Opinion: “Law enforcement” in Rio’s favelas is largely non-existent

RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – (Opinion) Many people (including this writer) are shocked (but not surprised) by the Rio de Janeiro police killing 27 civilians in the hillside favela of Jacarezinho last Thursday, May 6th.

Brazil’s President Bolsonaro was neither shocked nor surprised. On Sunday, while congratulating the police for their successful action, he said, “By treating as ‘victims’ traffickers who steal, kill and destroy families, the press and the left equate them to the common, honest citizen who respects the laws and his fellow man.”

Read also: Police operation causes “the biggest massacre in the history of Rio de Janeiro”

Equally unshocked and unsurprised was Brazil’s Vice President, General Hamilton Mourão, who on Friday tersely referred to the 27 deceased as “tudo bandido” (“all bad guys”).

In this remark, VP Mourão was simply summing up the viewpoint often expressed by his President, and supported by at least three out of every four Brazilian citizens: “The only good bandido is a dead bandido.”

Brazil has no formal death penalty, nor even life imprisonment without parole. What it does have, however, is far worse – a mentality that permits, and even applauds, “law enforcement” agents indiscriminately killing “suspects”.

What “law” were the police “enforcing” when they raided the Jacarezinho favela?

They claimed, in their cynical justification of the operation submitted (tardily) to the Public Prosecutor’s office, that they were going to round up, using warrants based on social media posts with pictures, 21 criminals suspected of enlisting minors for drug trafficking activities.

Last year, Brazil’s Supreme Court (STF), after a violent police incursion into a Rio favela resulted in multiple deaths, issued an order that the police were NOT to carry out such operations during the Covid-19 pandemic, except in cases of extreme emergency.

Where was the “extreme emergency” on Thursday? It is common knowledge that, for decades, drug gangs in Brazil, like drug gangs everywhere in the world, have been using minors in their illegal activities.

The STF order also stipulated that, before any “extreme emergency” invasions were begun the police had to describe and justify them to the public prosecutor’s office.

The Rio public prosecutor’s office says it received an 18-page explanatory document from the police on Thursday morning at 9 AM – but the raids had already started, some 3 hours earlier, at 6 AM.

STF orders have the force of law, and “law enforcement” agents must, under the law, obey them.

Under the law, when law enforcement agents kill people, they are obligated to remain at the scene until the experts come and review it, collecting evidence of crimes, if any. The police in Rio did not do so. Rather, in most cases, they removed the bodies immediately, taking them to unknown destinations.

Under the law, law enforcement agents are obliged to supply the names of the victims; the police in Rio did not do so for over two days. The reason? Most of the people killed were not even subjects of the arrest warrants; many did not even have any criminal charges filed against them.

The police eventually admitted that they had carried out only 6 arrest warrants (out of 21), and that 3 of those arrested had died “resisting arrest”.

In a civilized country, one under the rule of law, “law enforcement” agents must take laws seriously and must obey them. In today’s Brazil, that is not the case.

Worse yet, the two highest government officials in charge of enforcing the laws – the President and the Vice President – lament only the death of a police inspector, while applauding the deaths of 27 “bandidos”.

Such callous attitudes are reminiscent of Brazil’s 1964-1985 military dictatorship, during which laws protecting human life were never enforced: many “bandidos” were tortured, “disappeared” or killed. Some Bolsonaro supporters call for a return to those days.

This writer is frightened that it may happen.