The Palmeiras community, in Complexo do Salgueiro, a cluster of favelas in the Greater Rio municipality of São Gonçalo, became the scene of a crime that exposes the brutal face of Rio de Janeiro state public security policy. On Friday, March 27, amid a water shortage in the favela, Andressa Nogueira do Nascimento was executed after leaving her home with one of her children to buy water for her family. The afternoon was marked by the deafening silence of authorities in the face of the loss of life. What followed her death was a spectacle of state omission and abandonment, bordering on sadism.
Nascimento’s death did not occur “in the heat of a confrontation.” It was the result of a disastrous and lethal action by the agents present, during a moment of apparent calm. A resident who preferred to remain anonymous described with precision the trail of blood left by the police incursion:
“The operation started at around five in the morning. It was intense. Shootouts all day long. At around three in the afternoon Andressa thought that it had ended, because she no longer heard gunshots or saw anything. Since water access is difficult over there, she went out to buy water because there was none left for the children to drink. Just as she was returning, a car from that police force [Federal Highway Police, PRF by its Portuguese acronym] stopped on the highway near the corner of her house. They saw her walking hand in hand with two children. As she approached a small grocery store, they started shooting. A shot hit her. She fell and stayed there, in front of one of her children, for hours and hours.”
The War Machine and Political Fear: Omission and Contempt
Help was nearby. While Nascimento lay on the ground in the favela, still alive, what followed was the deliberate refusal by police officers to provide assistance. Videos recorded at the scene show PRF agents ignoring her family’s desperate pleas. Even with an ambulance parked a few meters away, at the Viaduto da Central, not a single agent lifted a finger to call for rescue. “They simply did not call for help. They withheld aid,” stated one of the voices following the case. The neglect led to the Salgueiro resident’s death.
When the officers were confronted by Nascimento’s husband about their failure to assist his wife, the federal agents ordered the residents themselves to remove the body, now lifeless. Such an order, however, ignores basic protocols that must be followed in homicide cases, such as preserving the crime scene to ensure forensic investigators can gather solid evidence. Faced with the residents’ refusal to disturb the body and the scene, in part to prevent evidence from being destroyed or lost, the agents simply got into their vehicle and abandoned the location, leaving Nascimento lying on the ground.
It was the family itself that, in the midst of despair and under the gaze of traumatized children, had to arrange a private vehicle to remove Nascimento from the area.
Ver essa foto no Instagram
Do Nascimento’s murder is a reflection of an electoral calendar stained with blood. In São Gonçalo, large-scale operations are frequently denounced as political marketing tools or shows of force in the lead-up to elections. “A lot of votes are won with this fallacy of public security,” said a source who is now providing support to the family.
From the early hours of that day, the favela was surrounded by vehicles from the Special Patrol and Crowd Control Battalion (RECON) of the Rio de Janeiro Military Police (PMERJ) and the PRF. Initially, the official narrative was that the operation was carried out to remove barricades. However, whenever police go in to remove them, they arrive with trucks, tractors, backhoes and other appropriate machinery. This time, that was not the case. There were only armed officers present, without the tools for barricade removal: PRF armored vehicles and federal and state agents.
The Legacy of Pain and the Fight for Justice
Andressa Nogueira do Nascimento was a mother of five children. Her death leaves a void that no public security policy can fill. The Gaia Space Association has been the only source of support for a family that was shattered by the very State that should protect it.
What happened in Complexo do Salgueiro demands an immediate and rigorous response from institutions. It cannot be accepted that public agents open fire on a woman walking hand in hand with children, as she left her home to buy water, which was unavailable in the favela. Having done so, under no circumstances should the officers have turned their backs on the body lying on the ground and driven away.
Nascimento’s blood cries out for justice. It is the cry of a community that has grown tired of receiving bullets instead of water. It is the cry of a favela burying a mother who fell victim to a war she did not choose.
*Margarida Martins is a pseudonym chosen to preserve the author’s identity.