Written by Alexandra McClain
Two HUF students were taken into custody by Carabinieri Officers, the Italian Military Police, in Taormina on the island of Sicily while on a group trip to Southern Italy.
Since they had already packed, juniors Catherine Reese and Andrew English decided to stay behind in Taormina to get coffee while other students went to the town’s cable car to go back to the hotel to pack. Assistant HUF director Kyle Thompson told them if they missed the bus they should take the train to the city of Agrigento to meet up with the group. After drinking their coffee, they began walking back toward the cable car when an aggressive Italian woman stopped them.
“This woman was loudly yelling at us in Italian in the middle of a piazza filled with people. We had no idea what she was saying so we tried to walk away,” said English.
That’s when the Carabinieri intervened. Three officers armed with submachine guns came and asked the woman what had happened. Reese and English were unable to understand her response. Then the officers grabbed them by the arms and took them to the police station.
When they arrived at the station, the searched the students and took their passports.
“They patted me down and searched my pockets and my purse then took my passport,” said Reese.
English asked repeatedly in broken Italian if someone could speak English and what was going on but none of the officers or the woman could. Another man came into the station and offered to translate but mostly ignored Reese and English.
“The translator was a friend of the woman and kept telling them about a river. There’s no river in Taormina. He wasn’t helpful at all.”
Then English had a realization. Earlier in the day, he and many other students in the group had purchased EstaThe, an Italian tea, from the woman’s store.
“When I realized who the woman was, I asked if they thought we had shoplifted. Then, the woman, the translator and two officers left,” he said.
The remaining officer moved them to a bench and told them not to move. Reese asked if they could make a phone call to Kyle, worried the group would leave them behind. They were not allowed to make the call.
“When they wouldn’t let us call Kyle, I looked at Andrew and said, ‘They could lock us up for anything and we can’t defend ourselves. They’re going to Amanda Knox us and we’ll be in Sicily forever,'” said Reese.
With time to return to the bus dwindling and still no idea why they were in custody, Reese stared crying.
“I couldn’t control it anymore. I wasn’t bawling but I just couldn’t stop the tears,” she said.
The phone in the police department then rang. The officer answered, spoke for a few minutes then angrily hung up.
“We finally got some hope when the phone rang. We thought the woman realized we hadn’t stolen anything and maybe we could go,” said English.
The officer told them two minutes. That two minutes passed, then another two minutes passed. They sat for 20 minutes waiting to be released. The woman and the other officers then returned. An officer threw their passports at them and shouted for them to leave.
“They buzzed the door open and we ran. We still don’t really know why we were brought into custody in the first place. It was terrifying,” said English.
They made it back to the cable car, went to the lower half of the city. They got to the bus as all the other students were stowing luggage.
“Kyle looked at us and asked where we had been. I was just like, “Sorry, we got arrested. I’ll go get my bag now,” said Reese.
The rest of the HUF group was dumbfounded by what Reese had said.
“My first thought was ‘Oh my gosh, they were arrested for no reason. They could arrest any of us for doing nothing,'” said fellow HUF student Audrian Harville.
Senior HUF student Tracey Metzger had similar thoughts.
“I just couldn’t believe it happened. We were on a school trip. No one should have been taken into police custody,” she said.
