Army Takes 80 Shots at Family Car in Rio and kills Musician

Army Takes 80 Shots at Family Car in Rio and kills Musician

Note from BW of Brazil: You know, after several years of having to report on these type of egregious, I don’t really care if people label my opinion of such acts as “conspiracy theory”. When such things seem to happen over and over and over again, how long do we continue to label them “accidents”, “bad training”, “mistaken identity”, “wrong place at the wrong time” or whatever other excuse people will come up with to excuse these atrocities? A 51-year old musician is riding in a car with his family when his car gets riddled by bullets of which the Army fired 80 times?!?! 80? EIGHTY TIMES?!? I am always amazed how many times security agents fell the need to shoot at one target. 80 shots?!?! 

So let me get this straight. Individuals, and sometimes 2-20 people get killed at once by Military Police or the Military and people want to explain this away as “bad training”?  So, this should be applied to Claudia Ferreira, Amarildo, the five young brothers who were shot and killed with over 100 shots, and so many others? Again, BLACK BRAZILIANS are victimized by such a gruesome disregard for human beings and yet people still don’t wanna “play the race” card? If this same card keeps popping up in your hand, why not play it? You need reasons to play this card? OK, let’s go.

1) Brazil has openly stated it would like for its black population to disappear. 2) 131 years after the end of slavery, black Brazilians continue to be treated as if they’re neither citizens or human beings. 3) Police departments in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo routinely kill more than 1,000 people per year. 4) In 2016, 61,283 violent deaths were recorded in Brazil. And as in other years, pretos and pardos (black and browns) represented 74.5% of those deaths. Just for comparison, in 2017, in the US, a country with more than 100 million more people, there were 17,284 reported murder and non-negligent manslaughter cases. In other words, Brazil records 3.5 more deaths than the US. 5) Death and extermination squads, many of them off-duty, disguised police, are known to exist throughout Brazil that carry out “social cleaning” activities. And who you think these groups target? And what do you think is gonna happen now that Brazilians have elected a man who promised to let military forces kill MORE people?

Eduardo Machado, a community organizer in Recife, the capital of the state of Pernambuco in the northeast, didn’t bite his tongue on the main target of these groups: “I call it social cleansing because the people being killed are normally black, they’re poor and they’re from the from the slums that surround the city. They have become what I call ‘the killables'”. 

A social worker from the same city, Demetrios Demetrio, looks out for the safety of the city’s street kids who sleep on the streets in the downtown region. Many of these kids get high on all sorts of drugs and survive on begging, petty theft and prostitution. The greatest threat to the lives of these kids, according to Demetrio, are organized death squads, composed of police officers. For these police, these types of kids are a simply a social problem, and as such, the best way to deal with them are to simply kill them. Demetrio says he’s personally seem 600 kids killed on the streets of Recife. 60% were killed by the death squads.

In past articles, I’ve covered the existence of these sorts of killing machines in São Paulo, Bahia and without a doubt, Rio. One professor at Brazil’s top university, USP (University of São Paulo), pointed out a document of a conservative think tank back in the 1980s that openly discussed the necessity of eliminating abandoned kids as a means to address concerns over public security. I would argue that this same mentality applies to how they deal with non-white Brazilians in general. Would you disagree when we see the regularity with which so many black Brazilians are killed in Brazil today?

Army takes 80 shots at family car in Rio and kills musician

Courtesy of Gaúcha ZH, with additional info from Ceará-Mirim Livre and Sputnik News

Army soldiers fired more than 80 shots at a car carrying a family in the Vila Militar region of west zone Rio de Janeiro on Sunday afternoon. One man died and two people were injured.

The five people who were in the white Ford Ka that was hit were going to a baby shower. The musician Evaldo Rosa dos Santos died, while his father-in-law, Sérgio Gonçalves, was hospitalized at Hospital Albert Schweitzer, his wife and the couple’s seven-year-old son and a family friend were not hit. A pedestrian at the scene was injured trying to help.

“When they [the military] started firing, my aunt took my cousin in her lap and showed it was a family car, but they still didn’t stop shooting,” said Evaldo’s nephew.

According to the CML (Comando Militar do Leste or Eastern Military Command), an army patrol caught a robbery near the Deodoro swimming pool in Guadeloupe around 2:40 pm. The car that had been stolen had the same color, but another make and model, a Honda City.

The first note of the CML stated that the military “responded to the unjust aggression” and as a result “one of the robbers died at the scene and the other was wounded.”

Later, in another note, the Comando Militar do Leste reported that the case was being investigated by the Military Judiciary Police under the supervision of the Military Public Ministry.

For police chief Leonardo Salgado, of the Capital Homicide Office, there is no indication that the occupants of the car were crooks or reacted to the approach of the military.

