While a delegation is addressing discriminatory law enforcement tactics in the U.S. before the United Nations, police brutality in Brazil has gone unnoticed.
A public safety nongovernmental organization found that police were responsible for the deaths of more than 11,000 people between 2009 and 2013, averaging six deaths a day. What’s worse, the total number of deaths in Brazil (11,197) have amounted to more than that in the U.S. (11,090) during the same time frame.
“The empirical evidence shows that Brazilian police make abusive use of lethal force to respond to crime and violence,” according to the study by the Sao Paulo-based Brazilian Forum on Public Safety.
In addition to using excessive force, police often execute suspects, a practice rarely investigated.
Last year in Rio de Janeiro state, 416 people were killed, giving it the highest per-capita death rate for 2013. The study also found that 50,806 people were killed in homicides last year. Seventy percent of those killed were black and more than half were ages 15 to 29.
Before the World Cup in Brazil, more than 20 police faced charges for the torture, disappearance, and presumed death of a resident in Rio’s largest slum, Rocinha. Also during the World Cup, Brazil created a special 10,000-member riot force to help police control demonstrations, leading residents to complain of heavy-handed police tactics. According to CBS:
At the peak of last year’s protests, 1 million people took to the streets across Brazil in a single day, complaining initially of higher bus fares, corruption and poor public services, and then extending to the billions of dollars being spent on the WorldCup and 2016 Rio de Janeiro Olympics.
To learn more about police brutality in Brazil, click here.
SOURCE: CBS | PHOTO CREDIT: GETTY
