Police Using Lethal Force in Brazil

This is a summery of the article, the full article can be found here: http://www.hrw.org/en/reports/2009/12/08/lethal-force

I. Executive Summary

The Brazilian states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo have been plagued for years by violent crime, much of it carried out by illegal drug-trafficking gangs. In Rio, these heavily-armed gangs effectively control hundreds of neighborhoods and are largely responsible for the metropolitan region having one of the highest homicide rates in the hemisphere. In São Paulo, despite an encouraging drop in the homicide rate over the past decade, gang violence also continues to pose a major threat to public security.

In both states, criminal gangs have carried out brazen attacks, often in broad daylight, against the police, as well as against rival gang members. In May 2006, for example, the First Command of the Capital (Primeiro Comando da Capital) drug faction launched a series of assaults against police posts in São Paulo, gunning down 43 police officers. More recently, in October 2009, 12 people died in a single day during a turf battle between the rival Red Command (Comando Vermelho) and Friends of Friends (Amigos dos Amigos) factions, including two police officers whose helicopter was shot down by one of the gangs. A third officer from the helicopter died in the hospital days later.

Reducing violent crime and containing these gangs represents a daunting and at times dangerous challenge for the police forces. Too often, however, rather than curbing the violence, police officers in both states have contributed to it through the unwarranted use of lethal force.

In nearly all cases in Rio and São Paulo in which police have killed people while on duty, the officers involved have reported the shootings as legitimate acts of self-defense, claiming they shot only in response to gunfire from criminal suspects. In Brazil, these cases are referred to as “resistance” killings. Given that police officers in both states do often face real threats of violence from gang members, many of these “resistance” killings are likely the result of the use of legitimate force by the police. Many others, however, are clearly not.

The numbers alone are alarming. The Rio and São Paulo police have together killed more than 11,000 people since 2003. In the state of Rio, alleged resistance killings by police reached a record high of 1,330 in 2007. While reported killings decreased to 1,137 in 2008, the number remained alarmingly elevated, as it was the third highest on record for Rio. The number of police “resistance” killings in São Paulo, while less than in Rio, is also comparatively high: over the past five years, for example, there were more police “resistance” killings in São Paulo state (2,176) than police killings of suspects in all of South Africa (1,623), a country with a much higher homicide rate than São Paulo.

After a comprehensive, two-year investigation into policing practices in Rio and São Paulo, Human Rights Watch has concluded that a substantial portion of the alleged resistance killings reported in both states are in fact extrajudicial executions. While this unlawful use of force by police is particularly pronounced in Rio, it is also a very serious problem in São Paulo. In addition, some police officers are members of “death squads” (grupos de extermínio) or, in the case of Rio, illegal armed militias, which together are responsible for hundreds of murders each year.

In many purported “resistance” killings and killings by death squads, police officers take steps to cover up the true nature of the killing, and police investigators often fail to take necessary steps to determine what has taken place, helping to ensure that criminal responsibility cannot be established and that those responsible remain unpunished.

Criminal justice officials, including the attorneys general of both states, recognize that unlawful police killings are a serious problem. Several key public prosecutors insist that extrajudicial executions and subsequent cover ups are commonplace. Indeed, both states have implemented some measures to curb police abuses, such as creating police ombudsman’s offices in the 1990s and, more recently, in the case of São Paulo, establishing a training program in low-lethal defensive policing techniques (known as the “Giraldi method”). In São Paulo, these measures may have contributed to a drop in reported police killings from their overall peak in the 1990s, but they have not come close to eliminating the problem. In Rio, they appear to have had virtually no impact at all.

The principal reason these reform measures have fallen short is that they have not tackled the fundamental issue of accountability. Police officers responsible for unlawful killings in Rio and São Paulo are rarely brought to justice. Although there has recently been some important progress in the reining of certain high-profile militias in Rio as well as in the arrest of several death squad members in São Paulo, impunity for extrajudicial executions committed by police officers remains the norm.

While many factors may contribute to this chronic impunity, one in particular stands out: the criminal justice systems in both states currently rely almost entirely on police investigators to resolve these cases. In other words, the police are left to police themselves. This arrangement is a recipe for continued abuse. So long as it remains unchanged, police impunity will prevail, police homicide rates will stay high, and the states’ legitimate efforts to curb violence and lawlessness will suffer.

In Brazil, as in many other countries, there is a common misperception that human rights and public security are conflicting priorities. Some believe that investigating and prosecuting police abuses would weaken the hand of law enforcement, and thereby strengthen criminal gangs. They are wrong. Rather than undermining the state police forces, fuller accountability would force them to do their job more effectively, and benefit all of society.

Human Rights Watch conducted in-depth interviews with more than 40 state and federal government officials. These included the attorneys general as well as key prosecutors and the police ombudsmen in both states. In Rio, we met with the governor, the mayor, and top police officials. In São Paulo, we also met with top police officials. We also interviewed multiple families of victims of police violence, witnesses, and civil society groups.