{"id":108177,"date":"2018-04-02T12:00:51","date_gmt":"2018-04-02T11:00:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=108177"},"modified":"2018-03-25T15:20:56","modified_gmt":"2018-03-25T14:20:56","slug":"brazils-marielle-franco-denounced-three-murders-by-military-police-in-the-days-before-her-assassination-these-are-the-stories","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2018\/04\/brazils-marielle-franco-denounced-three-murders-by-military-police-in-the-days-before-her-assassination-these-are-the-stories\/","title":{"rendered":"Brazil\u2019s Marielle Franco Denounced Three Murders [by Military Police] in the Days before Her Assassination. These Are the Stories."},"content":{"rendered":"

Leia em portugu\u00eas <\/a><\/p>\n

Who killed Eduardo, Matheus and Reginaldo?<\/a><\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Illustration: Pedro Franz<\/p><\/div>\n

21 Mar 2018 – <\/em>Marielle Franco\u2019s killers were not\u00a0out to rid themselves of a 38-year-old member of Rio City Council<\/a>\u00a0who dedicated her days to pressing political causes. They wanted to silence an idea.<\/p>\n

Franco was killed in a nighttime ambush with no chance to react. It\u2019s the same cowardly way that people are killed in impoverished favelas across Rio de Janeiro and the rest of Brazil \u2014\u00a0places where the mail isn\u2019t delivered, the electricity is spotty, the water is polluted, and schools close when gunfire begins. In these parts of town, residents\u2019 main point of contact with the government\u00a0are armored personnel carriers \u2014 known as a \u201cBig Skull\u201d \u2014\u00a0who enter their neighborhood with a license to kill.<\/p>\n

In her first campaign for public office in 2016, Franco ran from a scrappy, progressive political party, and still won the fifth-highest vote total out of her colleagues on Rio de Janeiro\u2019s City Council. A black, lesbian single mother, born and raised in a favela,\u00a0Franco was a rare face of representation in an overwhelming white and male political landscape. And with two degrees from one of Brazil\u2019s most elite universities and over a decade of experience in politics, she was an undeniably powerful charismatic force in the growing movement to confront the epidemic of violence perpetrated or perpetuated by the state. Last year, Rio\u00a0saw\u00a0only slightly fewer killings by police than in the entire United States<\/a>, which is itself a dramatic outlier<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a message,\u201d\u00a0came the refrain from mourners. But what were Franco\u2019s killers trying to say? And to whom?<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Stunned mourners filled the streets of downtown Rio de Janeiro last Thursday to grieve and protest Franco\u2019s death. \u201cIt was a message,\u201d\u00a0the oft-heard refrain\u00a0came from\u00a0the crowd. But what were Franco\u2019s killers trying to say? And to whom? The killers seemed to\u00a0shout in a whisper<\/a>:\u00a0\u201cDon\u2019t you dare mess with the systems around you.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is too early to know whether Franco\u2019s murderers took her life in retaliation for her activism against police violence. A few scant facts have emerged in the days since her assassination suggesting that perhaps Franco\u2019s murder shares similarities with the killings she regularly denounced. Police investigators traced bullet casings found at the crime scene to a purchase made by the Federal Police. Bullets from the same batch<\/a>\u00a0were used in the deadliest massacre in S\u00e3o Paulo\u2019s history in 2015. Two police officers and a municipal guard were convicted<\/a> of murdering 17 and the attempted murder of seven more. The connection to the police bullets led a top federal criminal prosecutor in Rio to quickly go on the record<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0say\u00a0the details of Franco\u2019s murder\u00a0\u201cdenote a certain degree of planning that leads me to consider police officers as suspects in this crime,\u201d but that other hypotheses should\u00a0also be considered.<\/p>\n

Whatever the result of the investigation into Franco\u2019s death and its possible connection to her advocacy,\u00a0all the\u00a0killings offer a window into the violence and impunity that reigns on Rio de Janeiro\u2019s streets.<\/p>\n

In Rio, around one in six homicides are solved, according to official statistics \u2014 though that number hasn\u2019t been\u00a0updated\u00a0for more than three years<\/a>. From 2010 to 2015, police killed 3,441 people,\u00a0yet charges were only filed in four of those cases \u2014 about 0.1% \u2014\u00a0despite, for instance,\u00a0Human Rights Watch<\/a> having independently documented 15 cases over that period which merited investigation.<\/p>\n

