25 August, 2017
Officials said at least 13 people were injured and two were taken into custody when migrants and police clashed in Rome on Thursday.
In an interview with La Repubblica daily, Gabrielli defended the controversial police operation but said that an officer caught in a Facebook video saying "break their arms if they throw things" would be punished.
He denied accusations that excessive force was used to clear the square of immigrants who had mostly been removed from the building last Saturday and were camping out there.
Police issued a statement saying the operation was necessary because the migrants in the piazza had refused city-organized housing and because of the risk posed by cooking gas canisters and other flammable materials.
Refugees threw paint, garbage and bottles to the ground, and unfurled a banner: "We're not terrorists".
Centre-right politicians defended the police from criticism they had been heavy handed while centre-left ones criticised Raggi for alleged inaction and also Interior Minister Marco Minniti for allegedly moving to a harder-line stance on migrants.
Rome officials are defending their decision to evacuate hundreds of refugees occupying an abandoned building in the city center after protests from the United Nations refugee agency, UNICEF and humanitarian organizations. The spokesman for the Italian branch of MSF Tommaso Fabbri said: "It is a shame that there has been such a violent solution because of a lack of housing for migrants".
A United Nations refugee agency official in southern Europe, Stephane Jaquemet, noted that numerous people living in the building had been there for many years and were legal residents of the capital. The organization noted there were no ambulances nearby to help, and said their volunteers treated 13 injured, mostly cuts and fractures, including an elderly woman who fainted after being hit by a water jet.
Italy is struggling to meet the demand to house migrants, with almost 100,000 arriving so far this year.
Tougher border controls are preventing many migrants from continuing their journeys to preferred destinations in northern Europe.
