Lethal force [electronic resource] police violence and public security in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo

Title from PDF title page (Human Rights Watch, viewed Dec. 22, 2009). ;

"This report was researched and written by Fernando Riberio Delgado, Alan R. and Barbara D. Finberg Fellow in the Americas Division of Human Rights Watch."--P. 118.

"The Brazilian states of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo have been plagued for years by violent crime, much of it carried out by illegal drug-trafficking gangs. Reducing this violence and containing these gangs represents a daunting and at times dangerous challenge for the police forces. Too often, however, rather than curbing the violence, police officers in both states have contributed to it through the unjustifiable use of lethal force. The Rio and São Paulo police have together killed more than 11,000 people since 2003. In nearly all these cases, the officers involved have reported the shootings as legitimate acts of self-defense. In Brazil, these cases are referred to as 'resistance' killings. Given that police officers in both states do face real threats of violence from gang members, many of these 'resistance' killings are likely the result of the use of legitimate force by the police. Many others, however, are clearly not. After a comprehensive, two-year investigation into policing practices in Rio and São Paulo, Human Rights Watch has concluded that a substantial portion of the alleged resistance killings reported in both states are unlawful extrajudicial executions. In addition, some police officers are members of 'death squads' or, in the case of Rio, illegal armed militias, which together are responsible for hundreds of murders each year. In many purported resistance killings and killings by death squads, police officers take steps to cover-up the true nature of the killing, and police investigators often fail to take necessary steps to determine what has taken place, helping to ensure that criminal responsibility cannot be established and that those responsible remain unpunished. Impunity for extrajudicial executions committed by police officers remains the norm. A principal cause of this chronic impunity is the fact that the criminal justice systems in both states rely almost entirely on police investigators to resolve these cases. So long as this arrangement remains unchanged, police impunity will prevail, police killing rates will stay high, and the states' legitimate efforts to curb violence and lawlessness will suffer."--P. [4] of cover.