Protests have broken out in Italy following the death of a Moroccan-born man while being forcibly restrained by two police officers in the northern city of Bologna.

Several thousand people took to the streets on Monday night demanding “justice for Abderrahim Fakir.”

A smaller group then split up and clashed with police late into the night. Prosecutors say 64 police officers were injured in the riot.

Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni said it was imperative that the truth about his death be investigated, but that “nothing can justify violence against law enforcement.”

Police were called Sunday morning after a neighbor witnessed Fakir “behaving erratically” and kicking in garage doors in the working-class neighborhood of Pilastro. Officers attempted to calm the situation but then used pepper spray.

A video circulating in the Italian media shows two police officers sitting on Fakir, who is lying face down, shouting at them to stop. A third non-police person restrains his legs while emergency workers wait.

About two minutes into the video, Fakir stops fighting. The policemen tie his wrists and ankles and, when one of them notices that Fakir is no longer moving, they slap him twice on the cheek. When an ambulance worker approaches, it becomes clear that Fakir is unconscious.

The Bologna prosecutor’s office has opened an investigation for involuntary manslaughter against the police officers and medical workers who were at the scene.

Several witnesses told Italian media that while Fakir appeared to be in danger, he did not threaten anyone and was clearly unarmed.

“You can’t die like this,” his sister Khadija told Italian media. “They killed him without mercy and I want the truth.”

Bologna Mayor Matteo Lepore told Italian newspaper La Repubblica that anyone who saw the video was “shocked.”

He called the demonstration in the center of Bologna on Monday afternoon and invited Fakir’s niece to go on stage with him.

“He was my uncle. He wasn’t a number, he wasn’t a news line… he was loved,” Yossra Fakir said. “He deserved to be helped and heard, and he deserved dignity.”

While the main demonstration on Monday night was peaceful, about 100 protesters clashed with police late into the night and set two cars on fire.

Lepore said Tuesday that he had seen “two different squares” in Bologna: “thousands of people gathered peacefully and spontaneously to express their support for Abderrahim Fakir’s family” and a smaller group “who think they can respond to violence with violence.”

Domenico Pianese, general secretary of the police union, criticized Lepore’s decision to call a demonstration that later descended into chaos.

Calling a protest “the day after a dramatic event like this,” Pianese said, was like calling “all pseudo-anarchists and those who are against the police… to take advantage and protest against the state.”

When asked where the police went wrong in arresting Fakir, he said: “Judging from the footage we saw, the intervention was carried out correctly.”

Pianese argued that the fact that the two officers had to use pepper spray and needed the help of a civilian to restrain Fakir showed that the use of force had not been excessive. “The first thing they did [after the incident] it was… hand everything [bodycam] images to prosecutors,” he said.