European helicopters repeatedly circle over the rooftops of Rio de Janeiro’s favelas, bringing death. The state’s civilian police hunt down criminals on the ground from the air and make it rain bullets, as published footage shows. The officers accept that innocent people’s lives are in danger. This was also the case with “Márcio Pereira, the mathematician”, in which a passer-by was seriously injured by bullets from a helicopter.
For a brief moment, something appears in the sky between the houses that the engine noise has long since announced: A police helicopter. “I woke up to this today. Completely normal in a favela,” says Miguel*, still sleepy, into the camera.
As a photojournalist, he documents everyday police violence and its victims in the Jacarezinho favela with simple cell phone pictures taken from home. The case study “Márcio Pereira, the mathematician” from our study “Stop killing us! – Police violence against children and young people and arms trafficking”.
On the night of May 11, 2012, Rio de Janeiro’s civilian police engaged in a chase with drug dealer Márcio José Sabino Pereira. The criminal was in a car and the police flew over the densely populated Favela da Coreia in an Airbus AS-350 helicopter, shooting in pursuit. The police fired more than 100 shots from Belgian-made FN machine guns into the residential area.
The police officers fired despite poor visibility and great aiming uncertainty, as the dialog from the recorded operational film shows. About a year later, the infrared images were published by Globo TV. The shots appear on the footage as white dots flying towards the ground.
Police footage, source: Globo TV
The video recording shows not only the execution of the drug dealer, but also how another person in the car was injured. In addition, several medium-caliber shots with high penetrating power hit residential buildings.
At least one shot hit a local resident on a motorcycle. He was seriously injured and taken to hospital. More could easily have happened: Legal experts rate the operation as disproportionate, as a very high risk of ricochets for the residents was accepted.
Civil war-like conditions
These types of questionable police operations with excessive use of force, in which uninvolved residents are caught in the crossfire, have been on the rise for years. Helicopter missions regularly terrorize the population and often cause civilian casualties due to the high degree of target uncertainty. In May 2019, three people, including a child, were injured in the Favela da Maré in the north of Rio de Janeiro.
Last year, after a helicopter chase, police landed in the Complexo do Salgueiro favela, stormed a house and fired 70 shots, killing 14-year-old João Pedro.
Due to the excessive violence during police operations, residents are repeatedly unable to go to work. Health centers, schools and kindergartens have to close because the gunfire is simply too dangerous. A social project for children and young people in the Maré favela put up signs on the school roofs with instructions for the police: “Escola. Não atire – School. Do not shoot”
No arms exports
In recent years, there has been an increasing number of sensational cases in which innocent people have been injured or killed during police operations with helicopters in densely populated areas. In the first half of 2019 alone, at least 34 police operations were carried out in Rio using helicopters to combat crime; in 11 of these operations, helicopters were used as shooting platforms. Brazilian experts describe the numerous helicopter missions as “terror of the population”.
The police force in Rio de Janeiro is one of the deadliest police forces in Brazil, and not just because of its helicopter operations. Between 2012 and 2020, an average of 933 people were killed by police in the metropolis each year. In comparison: in 2019, 1094 people were killed by police throughout the USA. In the same year, 6375 people fell victim to police violence in Brazil. Even the slightly lower figures in the following year go beyond any comparison with the USA, where police violence is a hotly debated issue.
terre des hommes schweiz in Germany and Switzerland are actively campaigning for stricter criteria for the approval of arms exports and for a stop to all arms exports to countries with serious human rights violations and armed conflicts. (link to the underside of the corrective initiative). The case of Brazil is a clear example of how ongoing serious human rights violations by state actors are not or insufficiently taken into account in the licensing process. It is our role as development and human rights organizations to hold decision-makers in this country accountable. Because when weapons are exported from Switzerland or Germany to Brazil, they contribute to a further escalation of violence in Brazil.
If we build up enough international pressure, Miguel* may soon be able to sleep in without being woken up by police helicopters.
*Name changed
https://www.terredeshommesschweiz.ch/landingpages/waffenexport-studie-21/
