License-to-Kill Policing in Brazil

[poikilotrm]

Words fail me. There are liberals in this country who would love to do this here.


License-to-Kill Policing to Get a Trial Run in Rio de Janeiro
David Biller
Dec 22 2018, 4:00 AM
https://www.bloombergquint.com/business ... gs.eDDPPAA

(Bloomberg) -- Teams of marksmen next year will patrol swaths of Rio de Janeiro with high-powered weapons and a license to kill, said a security adviser to Governor-elect Wilson Witzel.

As many as 120 sharpshooters will accompany police incursions into the slums of Brazil’s postcard city to exterminate gun-toting criminals, according to Flavio Pacca, a longtime associate of Witzel who the governor-elect’s press office said will join the administration. The shooters will work in pairs -- one to pull the trigger, one to monitor conditions and videotape deaths.

“The protocol will be to immediately neutralize, slaughter anyone who has a rifle,” Witzel, a federal judge and former Brazilian marine, told reporters in Brasilia on Dec. 12. “Whoever has a rifle isn’t worried about other people’s lives, they’re ready to eliminate anyone who crosses their path. This is a grave problem, not just in Rio de Janeiro, but also in other states.”

Rio has long exemplified Brazil’s charm and its chaos, and what happens there echoes at home and abroad. Like President-elect Jair Bolsonaro, Witzel cruised to victory in October promising a brutal crackdown on criminals who make daily life a harrowing ordeal. Rio will be a proving ground for Bolsonaro’s philosophy of maximum force -- and whether law enforcement devolves into a storm of extrajudicial killings.
Witzel’s Eyes

Witzel declined Bloomberg’s interview requests and declined to comment on the sharpshooter plan Pacca described.

Rio’s homicides last year surged to an eight-year high of 5,346 and robberies and muggings have more than doubled since 2011. In February, President Michel Temer put the army in control of security through year-end and Witzel, as he takes over, intends to seek out the fight.

Witzel will create a security council that answers to him directly and envisions a web of surveillance and control. He plans public-private partnerships to purchase as many as 30,000 security cameras, according to his press office. This month, he traveled to Israel to visit Elbit Systems Ltd. and Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd., both of which work on drones. Pacca said the unmanned aircraft will gather facial images of drug traffickers holding weapons so police will have evidence to arrest a suspect when he emerges from his neighborhood.
Distant Death

Pacca, a police officer himself and a regular attendee at Witzel’s transition meetings, said groups of 20 policemen will begin undergoing month-long marksman training as soon as March. After they can kill at 600 meters, they will typically clear the way into favelas, where many residents live under the deadly sway of drug traffickers. Gangs often position roadblocks and lookouts to impede police and rival gangs.

Marksmen will alternate, with one shooting and one spotting targets and filming so as to prove a person deserved killing, Pacca said in Bloomberg’s Rio office. Society and jurists are shifting their views of what constitutes “imminent danger’’ that justifies lethal force, he said, and targets don’t need to be actively shooting.

“That concept is changing; it’s not for nothing that Bolsonaro was elected, not for nothing that Witzel was elected,’’ Pacca said. He pointed to a jewelry-store thief who this month used an octogenarian as a human shield during his escape. As he stumbled, officers shot him dead at point-blank range. “The people gave the police an ovation. That’s what you’re going to see.’’

Bolsonaro has said cops who kill should be given medals and has promised they will be legally protected. Days after the election, video showed Rio police loading the limp, bleeding bodies of two young men accused of drug trafficking into the bed of a pick-up. Bystanders cheered, with one yelling Bolsonaro’s name.

“The NGOs, human rights activists and United Nations will have a fit,” Alexandre Frota, a congressman-elect, said on Twitter while sharing the video. “But the cleansing must be done.’’

Suelen Souza, 41, sells stuffed potatoes at the foot of the Dona Marta favela. This month, a police officer was shot in the neck in Dona Marta and frequent gun battles have caused the value of Souza’s apartment just below to fall by 40 percent. She said Witzel’s offensive may make it safe for her daughters to play in the plaza again.

“I prefer the criminals get slaughtered instead of the criminals slaughtering us,” she said.

Her husband, engineer Jose Olympio Souza, said, “a shock of morality showing the government has strength -- not indefinitely, but initially -- would be good.”
Death in the Rain

Even before Witzel, Rio police increasingly resorted to force. More people died at their hands during the first 11 months of 2018 than any year since state records begin in 2003. The 1,444 dead represent a 39 percent increase from 2017.

