{"id":44735,"date":"2018-07-04T09:51:49","date_gmt":"2018-07-04T12:51:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rioonwatch.org\/?p=44735"},"modified":"2018-07-05T10:43:28","modified_gmt":"2018-07-05T13:43:28","slug":"favelalivesmatter-protest-in-rio-i-sent-him-tidy-to-school-and-he-returned-covered-in-blood","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/?p=44735","title":{"rendered":"#FavelaLivesMatter Protest in Rio: ‘I sent him clean to school, he returned covered in blood’"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

For the original article in Portuguese by Rithyele Dantas published by Jornalistas Pretas click here<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Last Thursday, June 28<\/a>, hundreds of people gathered in Cinel\u00e2ndia<\/a>, downtown Rio, to march on the Court, Legislative Assembly, and Candel\u00e1ria Church, calling for the obvious: for the basic and universal right to life.<\/p>\n

Residents of Acari<\/a>, Complexo do Alem\u00e3o<\/a>, Complexo da Mar\u00e9<\/a>, Chapad\u00e3o<\/a>, and various other favelas brought the full power that favela residents have to the Cinel\u00e2ndia square. The power that comes from body movement, from tone of voice, from the shaky emotion that comes from having to speak for those who have had their lives cut short. The power of those who can muster from their pain the motivation to carry on<\/a> shouting louder and louder.<\/p>\n

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

With a cigarette in her hand and a dull, distant look, Bruna Silva is a woman with a thirst to continue until the end. A woman who held up her son\u2019s blood-stained shirt all the way through the protest. Bruna Silva, a woman who chose not to be quiet and not to hide herself away. A woman who decided to expose to the media the crime of a lost young life, the life of Marcos Vinicius da Silva. Bruna Silva, who warmly received each hand extended in support, is the mother of Marcos Vinicius: the boy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time<\/a>. She\u2019s a mother who misses her son\u2019s voice, his scent, his life. She\u2019s the mother of the boy who was shot dead on the way to school. The boy who asked his mother the question that has reverberated and shaken everyone this week: \u201cMom, didn\u2019t they see I was wearing my school uniform?\u201d (And rewriting this phrase here was one of the hardest things I\u2019ve had to do in my life.)<\/p>\n

Helicopter overhead: take cover if you can!<\/h3>\n

A helicopter that should only be used to orient police operations is now being used arbitrarily, shooting at random. The \u201cflying tank,” as favela residents have begun to call it, was in action on the day<\/a> that Marcos Vinicius and six other people\u2014whose names were not divulged\u2014were assassinated. In this hunt, anyone can be shot in the comfort of their own home, while they watch TV or eat lunch with their families.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cIt\u2019s a horrible feeling: the helicopter flies low overhead, giving the impression it\u2019s going to land on top of your house\u2026 I live on the second floor and it\u2019s really absurd, having to go downstairs to my mom\u2019s house, where the safest place is the tiny bathroom, so we end up with ten people in a tiny bathroom. This is the reality of the favela.\u201d – Renata Souza, Mar\u00e9 resident and member of the Rio State Legislative Assembly\u2019s Human Rights Commission.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Helicopters in action are not a new phenomenon but the debate around this issue has picked up pace this week. According to data from Defezap, an app for denouncing state violence<\/a>, helicopters fired shots during at least six operations over the course of a year.<\/p>\n

In August 2017, a grocer called Ti\u00e3o was shot in the head<\/a> by a bullet that pierced his market roof in Jacarezinho<\/a> in Rio\u2019s North Zone<\/a>, leading to a series of protests against the belligerence of police operations.<\/p>\n

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

The Defezap data also recorded shots coming from police helicopters in Mangueira<\/a> and Mar\u00e9, where last week the NGO Redes da Mar\u00e9 counted one hundred bullet marks<\/a> in the ground. On June 28, residents woke up terrified in Complexo do Lins<\/a> and Morro dos Macacos<\/a>, also in the North Zone, because helicopters were shooting there too.<\/p>\n

But this is not the first year that helicopters have been firing on favelas. In 2009 a shootout caused a helicopter to crash in Morro dos Macacos<\/a>, killing three police officers. In late 2012 shocking film footage showed Civil Police chasing one of the city\u2019s most powerful drug traffickers<\/a>: the “Mathematician.\u201d He was killed in Senador Camar\u00e1<\/a>, in Rio\u2019s West Zone<\/a>. Conversation captured by the footage shows the irresponsibility of the police operation, showing that the police officers’ emotion had taken over all reason. \u201cIt looks like him, right?\u201d one police officer said\u2014but it could easily have been someone else.<\/p>\n

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

In 2016 four Military Police officers died when their helicopter crashed during an operation in City of God<\/a>: afterwards seven people were killed<\/a> in an act of revenge.<\/p>\n

For some, Rio de Janeiro is symbolically in the midst of warfare<\/a>, but the city is not officially at war. There was never a declaration of an ideological or territorial dispute, so experts in public security consider such actions of war to be unacceptable, putting at risk lives in favelas, putting at risk workers, women, senior citizens, and even children on their way to school.<\/p>\n

