MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency

Ten killed in controversial police raid in Brazilian State of São Paulo

“I am extremely satisfied with the police action,” said Governor De Freitas.

Brazilian authorities in the State of São Paulo confirmed ten people had died in a law enforcement operation following the murder of 30-year-old Military Police officer Patrick Bastos Reis. Commissioner Antônio Sucupira of Guarujá's Civil Police said two other people died Monday after Governor Tarcísio Gomes de Freitas had spoken of eight casualties. Ten others were arrested, including the suspected shooter, it was reported.

The operation began Friday, one day after Bastos Reis' murder, with a team of 600 Civil and Military police officers along the São Paulo coast.

The suspected gunman arrested Sunday was identified as Erickson David da Silva, who is reportedly linked to a drug trafficking gang in the region. Despite his detention, local residents have said that the police were “torturing and killing everyone” while promising to kill sixty more people in various favelas in the city, according to local media.

Agência Brasil said the number of deaths caused by military police on duty grew 26% in the first half of this year in the state of São Paulo. The total number of occurrences rose from 123 in the first six months of last year to 155 in the same period this year, it was reported through data from the São Paulo State Public Security Secretariat.

The number of cases has grown despite several police battalions in São Paulo adopting body cameras since 2020. These lapel cameras are attached to police officers' uniforms so that their actions on the streets can be monitored. The aim of these cameras is to reduce police violence, Agência Brasil also explained.

“The 26% increase in the number of people killed by military police on duty in the first half of 2023 compared to the same period last year is alarming and causes great concern. We need to better understand this phenomenon, but everything indicates that the mechanisms for controlling the use of force [such as body cameras and the use of less lethal weapons], which have been so successful since they were implemented in mid-2020, are being weakened,” said Sou da Paz Institute researcher Rafael Rocha.

In an interview with Agência Brasil, Rocha reinforced that body cameras are an instrument, but “that alone is not enough” to solve the problem of police lethality. For him, the current São Paulo government seems to want to reduce the use of the equipment, reducing other instruments that are necessary to analyze the images produced by them. “It seems to us that, in 2023, the strategy is not to remove the cameras but to weaken the control mechanisms, such as commissions and investigations. You erode this structure that supports the analysis and accountability of the material that is produced by body cameras,” he said.

The balance sheet for the semester also shows an increase in the number of people killed by civil police officers on duty. In this case, the increase was 60%, from ten deaths in the first half of 2022 to 16 in the same period this year.

As a result, deaths caused by civilian and military police on duty totaled 171 occurrences in the first six months of this year, against 133 last year.

Adding also the deaths caused by civil and military police officers who were off duty, this total rises to 221 deaths, against 202 in the same period last year.

Between January and June this year, 15 civil and military police officers were killed in the state of São Paulo. Of this total, seven were on duty and eight off duty. In the same period last year, 17 police officers were killed, 13 of whom were off duty.

Las weekend's deployment in Guarujá, called Operation Shield, began after the July 27 murder of Bastos Reis while on patrol.

“It is not possible that the bandit, that the criminal can assault a police officer and get away with it, so we will investigate, we will arrest, we will bring to justice, we will bring to the dock. That is exactly what was done this weekend. I am extremely satisfied with the police action,” said Governor De Freitas.

For the researcher of the Sou da Paz Institute, however, the operation was apparently carried out “without any planning, where the rope, to some extent, was released and the police were free to act in an extremely violent manner and with excessive force that does not seem necessary. And that is unproductive.”

“A well-planned police operation, with the use of intelligence, with clear objectives and a clear target, is much less violent and puts many fewer people at risk, whether in the community or among the police. And that's not what we saw, unfortunately, last weekend in Guarujá,” Rocha added.