His mother spent hours with her son on her lap waiting for the body to be taken away. “One case that shocked me was that of a young man who was shot dead going home from work. Since then, the sound of police helicopters is constant, and shootings break out day and night.įransérgio Goulart, the head of a local activist group, said that while official figures said nine people had been killed in the community, local residents say that more than 30 have been shot since January. The current wave of violence began when police launched an incursion to set up an outpost in a community in Belford Roxo, sparking retaliation from gangs. “And amid this crisis, we have been living in a war state since January.” “I visited households and I saw several people living below the poverty line,” she said. ![]() A study published by the Lancet showed that inequality was a larger factor in Covid deaths in Brazil than age, health status and other risk factors, where more than 355,000 have died from the disease.įavela-based groups delivering food and cleaning products kits during the outbreak say they have often been forced to suspend operations because of police raids.Ī 36-year-old female schoolteacher, who asked not to be named for security reasons, distributed kits and listened to daily struggles at her Parque Esperança (or Hope Park) community, in the municipality of Belford Roxo, in Greater Rio. Police violence has also compounded the disastrous impact of coronavirus on Brazil’s most vulnerable. Witzel was forced from office in late August 2020 after a corruption scandal, but his acting successor has pursued a similar frontal assault on drug gangs – and ordinary civilians are caught in the crossfire. Photograph: Ellan Lustosa/Zuma Wire/Rex/ShutterstockĪ surge in police violence came after the 2018 election as Rio governor of Wilson Witzel, who had campaigned on a promise to “slaughter” criminals. The Santa Marta favela in the Botafogo area of Rio de Janeiro. Most of the victims are black and brown.Ī police spokesmen said the raids were launched in response to violent disputes for territory between warring gangs, and claim that they focus on “preserving lives and following strict legal precepts”.īut Hirata argued that “police raids, in addition to being lethal, are ineffective against crime”, and the report shows that such actions are not associated with any reduction in criminal activity. Police in Rio de Janeiro state, kill almost twice as many people each year as they do in the US. On Friday, the state supreme court started a two-day public hearing on police raids to draw up a new plan to reduce police killings and human rights violations. This is a risk to the rule of law in Brazil.” “The highest court takes a decision, and political authorities do not respect it, violate it deliberately. “It’s absurd,” Daniel Hirata, an author of the report and professor of sociology at UFF, said. In the following nine months, the communities of Greater Rio saw an average of nearly one raid every day, the report showed. ![]() The court ruled to suspend police raids in Brazilian favelas in June 2020, amid public outcry following the death of 14-year-old João Pedro Matos Pinto, who was shot in the back during a police incursion.īetween June and September, police raids plummeted 64% compared with the average for the same period in previous years, according to a report by Geni, a research group at the Federal Fluminense University (UFF).īut incursions resumed in October, one month after the acting governor, Cláudio Castro, took office and rapidly doubled to 38 in October, compared with the previous month.
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