The Jacarezinho Massacre was the most deadly police operation in the history of Rio de Janeiro.
Executed by the Civil Police, who were serving arrest warrants
against suspects of luring children into drug trafficking,
the action killed at least 28 people with evidence
of extrajudicial executions and tampering with crime scenes.
In several reports, unarmed suspects were killed in their homes
or in front of the very children the police say they want to protect.
But obviously those who operate above any law or Federal Constitution
without any consequences or punishment will support and justify the action.
No matter how progressive some cops try to present themselves,
presenting themselves as critics of the "war on drugs", "leftist" or even "anti-fascists",
they all work to sustain their impunity while they arrest and kill to "maintain order".
Chief Da Cunha, for example, became known on the Internet for recording police operations
where he arrested both young men in favelas as well as organized crime bosses.
His proposition is to "change police mentality" and the population's perception of the police.
"We have to practice law enforcement in a serious and polite way...
not to awaken in my partner, in my brother, the desire to attack me with words."
But when the subject is police lethality, everything is justifiable.
"50 cops arrived, it's going to shit.
Would the state say 'let's come back later'?
The state doesn't back up, the state pushes forward."
But it's not always like the Youtuber Police-Chief says.
The state also knows when to back off and avoid a massacre when the victim is one of their own.
In a CORE operation with the 'caveirão', also in Jacarezinho in 2017,
cops retreated and aborted the operation after one of them was shot.
CORE is the same group that acted in the massacre of May 5, 2021.
All this was caught on film by a TV network.
"Police officers get ready for the confrontation..."
"Shot, shot. Come back, come back..."
The police needs impunity to act.
The laws and the Constitution that we are obliged to respect are optional for them.
And to that end, it is worth turning anyone into a guilty criminal and suspending their right of defense
in the name of a death sentence just for being on the way of a police operation.
"Good people, workers, stay in a scene like this?"
"Those who stand there to fight are not flower deliverers, they are not normal people".
"We started the operation, we came to enforce the law,
"it's our country, our city, we are the state, first man dies..."
"ONU's Human Rights classifies it as a slaughter."
It is also worth trying to justify that it is "human nature" to only respect brute force.
"We enforce the order, if police's not there,
human beings don't respect anything but force."
"When there is a police strike, within 24 hours, 48 hours,
there is looting and trafficking is already increasing..."
Unfortunately for the chief, the data show something different.
In 2020, the Supreme Court prohibited police actions
in the slums of Rio at the beginning of the pandemic,
after several disastrous operations such as the one that killed João Vitor, 18,
during a food delivery in Cidade de Deus
"Juan Pedro was yesterday, brother, that minor was... we don't know what calm is."
"It was a genocide, they come to kill."
And also the operation that, also in May, interrupted a humanitarian action
in Complexo do Alemão and killed 13 people.
After the suspension of the operations determined by the STF,
the average number of deaths dropped 70% in the following month,
in addition to a reduction of up to 48% in other crimes against life and property.
Without the police there was not so much violence. And also there was not so much invasion of houses,
damage to cars, houses and other property damaged in police operations.
"Are you going to strike again? Are you going to strike again?"
"My car, man... What is that? No!"
So it doesn't matter whether the police is civil, military, federal,
highway, progressive or supposedly "against fascism".
Their policy is to kill with impunity, to enforce the law of the elite,
of patriarchy, and of white supremacy.
To maintain order, the police tramples the law itself
and the lives of the poor and excluded people they claim to defend.
Their law is the exception.
Demanding a "better police" or punishment for torturers
and murderers will not solve the problem.
The prison system and the whole punitive logic are part of the problem.
We want an end to police and the capitalist,
patriarchal, racist society they protect.
"Justice! Justice! Justice!"