Mothers against police violence<\/h3>\n

It\u2019s always striking to see mothers of the movement<\/a> (and in movement!) at protests against the violations committed by the State, fighting for the lives of young people from favelas and the periphery. Mothers of the young people killed at the rate of one every 23 minutes<\/a> in Brazil. Mothers who seem to have nothing else to lose and who take the lead at protests<\/a>, in the struggle. Many Brazilian mothers who\u2019ve had their children taken from their laps, from their houses, have organized together to fight for justice.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cWhat\u2019s the cheapest meat out there? Black meat! My struggle began when my son was assassinated by the police in Pav\u00e3o-Pav\u00e3ozinho<\/a>. The officer who shot my son had already been involved in 14 autos da resist\u00eancia<\/em> [killings allegedly resulting from resistance]<\/a>. When I got to the hospital they told me that my son had been in a shootout with police, but that\u2019s a lie! People saw what happened but they are scared to tell the judge. Now, thank God, we\u2019re protesting and speaking out.\u201d – Ivanir Mendes dos Santos, activist in the mothers’ network and housing struggle<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Bruna Silva, the courageous mother of Marcos Vincius, insisted on showing her son\u2019s blood-stained school shirt to all the media present. Her aim is to get the State to admit that it shot her 14-year-old ‘son: a boy who, according to her, liked the Internet and messing around with his friends, a boy who wanted to live but who had this right taken away.<\/p>\n

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

Silva says that, on the day Marcos Vinicius died, residents of Vila Pinheiro<\/a>\u2014one of the favelas that makes up Complexo da Mar\u00e9\u2014were not given advance warning of the police operation. She says it all happened quickly, that the helicopter flew very close over her rooftop. She says there were two armored vehicles on the ground, one by the corner of her house and the other stationed in a nearby alleyway. She says it was the one in the alleyway that shot Marcos Vinicius. Several people all told the same story: residents saw shots fired from the vehicle before it drove away. Before he died Marcos Vinicius said, \u201cIt was the tank that shot me, Mom!\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI sent my son off to school all tidy and they sent him back to me covered in blood. My son asked me a question and now I\u2019ll ask the same question to the State: didn\u2019t they see that my son was wearing his school uniform? I know they saw him, his school bag was fluorescent. This is the shamelessness of our our State.\u201d – Bruna Silva<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

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

Silva also has a daughter, Maria Vit\u00f3ria da Silva, in whom she puts all her hope for the future. The 12-year-old also goes to school in Mar\u00e9 and, according to her mother, was totally in shock when she heard about her brother.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou want to know what Marcos Vinicius was like? Just ask his sister and she\u2019ll tell you everything. There are so many stories!\u201d<\/p>\n

Silva is scared for her daughter\u2019s life\u2014\u201cGod save me from sending my daughter to school and having her end up like her brother\u201d\u2014but said that she would not stop her daughter from studying at her school and wouldn\u2019t give up living in Mar\u00e9 either.<\/p>\n

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

\u201cThis is for my daughter\u2019s life, for the lives of all the kids in Mar\u00e9\u2026 I want the State to assume responsibility, I don\u2019t have to prove anything to anyone. They’re the ones who have to prove themselves to me! Marcos Vinicius\u2019 mother is here and I want to know who shot Marcos Vinicius!\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Clique aqui para Portugu\u00eas For the original article in Portuguese by Rithyele Dantas published by Jornalistas Pretas click here. Last Thursday, June 28, hundreds of people gathered in Cinel\u00e2ndia, downtown Rio, to march on the […]<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":44743,"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":[1294,2663,1288,1328,1333,1330,336],"tags":[2467,517,231,280,794,2364,25,499,746,387,155,2481,18,1555,270,1125,268,1321,1385],"writer":[2765],"translator":[1401],"illustrator":[],"photographer":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-44735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-communitymedia","8":"category-interventionwatch","9":"category-highlight","10":"category-by-community-contributors","11":"category-event-reports","12":"category-translation","13":"category-violations","14":"tag-black-lives-matter","15":"tag-cinelandia","16":"tag-city-of-god","17":"tag-complexo-da-mare","18":"tag-complexo-do-lins","19":"tag-defezap","20":"tag-human-rights","21":"tag-jacarezinho","22":"tag-mangueira","23":"tag-morro-dos-macacos","24":"tag-pavao-pavaozinho","25":"tag-police-violence","26":"tag-protest","27":"tag-redes-de-desenvolvimento-da-mare","28":"tag-resistance","29":"tag-senador-camara","30":"tag-state-violence","31":"tag-vila-do-pinheiro","32":"tag-violence","33":"writer-rithyele-dantas","34":"translator-sarah-jacobs"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44735","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\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=44735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44743"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44735"},{"taxonomy":"writer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fwriter&post=44735"},{"taxonomy":"translator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftranslator&post=44735"},{"taxonomy":"illustrator","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fillustrator&post=44735"},{"taxonomy":"photographer","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rioonwatch.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fphotographer&post=44735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}