These statistics are just symptoms of much bigger problems. Approximately\u00a02 million people<\/a> live in areas controlled by mil\u00edcias<\/a>, <\/em>gangs run by current and former members of the police and firefighter corps. Mil\u00edcias were explicitly supported by state institutions<\/a>, which sold them as an\u00a0answer<\/a>\u00a0to combat drug traffickers. Soon, however, the mil\u00edcias proved themselves to be as violent and oppressive, or worse, while making small fortunes\u00a0by extorting\u00a0local businesses, running illegal rackets, and, in some areas, selling drugs. While mil\u00edcias battle drug gangs for territory head to head, on-duty cops are notorious business partners of traffickers, demanding a fixed monthly cut of the profits in exchange for protection and intelligence. Corrupt cops also sell guns and munitions to the very gangs their colleagues may do battle with the next day. Politicians benefit from the criminality in a variety of ways and have shown themselves to be unwilling or unable to fight against it.<\/p>\n

Marielle Franco is gone, but the pressure to respond to these murders \u2013 and all crimes against young people in poor neighborhoods \u2013 cannot stop. The conventional wisdom that organized crime\u00a0can\u2019t be confronted without using weapons is wrong. The idea that people in Brazil\u2019s poor suburbs cannot have personal freedoms\u00a0is as tired\u00a0as it is\u00a0wrong. Perhaps a single woman cannot stand down Brazil\u2019s lords of war, but the masses can.<\/p>\n

Just days before her execution, Franco denounced the murders of three men. They were all young and from poor neighborhoods, members of the \u201ctarget demographic<\/a>\u201d\u00a0for violent death, the type of killings that\u00a0fill Brazil\u2019s cemeteries<\/a>. Two of\u00a0the victims\u2019 killings\u00a0took place in a police district infamous for the bloody terror<\/a> it inflicts on residents; another died at a police checkpoint in a different favela. These are the\u00a0stories Marielle Franco told.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Illustration: Pedro Franz<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

Matheus Melo Castro, 23. Killed on March 12<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

It was a short trip on the route he always took. Matheus Melo Castro, a pastoral assistant, had wrapped up a Monday meeting at the Mission of Faith Evangelical Church in a favela called Manguinhos. He hopped on\u00a0the motorcycle he had bought with his earnings as a garbage collector to drop off his girlfriend in the Jacarezinho favela. A single avenue separates the two communities. On his way home, around 10 p.m.,\u00a0Melo\u00a0came across a police checkpoint. Onlookers said the officers were stopping and frisking underage boys. Melo\u2019s family said he was not told to stop his bike. He went through the checkpoint, and just a few yards ahead, two bullets tore through his body, one in the chest and the other in the right arm.<\/p>\n

Melo fell to the ground. Police watched from a distance, as if they\u2019d just taken down an animal in a hunt. They offered no first aid. Gravely wounded but still alive, crack users wandering the nearby streets came to his aid. Unsure what to do, they decided to put him in a wheelbarrow and ran across a heavily trafficked avenue to get to an urgent care clinic.<\/p>\n

Police offered no first aid. Gravely wounded but still alive, crack users wandering the nearby streets came to his aid.<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Drivers passing by witnessed the scene and word about the incident spread. More than\u00a0100 friends and relatives quickly assembled to keep vigil outside the clinic. Many of those present were with Melo singing and praying in church just a short\u00a0while\u00a0earlier. He had led the service they called \u201cyouth refuge\u201d that night.<\/p>\n

The medical attention\u00a0was not enough, and Melo\u00a0succumbed to his wounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was cruel. He went by and they shot him up,\u201d one of Melo\u2019s aunts told The Intercept Brasil.<\/p>\n

A cousin added, \u201cWorst of all, they didn\u2019t offer first aid. It was the crack addicts that carried him to the clinic. If he had been a trafficker, the police would have captured him and guarded him in a hospital. But since he was just a random guy, they shot him and left him, like he was nobody.\u201d<\/p>\n

His family members asked to not be named,\u00a0fearing\u00a0reprisals for speaking publicly about the crime.<\/p>\n

