Vera Britto
(fiatlux@umich.edu - http://www.umich.edu/~fiatlux)
............................................................................
Le Bret: Si tu laissais un peu ton ame mousquetaire, la fortune et la
gloire... Cyrano: Et que faudrait-il faire? Chercher un protecteur
puissant, prendre un patron, et, comme un lierre obscur que circonvient
un tronc et s'en fait un tuteur en lui lechant l'ecorce, grimper par
ruse au lieu de s'elever par force? Non, merci! Non, merci! Non, merci!
Mais... chanter, rever, rire, passer, etre seul, etre libre... oui.
"Cyrano de Bergerac" - Edmond Rostand
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: 03 Apr 1997 15:59:29 -0500 (EST)
From: sejup@ax.apc.org
To: Recipients of conference <sejup.news@conf.ax.apc.org>
Subject: Police violence shocks country
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NEWS FROM BRAZIL supplied by SEJUP (Servico Brasileiro de Justica
e Paz).
Number 268, April 03, 1997.
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VIOLENCE
- Scenes of police brutality and assassination shock
country.
On Monday March 31, the Globo TV station showed scenes of
police aggression, torture, extortion and involvement in
assassination during its' evening news program which have
provoked wide-scale protests and discussions about police
impunity. The scenes were filmed by the hidden camera of an
unknown person in the Naval shantytown (favela) in Diadema (a
city in the Greater Sao Paulo area) on the nights of March 03, 05
and 07. 9 police who appeared in the film have been arrested; a
tenth whose's arrest was also decreed has gone into hiding.
Three high ranking officers have been removed from their command;
a fourth - the commanding officer of the police involved has been
imprisoned.
13 people appear on the tape shown by Globo being searched
and beaten by the police. On March 03 the police were filmed
hitting a man of approximately 30 years on the face and beating
him for approximately five minutes with batons without resistance
on his part. The March 05 tape shows police counting money which
they allegedly took from victims which they stopped at the police
check-point. The most callous scene was filmed on March 07 when
when 30 year old Mario Jose Josino and his friends Antonio Carlos
Dias and Jefferson Sanches Caputi were stopped by the police as
they drove by the check-point. They offered no resistance. 29
year old Mr. Caputi was put on the car engine by the police and
hit 34 times by batons on his back and on the soles of his feet.
They were then ordered to drive off. As they did so policeman
Otavio Lourenco Gambra (known locally as "Rambo") opened fire on
the car and wounded Mr. Josino who died some hours later in a
local hospital.
On the following day (March 08) two of the policemen
involved in the incident were recognized by those in the car and
arrested but they were freed four days later. The military police
in Diadema claim that they received a copy of the tape on March
25 and reported the incident to the public prosecutor's office.
On March 26 a warrant was signed for the arrest of the policemen.
On April 01 the State Governor of Sao Paulo, Mario Covas, in a
press interview deplored the action of the police and commented
that while everything possible will be done to prevent a
recurrence of such an incidence it was "impossible" to guarantee
that police would never again be involved in such violence.
According to local residents in the Naval favela, beatings,
extortion, assassination attempts and humiliation exercises had
been frequently practiced during the last three months by police
at the same location. Reports claim that the group of police had
imposed a 11.00 P.M. curfew on the area.
The scenes shown by Globo TV come in the context of the
growing awareness of police impunity in Brazil. Nobody has been
punished for example for incidents such as the massacre of 111
prisoners by military police in the Casa de Detencao prison in
Sao Paulo in late 1992 or for the massacre of 19 landless farmers
also by military police in Eldorado dos Carajas on April 17 of
last year. Recent figures published by the ombuds-person's office
of the police in Sao Paulo shows that in recent months serious
complaints and accusations against the police have risen
significantly. A survey carried out by the 'Folha de Sao Paulo'
on April 02 showed that 74% of the population of the city of Sao
Paulo is afraid of the police. Doubtlessly the recent incident in
Diadema contributed to increasing this fear - a similar survey
carried out in 1995 showed that 50% feared the police.
Benedito Domingos Mariano - the police ombuds-person
commented on April 01 "The case of Diadema is not an isolated
fact. The aggression and the murder which took place can be
compared to more than 500 similar cases in which the victims were
seriously wounded". Between December 1966 and February of this
year, 1500 complaints have been registered against the police in
Sao Paulo as compared to 601 during the same period last year -
an increase of 149%. Of the complaints registered, that of murder
by the police has had the largest increase (50%) during the
period. Approximately 300 police were investigated during 1996
because of complaints registered in the ombuds-person's office.
Of this total, five have been arrested accused of killing 13
people in 3 massacres and of three bank robberies.
Perhaps because of the widespread publicity given to the
material shown by Globo TV two military police operations
carried out during the early hours of March 28 in the the
Realengo favela in the western region of the city of Rio de
Janeiro and in Caxias - Greater Rio de Janeiro area, received
less attention. In these operations seven people were killed by
the police. Five died in Caxias; according to the police all were
involved in drug trafficking. One of the victims in Realengo was
a 16 year old adolescent.
On April 03 newspapers carried a report that military police
in Dianopolis (State of Tocantins) executed a father and son (49
year old Vilmar Anastacio and his 27 year old son Wagner) on
March 28. Wagner was accused of killing military policeman
Francisco de Assis as he defended his 25 year old Anastacio
Junior, from an attack by policeman Assis. Wounded, Wagner was
taken to the local hospital where he was forcibly removed from
the intensive care unit and assassinated by the police. When his
father arrived at the hospital some time later, he too was
sequestered by the military police and killed. The bodies of both
victims also showed signs of beatings.
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