Three people were killed and four others injured, one seriously, when a man opened fire in a Rome coffee shop during a condominium board meeting on Sunday.
“He came into the room, closed the door and shouted, ‘I’ll kill you all,’ and then started to shoot,” said one witness, according to Reuters. The shooting occurred in an outdoor seating area that was enclosed, in a bar named Il Posto Giusto, “The Right Place.”
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Others in the meeting subdued and disarmed the 57-year-old man until police arrived and arrested him. While police gave no motive for the shooting, condo board vice president Luciana Ciorba, who witnessed the attack, said he was known to board members, who had reported him to authorities in the past for threatening residents.
The alleged shooter had stolen the gun he used, according to authorities.
Rome’s Mayor Roberto Gualtieri said his administration would hold an emergency security meeting on Monday to address “the grave episode of violence that has struck our city.”
One of the three women shot to death was Nicoletta Golisano, a friend of Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni. The politician posted a photo of the two of them and another woman on Instagram hours after the shooting.
Meloni mourned Golisano as a “protective mother” and sincere friend, noting that she left behind a husband and 10-year-old son.
“But she was above all a professional with an uncommon sense of duty,” Meloni wrote. “It was her sense of duty that brought her there on a Sunday morning. It’s not right to die like this.”
