Revere Man Accused of Wielding Hammer, Using Slurs in Hate Crime

Photo via iStock / artolympic

State Police arrested a Revere man Sunday, after he allegedly swung a hammer at a group of black and Latino men, hitting one.

Police say Gianpaolo Cerretani, 24, took a football from a child, and the group of young men took it back. At this point, police say, Cerretani became belligerent, swinging a hammer and shouting racial epithets at them.

Cerretani struck an 18-year-old Lowell man, who suffered minor injuries and refused medical transport, police say.

As troopers responded to the scene, several bystanders wrestled the hammer away from Cerretani. As police placed him in handcuffs and interviewed victims and witnesses, Cerretani allegedly shouted another racial slur and called a trooper a “pig.”

“I’ll take you too,” Cerretani told another trooper, police say. Inside the cruiser, he allegedly began resisting arrest. While being treated for minor cuts at Whidden Memorial Hospital in Everett, Cerretani called a black security guard a racial epithet as well, police say.

Cerretani was charged with assault and battery with a dangerous weapon, assault with a dangerous weapon, a civil rights violation, threats to commit a crime, disorderly conduct, and resisting arrest.