Not all are justified. On a rainy September day, a 26-year-old man awaited his wife and two children in their hillside favela that looks out over Copacabana beach. Police mistook his umbrella for a rifle and shot him, according to local press reports. He died en route to hospital, and photos in local media showed pages of his employment booklet ringed with blood.

“The Bolsonaro-Witzel duo is a concern for those who value democracy, value human rights, value the lives of people in the favelas.” said Julita Lemgruber, coordinator of the Center for Security and Citizenship Studies at the city’s Candido Mendes University.

Spokespeople for Bolsonaro didn’t return calls and messages Friday seeking comment.
Official Impunity

General Richard Nunes, Rio’s acting security secretary, said violence alone can’t solve the issues and that the military has strengthened institutions and recovered operational capacity with training plus new equipment. Since April, when the military intervention gained traction, muggings, homicides and armed robbery of stores declined as soldiers became a constant presence, Nunes said.

“If we don’t address public security with a broader vision, instead of thinking things get resolved by tactical, direct confrontation, the tendency is for indicators to worsen,” Nunes said. He called the jump in police killings this year “totally undesirable and unexpected.”
‘So Violent Now’

As long as police face few consequences for killing people, the cycle of violence will remain, according to Daniel Wilkinson, Americas managing director at Human Rights Watch.

“We’re very concerned 2019 will only deteriorate further,” Wilkinson said. “This isn’t naivete about the problem; this comes from understanding what a serious problem this is for members of communities where you have gangs, and for police officers who have a very difficult job.”

Celia da Silva, a single mother of four who sells bottled water at traffic lights, said traffickers walk around her favela brazenly shouldering rifles. Her daughter was mugged three weeks ago by four men in the neighborhood below.

“I hope for a new change, with it so violent now in this city and this country,” she said. “It’s not just the little corner where I live.”

Crime pervades Rio: Stray bullets strike schoolchildren. Residents of means are averse to conspicuous consumption. Commuters alter routes to avoid danger and the price of car insurance spiked with the surge in carjacking.

[Capt. Link.]

Words fail me. There are liberals in this country who would love to do this here.

Are you sure your on the right side of this turkey shoot. I've lived in Rio and the crime in and around the favelas is legendary.

-CL

[poikilotrm]

Dude, the moment you let a society go Judge Dredd is the moment freedom dies completely. Not only that, but the idea that cops can be trusted with this degree of power is insane. They’ll be shooting ex-wives, romantic rivals, drug gang rivals, doing hits for money, you name it.

Nope. Nah ah. Not happening. We have cops in the USA who throw grenades into cribs on purpose, who shoot little boys in the back as they lie still on the floor, and who murder young girls on camera, and who shoot through walls like they are in a combat zone to kill a sleeping child AND THEY FACE NO JUSTICE. Hell, their CLEOs praise and shield them.

They need no more power. They need much less.

Edited to add: Want to reduce crime in Brazil? Legalize concealed carry.

[Capt. Link.]

I'm confused by this statement:

Words fail me. There are liberals in this country who would love to do this here.

Why would the liberals go after criminals? that would be a first.

You have little idea of what crime is like in that area of the world. You can't compare it to anything in the USA.

[Capt. Link.]

The article you posted is mostly propaganda with some truths and much optimism. These vertical enclaves will eat anything that wonders into them.The logistics to feed them trained personel would be impossible.

Pacca, a police officer himself and a regular attendee at Witzel’s transition meetings, said groups of 20 policemen will begin undergoing month-long marksman training as soon as March. After they can kill at 600 meters, they will typically clear the way into favelas, where many residents live under the deadly sway of drug traffickers. Gangs often position roadblocks and lookouts to impede police and rival gangs.

[poikilotrm]

Why would the liberals go after criminals? that would be a first.

You no grok. The cops see a man with a rifle, they kill him. Libs would certainly cheer the murder of criminals, and you would be one. Gun owners = criminals to libs. Get it? Extrajudicial execution on the spot for you and your kin. All they have to do is pass a law, and hey presto! You're a criminal!

Get it now?

You have little idea of what crime is like in that area of the world. You can't compare it to anything in the USA.

That is as foolish a statement as it is presumptuous. I have been a lot of places, and seen a lot of stuff. I love freedom, you don't. I want lawful and strongly restrained government, you don't. Once you start reaping what you've sown, you'll change your tune there, Solzhenitsyn.

[Capt. Link.]

All they have to do is pass a law, and hey presto! You're a criminal!

Please tell me where in the world this does not apply.

I'm not in disagreement in that power can be abused but choose to live a paranoia free life and wait until I'm needed.

The world may be going to hell in a hand-basket but you don't need to board early someone will save you a seat.

-CL