In defense of the criminals

The script is already well known in Brazil: a military police officer is shot dead by heavily armed criminals who prevent patrol in a territory overtaken by drug trafficking. The case goes unnoticed by the traditional media, no federal government authority speaks out, and civil society entities remain silent. The police retaliate, go on a manhunt for the criminals, are met with gunfire again, and the operation ends with casualties. Then the defense of the criminals takes the stage.

The most recent episode occurred in Guarujá, on the southern coast of São Paulo. Officer Patrick Bastos Reis, 30, was killed with a shot to the chest. A native of Santa Maria in the state of Rio Grande do Sul, he left behind a wife and a three-year-old son. Reis was part of the Rondas Ostensivas Tobias de Aguiar (ROTA), the elite troop from São Paulo. He earned a salary of R$ 6,000 (US$ 1.225) to risk his life daily. Last week, he was in the patrol car that was patrolling the edge of a hill when the car was machine-gunned from a distance. Another passenger, a corporal, was also shot but is out of danger.

The next day, the Public Security Department initiated Operation Shield, deploying 600 men to the Baixada Santista – initially for 30 days, but the local force will be expanded with the hiring of 120 new police officers. Within a week, 84 people were arrested – 30 wanted by justice and 54 caught red-handed, carrying rifles and pistols, in addition to half a ton of drugs. There were confrontations in various parts of the coast. 16 people died. Two police officers were shot in sudden attacks – one female officer shot in the back at a bakery narrowly escaped death.

The preliminary result of the operation in the region, where organized crime has spread over the past decade, should be celebrated in a country that has 53 cataloged criminal factions.

There are several indications, including geographical ones, that this region in Baixada Santista is heading towards a situation similar to the drama of Rio de Janeiro. In Guarujá, the number of thefts and burglaries increased by 30% this year. More than a hundred cars have been stolen since January, and the city recorded its first bank robbery after nine years. Barricades were set up in some alleys controlled by drug traffickers, beaches are empty of tourists, and businesses have shut down. The number of vacation homes for sale has skyrocketed.

Idolizing Criminals

A vast left-wing front rose against the police this week. Ministers from the Workers’ Party (PT) government, led by Flávio Dino (Justice and Public Security), decided to criticize the “excesses” of the Military Police during the operation. “There was an immediate reaction that does not seem, at this moment, to be proportional to the crime that was committed,” Dino said. The Secretary of Human Rights, Silvio Almeida, who has never visited the political prisoners from January 8th, located just a few kilometers from his office in Brasília, gave an outraged interview: “We cannot use this as a way to attack and violate the human rights of other people. There must be a limit to things.”

The Brazilian Bar Association (OAB), which to date has also not sent a representative to the Papuda or Colmeia (women’s) prisons to check on the conditions of the political prisoners from the January 8th protests, made a statement. “The people who were murdered had no connection with drug trafficking,” said Patrícia Almeida, from the São Paulo OAB. The Public Prosecutor’s Office opened an investigation into allegations of human rights violations.

The newsrooms of the traditional media flooded the headlines with reports of a massacre of innocents, cases of torture, and street dwellers being executed in the open air. The issue was treated as severe police violence by dozens of columnists and commentators — one of them suggested that the case be taken to international courts.

The version that the police stormed the alleys shooting indiscriminately and tortured residents doesn’t hold up. On Wednesday, the 2nd, the program “Oeste Sem Filtro” revealed the heavy criminal records of 11 of the 16 identified deceased. Cases include homicide, kidnapping, illegal possession of firearms, drug trafficking, and some were serving sentences in an open regime.

Security camera footage from the coast and videos posted on their own Instagram profiles show the criminals, heavily armed, parading through the streets and mocking the presence of the Military Police. The rifle used in one of the attacks on the police was seized.

The person who delivered the fatal shot to the Rota officer is named Erickson David da Silva, 28 years old. He was advised by a lawyer to record a video criticizing “the police’s killing of innocents” before turning himself in. He arrived at the police station smiling, accompanied by his mother, and denied committing the crime. He has already been through the custody hearing at the Santos Court and has been ordered into preventive detention until the end of the month.

Politics

There’s a latent political component to this episode. Neither Lula’s government nor its supporters in the ‘old press’ newsrooms hide that the governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas, is the target to be taken down after the ineligibility of Jair Bolsonaro. Not by chance, a columnist made a point to write this week: the governor is getting closer to “Bolsonaro’s fascism” and decided to support the police to gain supporters from the “far right.”

Tarcísio stated he won’t back down. “Justice will be served. No attack on our officers will go unpunished,” he said. “It’s a situation of conflict, of organized crime trying to maintain its territory, which is in agony because it’s facing significant suffocation. It’s retaliating. This fight against crime always has collateral damage.”

Another example of the political weight of the action in the state of São Paulo is that, also this week, there were intense confrontations in Rio de Janeiro and Bahia. In the Complexo da Penha, ten people died, and seven military rifles were seized, powerful enough to take down helicopters and target armored vehicles. In Bahia, 19 people died in a shootout against the police. Why the difference in handling the cases? Because the governor of Bahia, Jerônimo Rodrigues, is from PT (Workers’ Party).

This time, Lula remained silent — perhaps advised by some counselor, or perhaps because his previous disastrous statements on public safety have already caused enough damage. But reminders of some episodes are inevitable: he has downplayed theft crimes several times — from cell phones to bread rolls —, acted as an intermediary for the kidnappers on a hunger strike involving businessman Abilio Diniz, dismissed a plot by the First Command of the Capital (PCC) to assassinate Senator Sergio Moro, among other hats with dubious messages he has donned.

One cannot separate the rise in crime from the erosion of moral values — the criminal is not the victim, and crime can never triumph. The message must be clear: there is no territory where the police don’t enter. The Minister of Justice and Public Security, Flávio Dino, also ventured into a slum, in the Complexo da Maré, the most dangerous in Rio de Janeiro — without an escort and without any police emblem.