Killings by police spike in 2017
Number of deaths caused by military police officers highest in 14 years
The military police in the state of São Paulo killed 459 people between January and June of this year. This is the highest number of deaths caused by police action recorded in the past 14 years. The data, released by the São Paulo State Public Security Department last Wednesday, July 26, also reveals an increase of 14% from a year earlier.
Among the victims are Leandro de Souza Santos, killed during a police operation in the Moinho favela in June, and Ricardo Silva, who was shot twice in the chest during a police contact in July. Both deaths occurred in São Paulo and triggered protests against police violence due to their brutality.
On June 27, officers from São Paulo’s tactical military police unit known as “Rota” raided the Moinho favela in downtown São Paulo to conduct an operation to preserve the public order. When he saw the police, Santos, who according to his family was a drug user, ran and hid in one of his neighbor’s houses. According to reports from residents, police officers forced their way into the home and shot the 19-year-old, who died at the scene. Two officers involved in the raid have been taken off the streets.
The death of Ricardo Silva, who made a living collecting recyclable material, occurred at around 6 pm on Wednesday, July 12, on a busy street in Pinheiros, a middle-class neighborhood of São Paulo. According to witnesses, Silva had gotten into an argument with staff at a local pizzeria, who called the police. They said he was wielding a piece of wood in front of the pizzeria when the police cars arrived. One of the officers fired at least two shots at point-blank range. Silva died at the scene and his body was removed illegally, adulterating the crime scene and making a forensic investigation impossible. The officer who fired the shots has been suspended by the police department.
The São Paulo State Public Security Department also compiled data on the number of police officers killed in the line of duty: there were 30 cases in the first half of this year compared to 10 in the same period of 2016. “We know that the Brazilian military police is one of the forces that does the most killing anywhere in the world, but it is also one that is most killed. This demonstrates the need to rethink the public security model that we have today,” said Rafael Custódio, coordinator of the Justice program at Conectas Human Rights.
The high number of police killings in São Paulo reflects a series of structural problems that range from police training to the investigation of cases in which police operations result in deaths. “There are measures that can be taken to reduce police violence, such as strengthening the Ombudsman’s Office and the external oversight of the military police by the Public Prosecutor’s Office, whose duties include the review violations committed by the police. Furthermore, we urgently need to discuss the reform of our current policing model, which is a relic of the dictatorship and views citizens as a potential enemy,” added Custódio.