In\u00a0cases such as Melo\u2019s death, a stilted, perfunctory apology from the police is the norm. Usually,\u00a0they\u00a0put out a short press release that says nothing, because these deaths are just collateral damage \u2014 unlucky victims caught in the eternal crossfire between the Good Guys and the Bandits. Yet local residents in Manguinhos said there had been no confrontations going on at the time Melo \u2014\u00a0who was well-known in the neighborhood and said to have no criminal connections \u2014 was killed. Some hours later, however, people began to hear gunshots.<\/p>\n

Melo\u2019s family believes the shootout after the fact was an attempt to portray Melo as another tragic victim of a \u201cstray bullet.\u201d The family saw it as smoke and mirrors. The local police united responsible for \u201cpacifying\u201d \u2013\u00a0a euphemism\u00a0used by the Rio government to designate a crumbling, decade-old community policing initiative \u2013\u00a0 the favela said that its base in the neighborhood was \u201cattacked by criminals\u201d and they were therefore obliged to return fire. Additionally, a bus\u00a0had been set on fire in the early-morning hours on a main access road into the favela. All of this took place within walking distance from\u00a0a sprawling \u201cPolice City\u201d compound, which sits wedged between the favelas of Manguinhos and Jacarezinho. The bus arson, just like Melo\u2019s death, is under \u201cconfidential investigation,\u201d like so many other cases that collect dust in Rio\u2019s police stations.<\/p>\n

Melo\u2019s\u00a0family feels threatened and is considering fleeing, following advice proffered by some some neighbors. But the family is also considering fighting back. The\u00a0family is\u00a0looking for his killers despite their fear, and Melo may well have his day in court. His family intends to sue the state government and has already begun a parallel investigation to find out who pulled the trigger. Their lawyers are looking for images from the city\u2019s traffic surveillance cameras that may have captured his last minutes of life. Security cameras from a nearby animal shelter may also offer\u00a0crucial footage.<\/p>\n

The press office of Rio\u2019s Civil Police, responding to queries about Melo\u2019s death, said in an email that the probe is \u201congoing and, at the moment, there are no updates to report about this case.\u201d<\/p>\n

The police high command from the unit responsible for \u201cpacifying\u201d the favela said it has opened an inquiry to verify if one of its officers was involved in the shooting. By phone, a representative from the unit told The Intercept Brasil that an internal probe had been opened the day after the crime. They were not able to confirm whether a police vehicle was at the location where Melo was killed. \u201cEven if there were one, it was not necessarily from the pacifying police unit. It could have been from the local Military Police battalion or the Civil Police,\u201d the source said. The police probe underway is an \u201cinquiry,\u201d not a full-blown \u201cinvestigation,\u201d which means that it cannot produce formal accusations.<\/p>\n

Into\u00a0this fog of uncertainty waded Marielle Franco \u2014 as she so often did. \u201cYet another young man\u2019s murder that may have been at the hands of the police,\u201d\u00a0Franco tweeted last Tuesday. \u201cMatheus Melo was leaving church. How many more need to die for this war to end?\u201d<\/p>\n

The next day, amid hymns and cries for justice,\u00a0Melo was buried in a Rio de Janeiro cemetery. Just hours later, Franco was executed.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Illustration: Pedro Franz<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

Eduardo Ferreira, 39, and Reginaldo Santos Batista, age unknown. Killed March 5<\/h2>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Locals heard gunshots shortly before sunrise. They thought it odd at such early hour. It didn\u2019t look like there was any shootout going on with drug traffickers \u2013 their usual points of sale weren\u2019t even open yet. When the shots died down, a small group of neighbors went to investigate the scene. They found two bodies in a sparsely forested area near the Acari River in the northern part of Rio de Janeiro.<\/p>\n

The first was lying facedown, wearing board shorts and a T-shirt, his eyes shut. The neighbors decided to pull him up by his legs and get him off the slope in order to\u00a0identify the body. In times like these, no one waits for a forensic crew to arrive \u2013 that can take hours. So bystanders try to divine for themselves if the victim was a friend or relative. Later, the locals would discover the body belonged to Eduardo Ferreira, 39.<\/p>\n

