Brazil: Police Murders More and More but Remains Unpunished
Featured image: Event in São Paulo commemorates the victims of the Jardim Mutinga massacre, where 18 youth were executed by the military police.
On August 26, the movement of families of those murdered by the old Brazilian State, “The 9 We Lost,” protested during the trial of two military police officers accused of the massacre they carried out in Paraisópolis, São Paulo. Nine youth were murdered by the police. The massacre was carried out by 35 agents of the Military Police. Only 12 of them were judicially charged, and 7 are still in the process. One of the accused did not attend the court hearing.
On August 16, the “Mothers of Osasco and Barueri Movement” held an event in memory of the 10th anniversary of the Jardim Mutinga massacre, in which 18 young people were executed by the Military Police. The event also took place in São Paulo. Other groups of mothers and cultural organizations attended and collaborated in the event. It was denounced that in these massacres, the majority of those murdered are children and young people, and that they are part of the “genocide policy against poor and black masses.”
These murders are by no means isolated cases but part of the increasing lethality in police operations in Brazil, which has grown by 188.9% over the past 10 years, according to reports by AND:
The majority of victims have been black youth aged between 12 and 29, totaling 6,393 murders in 2023 alone, averaging 17 murders per day in police operations. The highest lethality has occurred in Amapá, with 23.6 murders per 100,000 inhabitants. In São Paulo, lethality has increased by 61%, the largest increase in the country.
Police impunity is also not uncommon, since according to AND, 90% of cases involving investigations against murdering police officers in the states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo are archived by the Public Ministry. This statistic is based on official data collected between 2011 and 2023. The police in São Paulo murdered at least 5,416 people during these years. Of all these cases, only 8.9% were investigated. In Rio de Janeiro, there were 12,789 people murdered, with 4,014 cases, resulting in only 147 complaints.
AND is the source of all the pictures used in this article.
