Brazilian police: seek and destroy

Aug 03, 2023 16:14 2 min read (Updated: Aug 03, 2023 16:35)

Residents of Guarujá, a coastal city in the Brazilian state of São Paulo, claim that military police officers are patrolling their streets, essentially shooting to kill.

As of Thursday, a controversial police operation has resulted in the deaths of 14 people in and around Guarujá, identified as former prisoners or having a criminal record — two labels that can make one expendable in the eyes of many of Brazil’s law and order types.

The incident began on July 27, when military police officer Patrick Bastos Reis was shot and killed while patrolling a neighborhood in Guarujá. As is always the case in Brazil, when a member of law enforcement is killed, a cycle of violence and revenge ensues.

One day later, the military police launched an operation to seize weapons and find the criminals allegedly involved in Reis’s murder. But the situation quickly turned into a bloodbath, with many Guarujá residents found dead over the past few days, some with signs of torture.

For the governor of the state of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas, there was no hostility or excess in the law enforcement operation, only “professionalism” by the state police force.

But a number of factors suggest a different story. On social media, some police officers encouraged the “hunting down” of criminals, while another officer constantly posted stories updating the “score” of people killed by the police — they reportedly promised to slaughter 60 people in retaliation.

Residents allege that officers have entered people’s homes without a warrant or any justification, and that young people have been beaten, among other abuses.

The consistently high level of police violence in Brazil is a fact that cannot be ignored, with over 6,000 people killed by police every year since 2018. And if operations like the one in Guaraná continue, these numbers will only increase.