\u201cHere, we learn how to hoist a body when we\u2019re just kids.\u201d<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The other body, a few yards ahead of him on a steeper incline, belonged to Reginaldo Santos Batista, whose age was unknown.\u00a0More effort was required to lift Batista off the hillside. \u201cHere, we learn how to hoist a body when we\u2019re just kids,\u201d\u00a0said one of the locals. \u201cDo you know how to do that? I think not, right?\u201d<\/p>\n

It took all day for the homicide unit of the police to arrive. At\u00a0around 7 p.m.,\u00a0they filled out a body tag: \u201cBlack man, muscular, strong features, shaved head.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ferreira lived in Acari since he was a child. He left behind two children and a girlfriend. His mother, siblings, and cousins are all evangelical Christians who also live in the neighborhood. Ferreira was self-employed and \u201calways chatting\u201d with locals in the area, according to his friends. \u201cHe was a solitary guy. Somewhat shy,\u201d said a local resident. \u201cI remember him telling me to be careful in this area. He was concerned about his neighbors.\u201d<\/p>\n

Little is known about Batista. No one came forward to claim his body.<\/p>\n

The circumstances of the deaths remain shrouded in mystery. Eyewitnesses said a group of police officers were hiding in the forest just outside the Acari favela and left the bodies there before taking off. The 41st police battalion, infamous for being the most lethal unit in Rio, posts near daily updates about its actions usually appear, but\u00a0there are no entries for March 5. The Twitter account of the Rio state police also has no mentions of an incident in Acari.<\/p>\n

When questioned, the police said they were unaware of any operation underway in the area at that time. A few hours later, they sent out a press release saying that police from the 41st battalion were patrolling the area to \u201crepress drug sales, car robberies, and arrest criminals.\u201d The release also said that police had arrested a suspected drug dealer, who goes by \u201cTimbau,\u201d that was carrying a walkie-talkie.<\/p>\n

After the Monday killings, there were shootouts every day for a week. The following Saturday, a neighborhood woman was going to pick up donations at the community residents\u2019 association when she heard shots. She looked around to see if there were any drug dealers engaged in a shootout or if the points of sale were open, but it was early and everything was closed. Police were \u201cshooting at random from their vehicle,\u201d she said. \u201cI looked all around and I could not tell why they were shooting. There was nothing. Just residents out on the streets.\u201d She took shelter at a neighbor\u2019s. It was 8 a.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cAround 1 p.m., I went back to the same place and there were even more police, and they kept shooting. That\u2019s when two armored police vehicles entered the favela,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Other residents sent voice messages around to alert the neighborhood. \u201cMy God, so many gunshots here,\u201d one said. Another, on the verge of tears, related: \u201cGuys, I am so scared. Really scared. They\u2019re right in front of my house.\u201d\u00a0Another neighbor responded: \u201cThese guys are harassing residents. Shooting up other people\u2019s houses. This isn\u2019t right. On a Saturday?\u201d<\/p>\n

As the hail of gunshots from the police continued to ring out through Acari, Marielle Franco answered the call. She denounced the police operation. On her Facebook page<\/a>, she wrote: \u201cWe need to raise our voices so everyone knows what\u2019s happening in Acari right now. Rio\u2019s 41st Military Police Battalion is terrorizing and abusing residents of Acari. This week, two young men were killed and thrown into a gulley. Today, the police walked the streets threatening residents. It has always happened and with the military intervention it has gotten even worse.\u201d<\/p>\n

________________________________________________<\/p>\n

Leandro Demori<\/a><\/em> – <\/em>leandro.demori@\u200btheintercept.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

<\/u>Bruna de Lara<\/a> – <\/em>brudelara@\u200bhotmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Carolina Moura<\/a> – carolinarmmoura@\u200bgmail.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Juliana Gon\u00e7alves<\/a><\/em> – <\/em>juliana.goncalves@\u200btheintercept.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Yuri Eiras<\/a><\/em> – <\/em>yuri_eiras@\u200byahoo.com.br<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

Adapted\u00a0to English by Taylor Barnes and Andrew Fishman<\/em><\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 theintercept.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

21 Mar 2018 – Marielle Franco’s assassins wanted to silence her cause.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":108178,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[180],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-108177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-brics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=108177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/108177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=108177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=108177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=108177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}