The number of people killed by the police increased significantly in São Paulo, Brazil, during the first two months of 2024, as officials continue to depend on harsh tactics to try to reduce crime. However, this approach has not led to any long-term changes.
Statistics obtained Data from the District Attorney’s Office (Ministério Público Estadual) and reports by GloboNews and g1 indicate a 94% rise in police-caused deaths, from 69 in the first two months of 2023 to 134 in the same period of 2024. State authorities claim that the police are acting in self-defense.
Certainly, many of these deaths occurred during a security operation that started on January 26 in response following the killings of two members of a military police special unit (Rondas Ostensivas Tobias de Aguiar – ROTA) in Baixada Santista, a coastal area of São Paulo state that serves as a base for criminal organizations to transport cocaine through Brazil’s busiest port, Santos.
This operation is a continuation of Operation Shield, which took place between July and September 2023, after another ROTA officer was shot while patrolling the area. During Operation Shield, the police reportedly killed extension 28 civilians , according to a Human Rights Watch report.The ongoing phase, called Operation Summer, still targets those responsible for attacks on police officers, according to the
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São Paulo Secretariat of Public Security . Additionally, police violence has increased: As of now, São Paulo police have killed 43 people during Operation Summer.The government says the operations are aimed at controlling gangs that operate in Baixada Santista. Police have also according to g1.
strengthened their presence and increased patrols in the area. claims However, both governmental and civil society groups have observed reinforced frequent inconsistencies
between police incident reports and witness testimonies during Operation Summer, which intensifies concerns about police misconduct. For example, an investigation by the São Paulo Police Ombudsman (Ouvideria de Polícia de São Paulo) accused the police of five extrajudicial executions since January, as well as torture and home invasions. Ombudsman Cláudio Silva has described the operation as displaying “ allegations tones of revenge report Furthermore,police have been accused of taking the bodies of victims of police shootings to the hospital to avoid proper forensic examination at the scene. A team of forensic experts employed by.”
Human Rights Watch police reported similar patterns of investigative neglect during Operation Shield. InSight Crime Analysis Repetitive militarized operations have not reduced organized crime in Brazil.
Indeed, similar operations in response to murdered police date back decades, but have not slowed the development of criminal groups in the country. According to Bruno Paes Manso, an expert on Brazilian organized crime at the University of São Paulo’s Center for the Study of Violence (Núcleo de Estudos da Violência – NEV) and author of several books on criminal organizations in Brazil, this practice began after the death of a policeman in Rio de Janeiro in 1964.
“The police promised to kill ten criminals for every officer killed,” Paes Manso said.
However, the high number of killings during Operation Summer seems to have taken the police force’s tradition to new levels. And the continued support for the operation from São Paulo’s governor, Tarcísio de Freitas, and secretary of public security, Guilherme Derrite, suggests official backing for the practice.
Camila Nunes Dias, a sociologist who specializes in organized crime at Brazil’s Federal University of ABC, told InSight Crime, "It's a logic of confrontation, of open violence due to a political choice also made by the current governor."
According to studies, instead of making police safer, these operations are likely to
increase the number of police killed. When governments depend only on militarized anti-crime tactics, organized crime groups have little reason to negotiate and see violence as a more viable
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Paes Manso believes that an anti-drug trafficking policy resulting in more deaths is counterproductive. increase He emphasized the need for an economic approach to reduce the economic power of these groups through intelligence work and to decrease the homicides caused by drug trafficking problems in Brazil. He believes that the police are doing the opposite, "They’re betting on a war. They’re just creating disorder and confusion in these territories." tool.
Baixada Santista, on the other hand, remains a strategic territory for organized criminal groups like the First Capital Command (Primeiro Comando da Capital –
) due to its proximity to the Port of Santos, which is one of the
main exit points PCCfor cocaine destined for Europe. The state of São Paulo, Brazil, saw a sharp rise in police killings in the first two months of 2024 as authorities continue to rely on repressive tactics in an attempt to combat crime, a strategy that has not yet produced any long-term results. Featured image: Protest against civilian deaths under Operation Shield in Baixada Santista. Credit: Allison Sales / AFP for cocaine heading to Europe.
Featured image: Protest against civilian deaths under Operation Shield, in Baixada Santista. Credit: Allison Sales / AFP