MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Brazilian police kill an average of six people per day, says public safety group

“The empirical evidence shows that Brazilian police make abusive use of lethal force to respond to crime and violence,” the report said.

Brazilian police killed more than 11,000 people between 2009 and 2013 with an average of six a day, a public safety group has said. The study by the Sao Paulo-based Brazilian Forum on Public Safety said police nationwide had killed 11,197 people over the past five years, while law enforcement agents in the US had killed 11,090 in the past 30 years.

 “The empirical evidence shows that Brazilian police make abusive use of lethal force to respond to crime and violence,” the report said.

There were 416 people killed last year in Rio de Janeiro state, giving it the highest per-capita rate.

The study said 50,806 people were killed in all homicides last year, about one every 10 minutes.

Nearly 70% were black and more than half were aged 15 to 29, it said.

In addition to using excessive force, Brazilian police frequently execute suspects, said Bruno Paes Manso of the University of Sao Paulo’s Centre for the Study on Violence. He called it “a practice rarely investigated”.

“This study reinforces a dramatic picture that Brazil faces, which shows that our society is violent with very high murder rate, especially committed by those that are supposed to protect us,” said Renato Sergio de Lima, from the Brazilian Forum on Public Safety.

Growing violence has forced Brazilian officials to invest more on security measures. They spent nearly $100bn in 2013 to improve security across the country.