A boy hit by a car

One Sunday afternoon in Palermo, while having a cold drink at a sidewalk cafe, a delivery boy from a coffee shop was hit by a car in the middle of a six lane thoroughfare while delivering a coffee order across this street.

Now, unfortunately this is not a rare occurrence, but this one had its own twists and turns.

When the police arrived, they were the wrong ones. There are three uniformed branch's of police in Italy. One is the local city police. Then there is what I would call the equivalent of our State Police Troopers. And then there are the National Police. All branches are on the streets in the cities. The next branch of police to arrive were still the wrong ones. Finally the correct branch arrived and began the investigation.

The owner of the coffee shop was questioned because the boy was only 15 years old, and you have to be 16 to work. The coffee shop owner said the boy was not an employee. He was just a kid that showed up at the shop an hour ago wanting work. So the owner gave him a white apron and put him to work, no questions asked.

The driver of the car was not Italian, he was an European sailor off a merchant ship in the harbor. He was driving a car he had rented for the day.

He had rented the car from an auto repair shop that had the car in for repairs. The owner had put the car in for repair, and knew nothing about it being rented for the day.

Well, this is all I learned about the affair, but, I suspect the lawyers had a field day with this one.