“It appears that there was the firing at the vehicle of a family going to a baby shower. An action totally disproportionate and without justification,” he said.

According to Salgado, there were 12 soldiers at the time of the shots, but nine fired. They were no longer on site when the sheriff arrived.

Those involved were heard at a Military Police station. But it was the Civil Police who carried out the investigation because the military had difficulty, due to the revolt of the residents who witnessed the crime. The report shows that the car was hit by more than 80 shots and the occupants of the car had no weapon.

“I would have arrested them in the act because of the images that I saw and the testimonies of the witnesses,” said Salgado.

The Court will now decide whether the crime should be investigated by the Military Judiciary Police or the Civil Police. There is a legal provision for military crimes against civilians to be tried by military courts, but, according to the chief, one of the requirements is that they are on a mission. “And I did not see any particular mission,” says Salgado.

Videos posted on social networks show residents of the region criticizing the military shortly after the shots. “They killed a family. They got the wrong guys. The two have already gone,” says one person who recorded the end of the shots.

Hours earlier, soldiers were targeted as they passed near the Muquiço (favela) shantytown. No one was injured. The community is close to the scene of the occurrence with victims in the afternoon. The Army says there is no relationship between the cases.

“Where is my father?” asks the son of a musician shot by the Army in Rio de Janeiro

The seven-year-old son of the musician Evaldo Rosa dos Santos, 51, still doesn’t understand what happened to his father, killed by the military on Sunday (7). The car where he was with his family was hit by more than 80 rifle shots. The information is from the newspaper O Globo.

“He only repeats: Where is my father?” And I have no answer,” says deliveryman Daniel Rosa, 29, also a son of Evaldo.

The boy was in the family car on Estrada do Camboatá in Guadalupe, in Rio de Janeiro’s North Zone, when the vehicle was summoned by the military. At the time, Sérgio Gonçalves de Araújo, 59, Evaldo’s father-in-law, was also shot. The victim’s wife and goddaughter weren’t hit.

Ten military men arrested after the army action that shot family car in Rio de Janeiro

Chief says “everything indicates” that Army shot family car by mistake in Rio

“I was returning from my mother-in-law’s house in Belford Roxo (Baixada Fluminense district of Rio) and I passed by. I didn’t even stop, because I had no idea what was happening. It was only when I got home that a friend said that they had killed my father. My world collapsed,” said Daniel.

Crying a lot, Evaldo’s son said he was angry with what happened and said that now he wants to fight for justice:

“They (the military) have to be arrested. How can you do such a thing? My father was a good guy, he never did anything bad to anyone. And to die like that? With the car full of shots. These people cannot have a gun in their hand. They are unprepared.”

The case is being investigated by the CML, which says it will take testimony of the military in the action and try to locate and hear civilian witnesses. The Delegacia de Homicídios (DH or Homicde Department) will also investigate the death.

Musician’s widow killed by army says military laughed after the shots

Luciana Oliveira, a nurse and Evaldo’s widow, 46, said the military laughed after the incident, in Guadeloupe, in northern zone Rio de Janeiro.

“They laughed. I called them murderers and they laughed. They mocked me. These people have to pay, mainly for the debauchery. They laughed the whole time. You don’t know what I’m feeling, I don’t want this for anyone,” said Luciana. Luciana furthered stated that the military didn’t help in the musician’s rescue.

The nurse said that the military action was sudden as the family was going to a friend’s baby shower.

“There was no confrontation. We were singing and we heard something shatter. Blood spilled on me. My son doesn’t know and is asking about his father,” said Luciana.

Evaldo’s brother-in-law, Leandro Rodrigues further said that the musician was able to save the family after being struck by a shot in the back.

10 military personnel involved in shooting in RJ are arrested; Bolsonaro spokesperson comments

The Comando Militar do Leste announced on Monday (8) that 10 of the 12 military personnel who participated in the action that shot and killed Evaldo Rosa dos Santos, 51, were removed and arrested in the act.

According to the Comando Militar do Leste, there was an “inconsistency of the facts reported”. On Sunday, the army had stated that the military reacted to an “unjust aggression.”

Those involved who participated in the action will be tried by the military courts. Since 2017, military personnel who commit crimes in the exercise of their functions are no longer prosecuted by ordinary justice. The change came after then-President Michel Temer sanctioned law 13.491.

President Jair Bolsonaro (PSL) did not comment on the case. Spokesman of the Palácio do Planalto, the presidential residence, Otávio do Rêgo Barros, spoke on the subject:

“He [Bolsonaro] did not comment, but relies on the Military Justice, in the clarifications that the Army will give through the investigation and expects events of similar similitude not occur.”

Source: The Independent, Gaúcha ZH (1), Gaúcha ZH (2), Ceará-Mirim Livre, Sputnik News