A man shot dead in front of an Oxxo store and a man thrown from the top of a bridge once again call into question the training of military police officers in the state of São Paulo. From January to December 3 this year, 712 people were killed by military police officers in the state of São Paulo, according to data from the Public Prosecutor's Office.
This figure is 54.8% higher than that recorded for the whole of 2023, when 460 people were killed. If we compare the statistics for the same period, there were 409 deaths up to December 3 last year, an increase of 74% compared to the same period this year.
Of the murders recorded so far, 608 were committed by police officers on duty, and 104 by off-duty officers. The total number represents an average of two people killed by police every day.
But when does a military police officer become a killer? Experts Brasil de Fato interviewed associate the birth of the homicidal disposition with shooting practice, that is, the moment when the individual is exposed to the practical exercise of the profession and shaped by the values shared by veteran officers, dubbed “dinosaurs.”
At this point, the police officer learns who the targets are, internalizes what their aspirations should be, and tests the signs of good behavior instilled on a daily basis. The combination of these factors will give life to the “good cop,” the one who is not intimidated by the law and believes in the use of lethal violence as a tool to curb crimes.
In São Paulo, a police officer recognized among his peers as an example is called Billy, a reference to Billy the Kid, the criminal who became famous for allegedly killing one person for every 21 years of his life in the 19th century in the United States. For federal deputy Eduardo Bolsonaro (Liberal Party), it's an “expression of good humor,” as he posted on Facebook in 2018.
Dennis Pacheco, a researcher at the Brazilian Public Security Forum (FBSP, in Portuguese), explains that training is not necessarily the moment when abusive practices are established. “The police training curriculum has changed a lot over time and is not in accordance with these [violent] practices. Abusive practices come from a later moment, when the police officer goes out on the street with his colleagues,” he says.
Words that become real violence
In addition to the values and behaviors adopted in police officers’ daily professional life, there are speeches reinforced by the governor of São Paulo and secretary of Public Security defining how far police officers are authorized to go in confrontations. Guilherme Derrite, the state's police chief, even said in an interview on a YouTube channel in May 2021 that he was removed from the Rota (Tobias de Aguiar Ostensive Rounds) because of the excessive number of civilian deaths while on duty.
“The real reason? Because I killed a lot of thieves. That's the real thing, it's simple. I engaged in many shootouts and I always shot back. Anyone who does so is subject to it. I exchanged fire several times, one after the other, and this ended up bothering someone. The order [to remove him] came down from above, a political issue: 'Get Derrite out of Rota'. And I was asked to leave.”
In the same vein, amid the deaths caused by Operation Shield in the region known as Baixada Santista, Tarcísio made fun of the accusations of lethality and abuses committed by police officers made to the United Nations Human Rights Council.
“Our intention is to protect society. We are doing what is right, with great determination and professionalism. Honestly, I’m OK with what is being done. People can go to the UN, the Justice League or whatever, because I don't give a damn,” Freitas said in March.
However, these statements have become public security policies. The Olho Vivo program, created in 2020, which equipped São Paulo police officers with portable cameras that record their routines while on duty, was an important element in reducing the number of deaths by the Military Police.
A FBSP study showed that between 2019 and 2022 there was a 62.7% decrease in police fatalities, with an emphasis on units equipped with cameras. In the same vein, a study by the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV, in Portuguese) revealed that areas that adopted technology reduced the number of deaths resulting from police intervention 57% more than other areas.
The program, however, was dismantled under the Tarcísio de Freitas (Republican Party) government, according to complaints from human rights organizations. Conectas, for example, denounced the dismantling at the UN Human Rights Council in June of this year, characterized by a reduction in the storage time of the videos and the manual activation of the recording. In this context, Tarcísio went so far as to say that “there is no effectiveness of bodycams in citizen security” and that he would no longer buy the equipment.
The researcher argues that, in the face of all these positions and changes in public programs, “police officers at the top feel a change in temperature and start to act in accordance with these new institutional expectations.”
“This encouragement from the governor and the secretary of public security creates a dissonance. The police officer goes through a kind of training that follows the Democratic Rule of Law, but when he starts to work, the messages and signals he receives are completely different. They are encouraged to act in ways that are totally different and contrary to their training. The police officer will spend much more time working with colleagues and exposed to institutional expectations than in training,” says Pacheco.
He adds that discourse “is not just a set of words”. What Tarcísio de Freitas and Guilherme Derrite say has “consequences for the way the police operate.” “These discourses oppose the policing model that was being implemented before, which was a model that was focused on controlling police activity, and which ended up being lost because there was an intense and intentional dismantling of this model,” he says.
Racism
If the number of people killed by the Military Police in São Paulo has risen, the number of deaths among Black people has been even higher. A study by the Sou da Paz Institute based on data from the Public Security Secretariat, published in October, showed that from January to August this year, the rate of Black people killed by the Civil and Military Police in São Paulo rose by 83% compared to the same period in 2023. At the same time, the rate of white victims increased by 59%. This occurred in a context where Black people make up 41% of the population of São Paulo, and white people are 57.8%, according to the 2022 Census.
Thales Vieira, one of the directors of the Observatory of Whiteness, says that police lethality “targets” Black bodies. “In Black bodies, there isn't a progressive use of violence, and the police go straight to lethality. Black bodies are killable bodies, those bodies whose repercussions of death are not equal to the repercussions of the death of white middle-class bodies,” says Vieira.
A specialist in critical studies of whiteness and race relations, Vieira explains that racism is a system that acts both in the material structure, such as unequal access to opportunities, and in the construction of consciousness, assigning Black bodies a low value.
“Therefore, in a society structured by racism, non-white bodies have a lower value. They are killable bodies. They are bodies unworthy of life. And the police, as the armed force of this racist structure, are the ones who directly operationalize this through their lethality,” he explains.
“The message that must be given to the population is that it is unacceptable for a body to be thrown off a bridge. It is unacceptable for violence to be the first approach the police use to deal with their citizens,” she concludes.
Edited by: Martina Medina
