Prominent Ceará Senator Is Shot While Challenging Striking Police Officers

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Senator Cid Gomes (PDT – CE) was shot on Wednesday in Sobral, Ceará State, while protesting, on top of a backhoe, against the strike by state police officers. Cid, a former governor of Ceará with a history of conflict with the police and linked to the current incumbent Camilo Santana (PT), had summoned the population through social media to rise up against the police, whom he accused of terrorizing society.

According to the medical bulletin from Hospital do Coração de Sobral, where Cid was attended to, the senator did not suffer cardiac or neurological issues and is breathing unassisted. Former Minister Ciro Gomes, Cid’s brother, had previously announced that the senator was not at risk of death.

The incident at the Sobral barracks, broadcast live on the ‘O Sobralense’ Facebook page, shows escalating tension in the senator-led protest. On top of a backhoe and flanked by a crowd, he headed towards the police barracks in Sobral, the Gomes family’s political stronghold, located 200 km from Fortaleza.

There, officers on strike were rioting. Several of them had their faces covered with balaclavas. In the footage, the tractor driven by Cid is shown moving forward towards the barracks’ gates. Shots are heard and the footage shows Cid hit.

“My brother Cid Gomes was the victim of two gunshots by rioters and masked state police officers in Sobral, our city. So far the medical information is that the bullets did not affect vital organs despite aiming at his left chest. (…)
– Ciro Gomes (@cirogomes) February 19th, 2020

National Forces and political backdrop

In a note, the Ministry of Justice reported that it is monitoring the situation in Ceará, where agents of the Federal Highway Police and the Federal Police have already been sent to provide security for Cid Gomes. The portfolio also announced the sending of the National Armed Forces to the State.

The mobilization of Sérgio Moro’s ministry came after Governor Camilo Santana asked for federal forces to be reinforced on Wednesday afternoon to tackle the strike. In a harsh speech on video, Camilo mentioned that barracks in the capital, Fortaleza, had been attacked by masked men and that car tires had been punctured.

During the day, reports and videos showing hooded men demanding the shutdown of stores were circulating in Sobral as well as in other cities. The Secretary of State Security also directly accused the police for intimidation actions.

This week’s strike and protests are the upshot of a negotiation for better salaries for firefighters and police officers, that has dragged on since December. Last week, the leftist governor proposed raising the basic salary for soldiers and firemen in Ceará to R$4,500. However, a group remained displeased and instigated protests.

As state armed forces, officers from the state police are legally forbidden to strike. As a result, the courts ratified the State’s power to arrest officers on strike this week – at least three police officers were arrested in the capital.

But the crisis also has a political backdrop in Ceará. In his afternoon speech, Governor Camilo Santana accused what he called “small groups” of protesters of taking advantage of “the good faith of the troops to lie, make money and to project themselves politically, particularly in election years like today”.

The leftist’s message resonates with Captain Wagner, a former MP who made a career leading a historic police strike in 2011 and is a pre-candidate for Mayor of Fortaleza. Wagner spoke out on Twitter: “Leaving Brasília to Fortaleza with a delegation of deputies and representatives of the Federal Government to help solve the problem in Ceará!”

“I would say that the police officers’ adherence to the strike was small, but organized and noisy, which is enough to stir thing up,” says Ricardo Moura, a researcher at the Center for the Study of Violence at the Federal University of Ceará (UFC).

According to Moura, the boldness of police groups wearing balaclavas in broad daylight, with tactics associated to criminal factions, is what stands out in the current protest in relation to the previous ones. “This proves that they are not afraid of reprisal.”

Ultimatum

Now the State, which started the year 2019 rocked by the action of criminal factions, is waiting for the striking groups’ next steps and the political repercussion of Cid Gomes’ move, who has been on licensed leave as senator since December so he can spend more time in Ceará in full electoral year

“I calmly hope, although fraught with anger, that the authorities in charge will promptly bring the criminals who attempted this barbaric murder to justice,” the former presidential candidate Ciro Gomes demanded on Twitter regarding his brother.

The Gomes family, the most politically influential in Ceará, collects incidents of public outbursts and strong statements – Cid standing out for the former and Ciro for the latter. This Wednesday’s incident in Sobral started on Tuesday when Cid Gomes recorded a video, released through WhatsApp, in which he warns that he will arrive in the city at 4 PM on Wednesday, and calls on the population to stand up against the police strike.

Yesterday afternoon, outside the barracks, Cid Gomes used a megaphone to issue an ultimatum to rioting police officers, who were granted five minutes to leave the premises. Unanswered, Cid then set off with his backhoe towards the barracks.

According to researcher Ricardo Moura, Cid Gomes’ “utterly reckless” action will bear him immediate rewards in a State where the macho culture of the “fearless politician” is strong, “who is not lax”. All of this in the context of the historical tug-of-war of the Gomes with the command of the Ceará police and when there were already indications that this strike does not enjoy popular support. “The main polarization in Ceará politics over the past decade is between Ferreira Gomes and the police command,” says the researcher.

In Moura’s opinion, Cid offered an ultimatum not only to the police officers but to Governor Camilo himself for his performance in Sobral. “The governor has no alternative but to disband the strike. If by Wednesday afternoon there seemed to be room for negotiation, he ended it.”

By the end of the evening, the Public Secretariat of Ceará reported that the PM battalion in Sobral had been abandoned by rioters. It further said that a special team, with the involvement of the Federal Police, was investigating the crime against Cid Gomes in the city.

Source: El País