In May 2021 Alika Ogorchukwu, a 39-year-old Nigerian living in Italy, was hit by a car while he was riding his bicycle, an accident that forced him to use a crutch to move around.

On Friday, an Italian man used the crutch to knock Ogorchukwu to the ground on a major shopping street in Civitanova Marche, a seaside town on the Adriatic Coast, before beating him to death, as a video of the assault shows and police officials confirmed. Moments earlier, a street vendor, had unsuccessfully pitched his wares to the assailant and his girlfriend.

The brutal, senseless murder — which was videotaped by witnesses and shared thousands of times on social media — has shocked Italians, stirred political bickering ahead of national elections in September and spawned fresh debate over racism in Italy.

“Let’s condemn the fact itself and the behaviour of people who stood by and watched a disabled person get killed with a crutch and filmed it,” instead of intervening, “it is shameful,” said Patrick Guobadia, the vice secretary of an association representing Nigerians in Italy.

“This indifference is frightening,” he said. Editorials in major Italian newspapers wrote of the “dusk of civilisation”.

New York Times News Service