Brazil is unraveling before your eyes

"Good Cops Are Afraid". The Toll of Unchecked Police Violence in Rio de Janeiro

https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/07/07/good-cops-are-afraid/toll-unchecked-police-violence-rio-de-janeiro

Dispatches: Police Killings and Public Security in Rio. An Unmet Promise of Brazil's Olympic Bid

https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/08/03/dispatches-police-killings-and-public-security-rio

When Rio de Janeiro won its bid to host this summer's Olympic Games, it promised major improvements in public security. And for several years, it made real progress in reducing crime, thanks largely to an ambitious effort to implement a community-policing model in high-crime neighborhoods.

But in 2013, this effort began to unravel. Homicide rates bounced back after several years of decline. So did killings by police. Multiple factors contributed to this unraveling. But one in particular stands out: You can't expect community policing to work when police are unlawfully killing members of the communities they are supposed to protect.

The police in Rio have killed more than 8,000 people in the past decade, including at least 645 people in 2015. More than 75% of those killed were black

The police report nearly all such killings as legitimate acts of self-defense. Given that they often face real threats of violence from well-armed gangs, it's likely that many of the killings are indeed justified.

But many others are not. Police shoot at unarmed people. They shoot people in the back as they are fleeing. They execute people who have been detained with a bullet to the head.

And then they try to cover up their crimes. They threaten witnesses. They plant guns on their victims. They remove corpses from crime scenes and deliver them to hospitals, claiming they were trying to "rescue" them.

In our recent report, "Good Cops Are Afraid,"https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/07/07/good-cops-are-afraid/toll-unchecked-police-violence-rio-de-janeiro we documented the enormous toll these killings take, not only on the victims and their families, but also on the police force itself. The unlawful killings by some police fuel cycles of violence that endanger the lives of all officers serving in high-crime areas, poison their relationships with local communities, and contribute to high levels of stress that undermine their ability to do their jobs well.

Police officers are rarely brought to justice for these crimes. By failing to properly prosecute these cases, the authorities are not only denying justice to victims' families, they are doing a terrible disservice to the Rio police force. As long as there's no accountability, there will continue to be officers who commit extrajudicial executions, making the job of policing more difficult and dangerous for all the rest, and making it much harder for Rio to make sustained progress in improving public security.

Woman has been entrained by police car

Source: BBC News 18 March 2014

Mother-of-four Claudia da Silva Ferreira, 38, had been hurt in a shoot-out in the shanty-town where she lived. Policemen threw her into their patrol car's boot, which opened by accident when it drove off. Relatives said Ms Ferreira had been "treated like a criminal".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tug9RIkkaVQ

She was dragged for more than 300 metres (1,000ft) before the car stopped at a red light.Two policemen then got out of the car, put Ms Ferreira back in the boot and drove to a nearby hospital, where she died.

Three policemen have been arrested, accused of acting inhumanely and ignoring calls from residents to stop the vehicle. Relatives said that Ms Ferreira was treated with brutality probably because police suspected she was involved with the local drug gangs. "They thought she was a criminal and that is why they took her away. It wasn't to save her life," her daughter, Tais Lima, told O Globo newspaper.

"They grabbed my mother by the legs and dumped her in the boot like an animal. They didn't even bother to check if the boot was properly closed. That is not the attitude of someone who is trying to help," she added.