro. After the collision, the children abandoned the vehicle and fled without assisting the victim.
Surveillance footage confirmed the driver was a 13-year-old boy who lost control of the stolen vehicle—taken from a 20-year-old French tourist the prior day—plunging into a green area post-impact. His passengers included two 12-year-old boys and an 11-year-old girl, all of Italian Roma ethnicity. Local police, led by Gianluca Mirabelli, later located the group at an informal nomad encampment on Via Selvanesco.
As none have reached the age of criminal responsibility (14 years), authorities referred the case to juvenile prosecutors. Legal measures under consideration range from parental separation (if guardians are deemed unfit) to community placement for minors judged socially dangerous. The 13-year-old driver faces the gravest scrutiny for losing control of the car, which threw the victim dozens of meters. De Astis died shortly after arriving at the hospital. Her children had publicly appealed for the perpetrators to surrender.
Police identified the suspects via store security tapes showing their distinct T-shirts, leading to the encampment in the monitored area. The tragedy ignited political controversy, with Deputy Prime Minister Matteo Salvini demanding immediate demolition of Roma camps and parental arrests: “Mayor Sala and the left, are you there?” Center-right figures echoed his stance.
Mayor Giuseppe Sala condemned the politicization as “shameful,” emphasizing that Milan has pursued a “policy of overcoming” Roma settlements for years. He noted that center-left administrations closed 24 camps (4 authorized, 20 irregular) from 2013–2024, versus one under center-right governance. Despite their differences, Sala concurred with Salvini that the minors’ families “must answer for what happened,” vowing to “demand maximum severity.”