By C.H. Gardiner
RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – The two armed men entered the barbershop when Anderson Azevedo Galvão was in the middle of a haircut. According to witnesses, one of the criminals recognized Galvão as a member of Rio’s Military Police. Galvão asked them to stay calm. They shot him five times.
Galvão died before reaching Barra’s Lorenço Jorge hospital.
The risk of being recognized off duty is something that has long been ingrained into the behavior of Rio’s cops. Many military police soldiers will cover their faces during operations to mask their identities, and most officers choose to remain armed when off-duty to have the means to defend themselves should they be recognized.
“I always carry my gun with me or have it in reach. My kid has learned not to mess with it. But it’s become normal for him to see me always armed,” says a Sergeant in the 18th police battalion, who – due to regulations – asked not to have his name revealed.
The vast majority of police killed in Rio are off duty according to an investigation conducted last year by Brazilian news site Extra. In 2018, of 92 military police killed, 68 were off-duty, of those, 28 were killed after being recognized as police.
However, the practice of criminals killing off-duty cops has resulted in many members of Rio’s security forces to take a morbidly proactive approach when apprehending lawbreakers. “Many PM’s [military police] don’t want to take the traffickers in. The risk is too high that they will come back for you. The courts let them go so quickly some police think it’s better just to end it there,” said the sergeant.
Rio’s governor Wilson Witzel said at Galvão’s funeral that the state has already discovered the identities of his killers and promised that they would be brought to justice. “Once again the state of Rio says goodbye to one of its heroes. Officer Galvão lost his life defending us all,” Witzel told press at the funeral.
Human rights’ defenders caution that often in the search for the killers police can become overly aggressive.
Early last year community residents of Jacarezinho said that a helicopter shot indiscriminately into the community during the search for the killers of Civil Police Delegado Fábio Monteiro. The residents said that the operations were a form of collective retaliation after police found the Delegado’s body in the community.
During an operation in Cidade de Deus related to the hunt for Galvão’s killers, a man was shot in the back by military police. Family members of the man told the Rio Times that the police rushed him to hospital after ascertaining he was not a criminal. Another man, who police say was involved in drug trafficking, was shot and killed during the same operation.
In an Instagram post made shortly before his death, Galvão wrote about the dangers faced during his work commanding the UPP in Lins. He stated he was most proud of the fact that despite many violent confrontations, no police officer was injured in the two years which he commanded the unit.
Galvão served 13 years in Rio’s Military Police and is survived by his young son.