On November 11, 2007, a group of SS Lazio fans, including the twenty-six-year-old DJ from Rome with known far-right sympathies, Gabriele Sandri, got into a fight with Juventus FC fans at a rest stop near the Tuscan city of Arezzo. As tensions escalated, a group of highway police officers were called in to restore order. Amidst the chaos, one officer reportedly fired his service weapon "from a great distance." Sandri, who was sitting in the backseat of a fleeing vehicle, was shot in the neck, passing away shortly thereafter in a pool of his own blood (2007a; 2007b).
Although not explicitly associated with politically-motivated violence, the anniversary of Sandri's death has subsequently been transformed into an annual commemorative observance among Rome's far-right community, largely by his SS Lazio "comrades." Every year on November 11, the Lazio "Ultras" plaster their neighborhoods with commemorative posters in Sandri's memory (Matelli 2017) (see Figs. 1, 2, and 3). Alberto Testa has suggested that the violent reaction to Sandri's killing by Ultras across Italy serves as an example of an emerging far-right collective identity "based on a common foe and a common strategy of opposition" (Testa 2009: 57; Montague 2020).
This particular poster appeared on the walls of Rome's piazze and alleyways in November 2018, marking the eleventh anniversary of Sandri's death. Featuring a hand-sketched profile of Sandri alongside an eagle – SS Lazio's official symbol – the poster's accompanying text laconically proclaims: "Gabriele!" (Gabriel!). These commemorative posters are frequently complemented by the appearance of fascistic graffiti, moreover, including "Gabriele con noi!" (Gabriel is with us!) and "Gabriel vive nei nostri cuori" (Gabriel lives in our hearts) (Figs. 4 and 5).
One notable aspect of collective memory rituals among proponents of the Italian far right is the conspiracy which suggests that the country's justice system intentionally overlooks instances of violence by ordinary citizens, police officers, and the Carabinieri (Italy's national gendarmerie, or military police) against members of Italy's neo-fascist community. Considering that Sandri died at the hands of a highway police officer, although allegedly accidentally, his death is regarded as an example of this broader pattern of "lawlessness" among the country's political and law enforcement establishments.
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