{"id":16950,"date":"2014-07-23T12:45:39","date_gmt":"2014-07-23T15:45:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=16950"},"modified":"2015-12-23T22:02:46","modified_gmt":"2015-12-24T01:02:46","slug":"another-one-counting-murders-on-the-outskirts-of-the-marvelous-city","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=16950","title":{"rendered":"\u201cAnother One\u201d: Counting Murders on the Outskirts of the Marvelous City"},"content":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas\"\"<\/em><\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

While the Brazilian national team suffered the worst defeat of all time, Mag\u00e9<\/a>\u2014my hometown, located in the greater metropolitan region<\/a> of Rio de Janeiro\u2014grieved yet another murder. The sadness and outrage\u00a0experienced while counting Germany’s goals are metaphors of a much greater tragedy: the apparent ineffectiveness of state public security policies<\/a>\u00a0on the outskirts of the state capital.<\/p>\n

On the eve of Germany\u2019s triumph over Brazil, all establishments in a neighborhood in central Mag\u00e9 were ordered to be closed; this was the mourning imposed by a criminal group for the death of a young man. On the same day, I spoke to a cousin who lives in the area\u00a0where they imposed the curfew.<\/p>\n

I asked my cousin how the situation was in\u00a0his neighborhood. \u201cIt\u2019s bad. In the last few days there was someone walking around with a gun in hand. They\u2019re kids. If this keeps up, maybe we\u2019ll sell the house and get out of there.\u201d<\/p>\n

I had never heard of a curfew being imposed in central Mag\u00e9, but conversations about murders are becoming more frequent. Homicides are taking place in the city with a frequency as horrifying as that of Germany\u2019s goals. Every day in Mag\u00e9, with each new murder in the city, people also ask themselves \u201canother one?!\u201d<\/p>\n

The list of some recent cases is frightening. In October, one person was killed and six injured in a shooting at the entrance of a nightclub. In November, a lawyer, her father and her mother were killed on their doorstep. In March, two people were killed and five injured in a pizzeria. Between April and May, two were killed in the same neighborhood. In May, a policeman was killed and two more were injured. In June, a number of people taking part in\u00a0a festa junina<\/a><\/em>\u00a0event\u00a0were killed and injured. At the end of June, a young man was killed in his girlfriend\u2019s house.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Answers to who killed who and why are rare. Despite the investigations, most cases remain unexplained. Consequently, Mag\u00e9 is a city where rumors in the streets and on the Internet symbolize how misinformation and fear feed off each other. In the cases listed, it\u2019s said that some victims were involved in gangs. Others, however, were uninvolved victims of the growing disputes between rival groups.<\/p>\n

In conversations around the city, the disputes are identified as a consequence of the UPPs<\/a> in the state capital. The issue of the migration of drug traffickers<\/a> is controversial. State Secretary of Security, Jos\u00e9 Mariano Beltrame<\/a>, claims\u00a0there is no evidence<\/a> of Carioca criminals escaping to other locations. But this official evaluation is inconsistent with the experience of those living in the outskirts of the capital. In the last few months, Mag\u00e9 residents have reported that many of the criminals are strangers. Additionally, in various neighborhoods graffiti has appeared with the acronyms of criminal factions belonging to the state capital. As a result, many residents of the city avoid visiting friends and family for fear of being identified as residents of rival districts.<\/p>\n

Denying the migration of traffickers is\u00a0a mistake, but\u00a0attributing the increased crime just to new criminals is also problematic. Disputes and fights between neighborhoods have been happening for decades in Mag\u00e9. The difference now seems to be the weapons available and the brutality of the clashes. Days after the murder of the policeman, I heard surprised reports of Military Police<\/a> officers who work and live in the city. “Now they\u2019re shooting rifles, man,” said a police officer, indicating there has been a shift in the way criminals in Mag\u00e9 act.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

One reason for the increased violence in Mag\u00e9 is the way in which state policies are developed. A recent analysis<\/a> of the official state violence indicators shows that the current security policy reduced\u00a0homicides in the capital of Rio de Janeiro between 2007 and 2014. But outside the capital, despite the initial reduction, homicides are increasing. Today, almost as many are killed in the greater metropolitan area as were killed in 2007. In other words, outside the capital\u00a0the state\u2019s public security policies do not seem to have been as effective.<\/p>\n

Safety measures were adopted during the World Cup in tourist districts<\/a>, but the opposite is felt in Mag\u00e9 and on the periphery of the Marvelous City. As we watched in astonishment the “tragedy” of the Brazilian team in the field, another family cried over a real tragedy: another one killed. State public policies should not be limited to keeping residents and tourists in the \u201cnoble districts\u201d calm. Otherwise, far from the beach and the stadiums, we will continue counting murders as we counted German goals.<\/p>\n

L\u00e9o Cust\u00f3dio<\/a> has an M.A. in Social Science and is a Ph.D. candidate\u00a0at the School of Communication, Media and Theater at the University of Tampere, Finland. For his doctoral thesis (2009-2015), Cust\u00f3dio is investigating the media-activism of residents of favelas and the periphery of Rio de Janeiro.\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas While the Brazilian national team suffered the worst defeat of all time, Mag\u00e9\u2014my hometown, located in the greater metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro\u2014grieved yet another murder. The sadness and outrage\u00a0experienced […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":57,"featured_media":16955,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1277,1328,1331,335,336],"tags":[460,245,125,1197,25,1360,15,809,443,268,1359,30],"writer":[1358],"translator":[601],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-16950","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uppwatch","8":"category-by-community-contributors","9":"category-opinion-2","10":"category-policies","11":"category-violations","12":"tag-baixada-fluminense","13":"tag-beltrame","14":"tag-drug-traffic","15":"tag-greater-rio","16":"tag-human-rights","17":"tag-mage","18":"tag-pacifying-police-unit","19":"tag-public-security","20":"tag-security","21":"tag-state-violence","22":"tag-unintended-policy-consequences","23":"tag-urban-violence","24":"writer-leo-custodio","25":"translator-margo-hufstetler"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/57"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=16950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/16955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16950"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=16950"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=16950"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=16950"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=16950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}