May Crimes: 19 years later, mothers and entities fight so that the massacre won’t be time barred
According to experts, it is unacceptable that the State has not yet offered a consistent answer with over 500 dead and a context riddled with rights violations
Mães de maio em evento na Faculdade de Direito da USP. Foto: Gabriel Guerra/ Conectas
On May 15th, 2006, Vera Lúcia Gonzaga lost her daughter Ana Paula – nine-months pregnant with Bianca – and her son-in-law, Eddie Joey. The three were part of the 500 killed in the tragic episode known as the May Crimes. For nearly 12 years, Verinha, as she was known by her peers, carried the pain of this loss while fighting for justice. She became one of the strongest voices of the Mothers of May movement (Mães de Maio), denouncing State violence along with other women who turned their grief into a political struggle.
On May 3rd, 2018, Verinha was found dead in her house, in the outskirts of Santos, in the São Paulo state countryside. Though she was not murdered that week in 2006, her death carries the weight of continual violence. She was also a victim of the May Crimes – not because of bullets, but rather the abandonment, criminalization and silence that were also perpetrated by the State.
The May Crimes began on May 12th, 2006, after rebellions in São Paulo prison establishments and attacks against law enforcement officials, followed by a “reaction wave” of policemen and death squads connected to the Government, resulting in over 500 dead.
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A part of Brazilian press still refers to the case placing emphasis on the initial attacks by armed groups, which paralyzed the city of São Paulo. This apparently consolidated narrative, however, conceals a more complex truth. To refer to the episode emphasizing or reducing it to the attacks by those groups is a way to hide the crimes perpetrated by police forces and reveals an ideological choice, as pointed out by researcher Francilene Gomes Fernandes – another relative and victim of the May Crimes.
“This event, taking place in what we could refer to as a ‘democratic’ moment in our history, is one of the largest violations of human rights in recent memory. The mothers of the victims, their relatives and friends have turned this grief into a struggle, even though it represents suffering, unrest, and longing for all the women and mothers brutally affected since then”, wrote Francilene Gomes Fernandes in the book Tecendo resistências: trincheiras contra a violência policial (Weaving resistance: trenches against police violence, in a free translation – published by Editora Cortez), released in 2024, the same year in which the researcher passed away, while still fighting for justice, memory, and reparation.
Francilene was the sister of Paulo Alexandre Gomes, who underwent forced disappearance during the May Crimes.
“This episode was a watershed in the lives of families that had loved ones brutally torn from their lives. To keep themselves sane, they were forced to become militant women in the fight for truth and justice, culminating in a long, hard, and heavy road in several instances of power in the Executive, Legislative, and Judiciary branches, which are institutions that participate in the mechanism of State violence”, she reported.
The mothers that didn’t allow for forget
It was in this context, 19 years ago, that the Movimento Mães de Maio was created, initially containing Verinha, Ednalva Santos, Vera de Freitas, and Débora Maria da Silva. Four mothers that lost their children at the hands of the State and that, instead of becoming silent due to the pain, took streets, universities, courts, and international bodies.
Débora, one of the most active voices in the movement, thought her son, Edson Rogério, was on the way to work on the morning of May 13th, 2006. He was a street cleaner, father of a three-year-old boy, and had gone to refuel his motorcycle when a police officer approached him. Minutes after being released, he was murdered with a shot to the heart and two more shots, one for each lung. The body only had part of the truth revealed six years later, when she obtained the authorization to exhume the body, and a new projectile was found lodged in his spinal cord.
To this day, the ballistics examination that could indicate who fired the shots was never finished.
Over 19 years, the movement became consolidated as a national and international benchmark. It built bridges with relatives of victims in Mexico – in the episode of the disappearance of 43 students from Ayotzinapa in 2014 –, in the USA, through Black Lives Matter; in Chile, with the Mapuche people; and in several Brazilian states. The movement was part of the Senate Investigative Hearing on the murder of youth in Brazil and published five books with accounts from victims.
