RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – State Police officers (PM) choked a young black man until he passed out during an approach at the Ariston Garden in Carapicuíba, Greater São Paulo, on Sunday, June 21st. The incident was recorded by cell phone and features an officer putting the young man in a sleeper chokehold.
Gabriel, 19, struggles and then passes out on the sidewalk. There are two excerpts from the recording and they show that the young man was, in fact, choked twice: once on the sidewalk, near a gate, and again on the curb. Even when he was unresponsive, the PM continued to press his neck with his leg. There was another youth close by and he was also approached, but was not attacked.
In an interview with GloboNews, he explained that the PM stopped the vehicle in front of him “forcefully”. “As soon as he stopped in front of me, I stopped. Except the bike did not grip the brake, it slid forward a little. So, as he was already in front of my bike, we crashed”, says the young man. He details that the fact that he jumped off the bike and it dropped to the ground led the PM to assume that he was going to flee. “He thought I was going to run; so he grabbed my neck,” he recalls.
The scene recalls the case of George Floyd, a black man killed by a white police officer in a similar way in Minnesota, United States: by suffocation. He eventually said, “I can’t breathe,” during the eight minutes in which the police officer knelt on his neck and ultimately died.
His death generated a mobilization triggered by the #BlackLivesMatter movement with international dimensions, even in Brazil, which saw anti-racist protests in the streets.
A retired lieutenant colonel of the São Paulo state police with a masters degree in human rights, Adilson Paes de Souza describes the action as wrong and states that the hold used is far from the operational standards of approach. “The approach, the way it was developed, is totally wrong. It remarkably endangers the life of a third person”, he explains.
Adilson draws a parallel between the Greater São Paulo scene and what happened with George Floyd. “Did you see what happened in the United States due to the choking? They [PMs] are pursuing an action that is being condemned worldwide. And it seems that the command failed to provide the necessary instructions in showing that this kind of approach went wrong, that we can’t do it,” he continues.
According to him, the PMs’ lack of action when the man passed out is another negative point because none of them checked his vital signs and, had it been a serious case, resuscitated him. “This picture is very telling, it shows a disregard for the life of others, particularly when it is the ‘suspect’. It is the relativization of human life,” he continues.
Although the man survived, the lieutenant-colonel points out that the footage shows “a very dangerous action that can have a tragic outcome in an occurrence that could be a normal, routine approach, and happens naturally,” he highlights.
An attorney and counsel to the CONDEPE (State Council for the Defense of Human Rights), Ariel de Castro Alves points out that it has been recurrent to see police abuse and attacks in São Paulo. “PMs act in an abusive way when they approach poor people in peripheral regions. In high-end neighborhoods and when they approach people from the wealthier classes they are courteous and kind,” he explains. “They know that when they abuse people in the periphery they will not be punished.”
The attorney mentions a change in the law of abuse of authority that removed a specific article on injury to civilians. Formerly, article 3 dealt with “attack on physical integrity,” and now the closest text is “constraint”. “For anyone on the street getting beaten up by the police, the crime of abuse of authority no longer applies in such cases,” warns Ariel. “The current law of abuse of authority protects the PMs.” According to him, cases of violence committed by PMs can configure bodily injury or torture “depending on the situation”.
“When legislators passed the current law on abuse of authority, they were thinking about the Lava-Jato investigation rather than the daily abuse that police officers commit in the periphery. They ultimately protected PMs who attack people in police approaches and when they repress demonstrations,” he says.
Last week, the Ponte newspaper published a report that showed two of São Paulo’s PM actions and the difference in behavior between them. In the first, a white woman inside her car being advised that she would be fined, humiliates and insults the police officer. “To me you’re a shit, a piece of crap, I’ll screw you. Who do you think you are? You cursed at my friend. You’re a shit,” shouts the woman. On the other, police officers are caught battering a woman on the outskirts of the north side of São Paulo city. The abuse goes on even when residents alert them that they are filming.
A similar situation occurred late last month in the wealthy neighborhood of Alphaville, in Greater São Paulo. A businessman humiliated and insulted a police officer who had gone to his home on a domestic violence call.
The PMs behind the action in Carapicuíba were identified and removed from the streets until the investigations are completed, according to the São Paulo Public Safety Secretariat. However, the officers are still receiving their salaries regularly while providing administrative services.
According to the Secretariat’s note, the man who was choked was with a friend on a motorcycle. The approach occurred because they would have ignored an order to stop by the police and crashed into the car.
“The driver got into a physical confrontation with the police officer, tried to escape, was immobilized with self-defense techniques, rescued by the PS (Emergency Room), and later sent to the city’s 1st Police District, where the case was registered,” reads the note.
Source: El País