“Shame on you!”: The live accusation of Policeman Gresi Gela against Senator Malpezzi. Standing Ovation and Total Clash on TV.

What should have been a television debate like many others, a space for discussion on current events and social tensions, was transformed into one of the crudest, most honest and brutal pages of recent television. There were no filters, there was no rhetoric.

Just one man, a servant of the State, who has pierced the veil of hypocrisy of politics.

The result was a head-on collision, a showdown that left the audience at home speechless and unleashed an emotional storm in the studio, culminating in a standing ovation that weighed like a boulder.

The protagonists of this media arena were Pasquale Gresi, secretary of the FSP union of the State Police, and Senator Simona Malpezzi, a leading figure of the Democratic Party.

The topic on the table was incandescent: the recent, violent street demonstrations in Turin, which degenerated into urban guerrilla warfare during the eviction of a community center. But no one could have predicted that the discussion would become personal, visceral, touching the deepest chords of resentment and frustration.

It all began with an apparently ritual question: how should the State react in the face of street violence? Gresi was the one to speak. And it wasn’t a union intervention. It was the outburst of a man, of a policeman.

With a firm voice but full of barely restrained emotion, he told his reality. “I saw injured colleagues,” he began, “I myself was hit by a paper bomb. My foot still hasn’t healed completely.”

At that moment, the studio fell into a tense silence. Gresi continued, and his words were stone: “And in the meantime, while we end up in the hospital, we hear that we must ‘understand social hardship'”. This was the spark.

Gresi pointed the finger not at the demonstrators, but at a certain policy. “When a policeman is hit,” he said, “a case is opened on him. When a protester attacks, a justification is sought. Is this justice in Italy?”.

Senator Malpezzi spoke here. He attempted, as expected, to bring the debate back to an institutional level. He spoke of the need to “distinguish between those who protest and those who commit crimes” and to “understand the roots of the discomfort”.

But his words, spoken in a tone perhaps perceived as distant, bureaucratic, had the effect of adding fuel to the fire. The first whistles and the first murmurs of disapproval arose from the studio.

Gresi interrupted it, with no more brakes. “Distinguish? Here there are people who throw stones at those wearing a uniform! Who burn police cars! They are not students, they are not activists, they are criminals!”.

Then, the political thrust, direct and ruthless, looking her in the eyes: “And whoever doesn’t condemn them is an accomplice.”

The conductor tried to calm things down, but the dam was broken. Senator Malpezzi, visibly annoyed, replied that “violence must always be condemned”, but immediately added the need to “isolate the extreme fringes” without “criminalising dissent”.

A political position which, in that context, sounded like a climb on mirrors. And Gresi hit her in the most exposed spot.

“You are avoiding saying a simple thing,” he pressed her, “that anyone who throws Molotov cocktails at the police is a criminal. Is it so difficult to say? Are you afraid of losing votes in the social centres?”.

The statement was an explosion. The audience exploded into a roar, a mixture of applause for the policeman and boos for the senator. The studio was no longer a television studio, it had become a popular court.

Malpezzi attempted to defend herself by talking about “freedom of demonstration” and “dangerous authoritarian slips”, but her voice was now covered by the noise.

The moment of maximum tension, the emotional climax of the clash, came shortly afterwards. Pasquale Gresi stood up. With his voice broken by emotion, tears in his eyes, he stopped playing the role of a trade unionist and simply became a man wearing a uniform. “We don’t ask for privileges.

We only ask for respect. When we leave the house we don’t know if we will return. We are fathers, mothers, children. And instead we are painted as enemies. Who defends us?”.

He looked around, as if seeking support. Then, he uttered the phrase that made the history of that broadcast. “These collectives that attack are a tumor. And anyone who doesn’t condemn them, anyone who always finds an excuse, is an accomplice. I say this with pain, but with clarity.

Enough hypocrisy!”.

At that point, the unimaginable happened. The entire studio stood up. Thunderous, prolonged, emotional applause. People with tears in their eyes, clapping not at a TV guest, but at a man who had given voice to their own frustration.

A standing ovation that was not only for Gresi, but was against the senator’s position.

Malpezzi remained seated, petrified. Visibly under pressure, he attempted a last, weak defense by talking about “constitutional rights” and “balance”, but his voice was a whisper drowned out by boos. A voice from the audience shouted a sentence: “Freedom of expression is not the right to attack!”.

Gresi’s face, in that moment, became the symbol of a greater battle. What happened next marked the end of the confrontation. The broadcast ended with the image of the policeman who, with shining eyes, made a final appeal: “We don’t need mercy.

We need respect and true solidarity. The one that is not measured by political expediency, but by moral honesty.” Once again, the studio’s applause overwhelmed him.

Senator Malpezzi left the office without making further statements. No press conference, no comments on social media. A silence which, as many observers have underlined, is worth a thousand words.

This fight wasn’t just a televised incident. It was the reflection of a deep fracture in the country. On the one hand, there is the desperate demand for safety, for respect for the rules and for those who enforce them, often risking their lives.

On the other, a part of politics which, in an attempt to understand (or perhaps not to antagonize) the most extreme fringes of the protest, appears incapable of expressing clear condemnations, of calling violence by its name: delinquency.

The standing ovation for Pasquale Gresi was not just solidarity for an injured policeman; it was the rebellion of the “people” against the “palace”, the victory of the raw truth over political rhetoric.

It was the moment in which Italy, which feels ignored, found its most unexpected and powerful spokesperson in a man moved on live TV. And now, politics, the one hit and sunk live, will have to deal with that cry of pain and anger: “Shame on you!”.