Brazilian human rights and victims' groups raise alarms about the record levels of deaths at police hands in the state of 17.2 million people, with 1,075 slain in the first seven months of the year, according to official figures.
In this July 23, 2019 photo, pedestrians walk on a footbridge that leads into the Mare complex slum in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. Brazilian human rights and victims' groups are raising alarms about the record levels of deaths at police hands in the state of 17.2 million people.
That echoes the radical anti-crime stance that helped Bolsonaro win the presidency last year — ending a four-election string of leftist victories — and many Brazilians see the police-caused deaths as a regrettable but acceptable price for cracking down on rampant crime. Meanwhile, official reports show a 23% drop in homicides, a 22% fall in auto thefts and a 9% jump in drug seizures.
The number of police killings has reached the highest levels since records began being kept in 2003. According to Crossfire, a growing number of people are hit, often killed, each year by stray bullets — some fired by criminals, some by police. It said there were 225 deaths by stray bullets last year and more than 100 so far this year.
“My son wasn’t an adult or a trafficker. He wasn’t anything like that, but he lived with fear every time he saw the police,” Rozário Junior said. “I can’t be quiet because if so, Kauã would be just one more statistic.”“We aren’t warriors here, we are survivors. We have to speak, denounce, complain about what is happening,” said Bárbara Nascimento, a coordinator of the group Stop Killing Us, which emerged in the Vidigal favela.
The hard line doesn’t bother people such as Sonia Manzano, a member of a far-right group that advocates a stronger military role in Brazilian life.
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