The year 2017 was a milestone for the movement, which set foot in academia, showing that the mothers are also able to produce knowledge about themselves. A study by the Forensic Anthropology and Archeology Center of the Federal University of São Paulo (Caaf-Unifesp), together with the Oxford University Center for Latin-American Studies, included participation by Débora Silva.
The research concluded that most of the deaths that occurred in May 2006 were executions without due legal process. Two main factors support this finding: the high number of shots per victim and the fact that the shots are concentrated in highly lethal locations, such as the head and the chest. On average, 4.48 holes were found for each fatal victim, a number that exceeds levels seen in legitimate armed confrontations with suspected executions.
In 2020, the Mães de Maio protocolled a draft bill at the São Paulo Legislative Assembly (Draft Bill 734/2020), prepared with the support of voluntary lawyers Gabriel Sampaio, director of Litigation and Advocacy at Conectas; Silvia Souza, joint coordinator of the antidiscrimination department at IBCCRIM; and Giordano Magri, assistant to councilor Eduardo Suplicy. The draft bill proposes institutional support, social protection, and medical care to relatives of victims of state violence. The bill was presented in 2022 at the Chamber of Deputies by federal congressman Orlando Silva.
In 2021, with support from Conectas and the São Paulo State Public Defender’s Office, the movement filed a complaint before the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR) against the Brazilian government, requesting accountability for the executions and forced disappearances that occurred in the Baixada Santista region in May 2006 and in 2021. The claim used as legal grounds the doctoral thesis of Francilene Gomes. To that, however, the Commission has not issued a statement on the case.
Massacre at Parque Bristol
In 2022, the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) determined the federalization of investigations on the Parque Bristol massacre, which took place in the city of São Paulo as a development of the Crimes of May 2006. The request had been presented by the Federal Prosecution Office in 2016 in response to a representation by relatives of the victims and Conectas in 2009.
In the same year of 2009, Conectas also filed a complaint against the Brazilian government to the Inter-American Commission of Human Rights (IACHR), representing relatives of Parque Bristol victims. After being processed for 19 years, the case was finally submitted to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, with a recommendation to condemn the Brazilian government. The measures requested include guarantees not to repeat, full reparations to victims, assistance to the physical and mental health of relatives and survivors, and reopening investigations.
In 2024, with support from Conectas and CAAF-Unifesp, the Mothers of May released the project “Strengthening the reach and impact of human rights movements in Brazil” for the training of 100 mothers and relatives of victims of state violence in operating strategies, forensic investigation, and advocacy. The initiative also includes the creation of an archive with the memory of resistance movements, audiovisual training for 12 relatives and the release of a collaborative online platform to promote and preserve this archive.
It is a path of resistance against a State that murders young poor blacks every minute, as mentioned by Débora Silva, in the launch event of the project with Conectas and Unifesp. “As mothers, we cannot take the deaths of our children as natural events. Hence, we stick together, moving forward and building knowledge with science. That mothers become ill with grief is visible. However, with these projects, we can recover our self-esteem and dignity”, defends Débora.
Fight for justice and memory
19 years later, no significant accountability occurred. According to lawyer Gabriel Sampaio, director at Conectas, the crimes should not be time-barred, given their severity. “Even if they weren’t, it is unacceptable for the Brazilian State to not yet have offered a consistent response with there being over 500 dead and a context riddled with rights violations”, he states. To him, the absence of investigations weakens democracy and increases suffering among mothers and relatives who still are not supported.
This is one of the discussions included in a lawsuit filed by the State Prosecution Office regarding State omissions in the May Crimes. This lawsuit is based on the principles of transition justice and requests the recognition of human rights violations perpetrated by the state, measures for non-repetition, and the material and symbolic reparation of victims. The lawsuit was dismissed at the first-level São Paulo court, but its appeal won a favorable vote from the rapporteur justice at the appellate court (STJ). The case is expected to move forward in 2025.
As written by Francilene Gomes, the elements of motherhood and loss are crucial to understand the formation of movements like Mães de Maio. Over 19 years, by insisting in the importance of memory and denouncing the violence suffered, these women not only resisted, but also produced and established countless fruits from this struggle.
