The Helmet Gets Its Day in Court

Imagine you’re at a protest in Turin—November 2013, crowds pushing back against a new high-speed rail line cutting through the region—and instead of throwing something or shouting, you lean over and kiss a police officer’s helmet. Not the officer. The helmet.

Franco Maccari, secretary general of Italy’s police union, decided this constituted sexual harassment and filed a formal complaint against the woman who did it. His reasoning, delivered to Radio24 with apparent sincerity: if the situation were reversed and an officer had kissed a protester, it would have been World War III. He’s not wrong about the double standard. He’s just applying it in the most unhinged direction possible, toward a piece of plastic headgear that cannot consent to anything.

The absurdity isn’t the kiss—it’s the paperwork. Someone thought this was proportional. Someone sat down, found a form, and filed it. And somewhere in a government office, that complaint still exists, probably misfiled under something.