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A30 world news
Dialuna 1 november 2021

Brazil experiments with body cams to reduce deaths by police

(AP) — For years, Car- Vargas Foundation, said other
los Minc, a Rio de Janeiro reforms have helped reduce
state lawmaker, pushed to police killings, including rig-
make body cameras man- orous internal investigations,
datory in all law enforce- use of tasers rather than guns
ment agencies. And for and punishment of violent
years, his proposal lan- officers.
guished in Rio’s legisla-
ture. “In Sao Paulo, police began a
complex process, on several
Then came the city’s deadli- fronts, seeking to reduce le-
est police operation. On May thality in raids. For example,
6, hundreds of police with every time a policeman kills
armored vehicles stormed a person, that operation is re-
the working-class Jacarez- viewed and the commanders
inho neighborhood at dawn, have to respond in a council,”
ostensibly to capture suspect- Alcadipani said.
ed criminals. Instead, they
left behind 28 corpses, all of A change in mentality must
them local residents. also occur, experts say.

Even in a city used to vio- In Brazil, “there is this idea
lent policing, the episode that public safety is a con-
was stunning. Minc says the frontation, a war, not a social
bloodshed helped muster right for everyone,” said Fe-
support to pass the bill just dential election, when victo-
days later. rious candidate Jair Bolson-
aro pledged to give cops carte
The state has accepted tender blanche to use lethal force.
for 22,000 cameras, though
it’s not yet clear when of- The governors-elect of Rio
ficers in Rio will start to use de Janeiro and Sao Paulo
them. made similar overtures; the
former famously said police
But Brazil’s most populous will shoot criminals “in their
state, Sao Paulo, has already little heads.”
begun experimenting with
body cams. Early, limited data Still, the adoption of body
has offered some hints that cameras is “an indication that
they might reduce violence there is a greater openness
by police, despite mixed find- to talk about the problem of
ings in other countries that police violence,” said David
have used them. Marques, a project coordi-
nator at the Forum of Public by June. Sao Paulo’s experiment has
Minc, though, is convinced: Safety. drawn expressions of inter- lippe Angeli, a public security
“If the law for cameras on Col. Robson Cabanas, a mili- est from other forces in Latin expert at the Sao Paulo-based
uniforms had already come In June, 3,000 Sao Paulo state tary police officer who coor- America’s largest nation, in- prevention group Sou da Paz.
into effect, we wouldn’t have police officers began using dinates the program, said the cluding those from Rio and
had the Jacarezinho massa- body cameras in 18 of its 120 goal isn’t only to reduce po- Brasilia. Angeli noted that the em-
cre,” he told The Associated battalions. Melina Risso, a lice brutality or burnish the blem of an elite Rio police
Press. program director at the Rio- force’s image; he also hopes But as in the U.S., the pro- force is a skull with an em-
based security think tank the cameras will produce evi- gram has caused some unease bedded dagger and crossed
For years, Brazilian state au- Igarape Institute, said some dence. among rank-and-file officers, pistols. The armored vehicles
thorities have considered of the battalions chosen have many of whom are worried employed for raids are called
making law officers wear long histories of violence. “Think of domestic vio- about the effect of non-stop “big skulls.”
body cameras, sometimes lence, a crime that is hard recordings.
trying small-scale initiatives, Internal police data obtained to prove. Policemen at the Silvia Ramos, coordinator of
and they are closely watching by The Associated Press show scene will see the child cry- A Sao Paulo officer with 20 the Network of Security Ob-
the recent broad implemen- those 18 battalions were in- ing, the house turned upside years experience told the AP servatories, expressed doubt
tation in Sao Paulo. volved in 10 deaths over the down, sometimes they will that some police held back the cameras will reduce po-
following four months, down still see an angry husband. from approaching suspects, lice killings. Her network
Brazil as a whole has a long from 73 in the same period of All of that could go to court fearing videos could make is comprised of watchdog
history of police violence. 2020. The biggest drop was as evidence,” Cabanas said them look bad. He spoke on groups in seven states, in-
Last year, more than 6,400 in an elite squad that con- at police headquarters. “A condition of anonymity be- cluding Sao Paulo and Rio.
people died at the hands of ducts raids on suspects. Its drunk person accusing an of- cause he was not authorized
police officers on and off officers were involved in four ficer of being violent will be to speak to journalists. “In Jacarezinho,” Ramos said,
duty, according to the Brazil- deaths from June to Septem- checked against the images. “police removed the bodies
ian Forum of Public Safety, ber, down from 23 in 2020. And we will discipline those Studies in the U.S., Denmark from the places where they
an independent organization who make mistakes.” and other countries have died, the authorities gave full
that tracks national crime sta- The brief timeframe makes produced mixed findings on support to the raid and or-
tistics. That’s more than 17 it hard to draw conclusions, In a recent body cam video whether they reduce officers’ dered a (five)-year seal on the
per day, and the most since particularly since overall po- Sao Paulo police posted to use of force. Public security investigations.
the group started monitoring lice-involved deaths fell in their official YouTube ac- experts in Brazil have also
in 2013. the state, though much less count, a man arrested after expressed skepticism that “The cameras, by magic,
sharply. a nighttime chase admits he technology alone can remedy wouldn’t have produced a
But many Brazilians are robbed someone and fired police violence. change in the officers’ atti-
more worried about crime it- The program aims to ramp several shots toward pursu- Rafael Alcadipani, a public se- tudes.”
self: Law and order played a up to 10,000 cameras for Sao ing officers. curity specialist at the Getulio
central role in the last presi- Paulo’s 80,000-strong force