[News] Brazil: 80% Killed by Police in Rio de Janeiro in 2019 Were Black
Anti-Imperialist News
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Mon Feb 10 13:30:41 EST 2020
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Brazil-80-of-Killed-by-Police-in-Rio-de-Janeiro-2019-Were-Black-20200208-0012.html
Brazil: 80% Killed by Police in Rio de Janeiro in 2019 Were Black
February 8, 2020
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In Brazil, 80 percent of those killed by police in Rio de Janeiro
were Black, a figure that only in the first half of 2019 is similar to
that of the country as a whole in 2018, according to data published by
the Institute of Public Security (ISP).
On Feb. 8, 2019, during a police operation in the Fallet favela, it was
the day with the most deaths due to legal intervention in the first half
of 2019, 18 in total. Nine of them were inside the same house in Fallet.
State data indicates that 80.3 percent of those killed in police
operations in the first half of 2019, were Black or Brown. That is, of
the 885 deaths, 711 responded to this racial category, according to ISP.
According to the Brazilian lawyer of the human rights organization
Conectas Gabriel Sampaio, the racial component of deaths in the state
cannot be denied.
"(The deaths) require a level of clarification and reflection on public
security policy, which cannot be based on death. The high figures on
deaths already show an error in public safety. And the racial component
is extremely serious," the expert told Brazilian news outlet G1.
"Above all, it is a portrait of deaths that reveals how structural
racism is in Brazil and how much it is institutional, understanding that
(police) institutions must provide security to citizens," he added.
The mother of two of the dead in the Fallet favela is struggling to
prove that their children were not criminals. According to the police,
all were linked to "drug trafficking," a narrative commonly used in an
attempt to criminalize the peripheries, where there is a high percentage
of the Black population.
/*RELATED:
Over 120 Trans People Murdered in Brazil in 2019: Study
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"Today I live to justify the death of my children. Don’t you know how
painful this is for a mother?" she asks.
Another mother and former Fallet resident questioned the violent actions
of the police.
"They were not allowed to prove that they had nothing to do with it
(drug trafficking). They took away the right of my children to life,"
she told G1.
A retired officer of the Brazilian Military Police and a researcher at
the Violence Analysis Laboratory of the State University of Rio de
Janeiro Robson Rodrigues said that the number of deaths by state
agents broke a historical record, while the number of homicides reached
a lower level since 1991.
"The direction of these public policies continues in the same sectors,
against the same segments, in the same places where there is the
perception that the problem is located there," the former military
police criticized.
Meanwhile, Brazilian far-right President, Jair Bolsonaro has been
involved in a series of scandals due to his position that emboldens the
police forces. In November 2019, he sent to Congress a bill to prevent
the opening of trials by “easy trigger” or state violence against
military and police.
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