An Orange Lutheran High School graduate remains hospitalized in Rome after being stabbed during a soccer melee last week.
Nicholas Burnett, 20, who is studying abroad in Italy, suffered a stab wound to the back and punctured lung after soccer hooligans armed with knives and baseball bats stormed a bar popular with tourists Thursday.
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Burnett, who graduated from Orange Lutheran High in 2010, was one of three young men injured but the only to require hospitalization. His Facebook photo on the opener page would indicate he'll be okay.
The attack preceded a Europa League match pitting Italy's Lazio team against England's visiting Tottenham team. Italian news reports indicated some hooligans shouted “Jew” during the fracas, as Tottenham is well-known for its Jewish neighborhoods.
Francesco Ianari, 26, and Mauro Pinnelli, 25, were later arrested by police in Rome, the Associated Press reports.
Burnett's study abroad program is sponsored by Temple University in Philadelphia.
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OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.