“Naples has become an extremely violent city, a Wild West,” Daniela Di Maggio, the mother of 24-year-old Giovanbattista Cutolo, who was shot dead by a 16-year-old in the city centre in an argument over a badly parked moped.

Cutolo was a promising horn player in the youth section of Naples’ Scarlatti Orchestra.

“All this needs to be put to a stop as soon as possible,” Di Maggio said.

“[The boy who killed him] is not a child.”

“He is a brutal man, a demon that goes and destroys the lives of other young people like my son,” she said.

The mother asked to be able to talk to Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni and President Sergio Mattarella.

Cutolo's mother, Daniela Di Maggio, said: “Naples is made up of many parts. The other night two different Naples met, that of my son and that of the 16-year-old, which do not belong together, which do not resemble each other.” Photo: YouTube

“[Giovanbattista] loved beauty, he loved art, he helped his friends”, Di Maggio continued.

“But Naples is made up of many parts. The other night two different Naples met, that of my son and that of the 16-year-old, which do not belong together, which do not resemble each other.

“Let’s think about art and culture: these are the values we must pass on to our children,” she concluded.

Thousands of people took to the streets of Naples on Saturday to participate in a candlelight vigil in memory of Cutolo and to ask for justice.

“It is a very sad day for our city and for us Neapolitans,” the Councillor for Welfare of the Municipality of Naples, Luke Trapani, said.

“[It is] a painful story that must lead to serious reflections.

“It torments me that it happened right under the town hall,” Trapani said.

“As councillor for social policies and above all as a father I cannot stop thinking about the failure that our society and that we adults carry on our shoulders to the detriment of our young people.

“There is something seriously wrong with our educational and social system.

“We need to change course, review the system that we have built. School, community, educational centres, social services…”

The San Carlo theatre in Naples on Friday announced that it has created a scholarship in memory of the slain young musician.

ANSA