A 19-year-old American tourist confessed to killing an Italian policeman in central Rome early Friday, according to reports. Carabinieri paramilitary officer Mario Cerciello Rega was stabbed eight times about 3 a.m. while investigating a reported robbery in Rome’s Prati neighborhood, according to Italian state media.

Rega was responding to the supposed meet-up spot where two alleged thieves, later identified as 19-year-old men from the US, were to return a bag and phone they had earlier swiped from a drug dealer, in hopes of collecting $112 from the dealer.