Favela Lives Don’t Matter in Brazil

Fourteen-year-old João Pedro was playing at his cousin’s home in the favela complex of Salgueiro — in São Gonçalo, a low-income municipality on the outskirts of Rio de Janeiro — when a bullet hit him in the stomach during a  police operation in the favela. Cops stormed the house and carried his body into a helicopter, without giving any information to — or getting authorization from — any member of the boy’s family. His whereabouts would only be known by his father, 40-year-old informal worker Nelson Pinto, 17 long hours later. But it would be too late. João Pedro’s dead body was lying lifeless in a coroner’s office bed.

The cops’ first version of the events said that they reacted to a shooting started by criminals, but the police have since issued a statement admitting that João Pedro is innocent and has no ties to organized crime whatsoever. A forensic report found that the bullet which killed him is of the same caliber used by the police — and three officers involved in the operation were put on temporary leave.

While shocking, João Pedro’s case is hardly an outlier. Young males living in favelas — especially black young males — are often the victims of a...