{"id":10360,"date":"2020-06-18T08:15:00","date_gmt":"2020-06-18T05:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/en.buradabiliyorum.com\/teens-death-stirs-black-lives-matter-protests-in-brazil\/"},"modified":"2020-06-18T08:15:00","modified_gmt":"2020-06-18T05:15:00","slug":"teens-death-stirs-black-lives-matter-protests-in-brazil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/teens-death-stirs-black-lives-matter-protests-in-brazil\/","title":{"rendered":"#Teen\u2019s death stirs Black Lives Matter protests in Brazil"},"content":{"rendered":"

“#Teen\u2019s death stirs Black Lives Matter protests in Brazil<\/strong>”<\/p>\n

\n When Rafaela Matos saw police helicopters over her favela and heard gunshots, she fell to her knees and asked God to protect her son, Jo\u00e3o Pedro. Then she called the boy to make sure he was OK.<\/p>\n

\u201cBe calm,\u201d Jo\u00e3o Pedro wrote back, explaining that he was at his aunt\u2019s house and everything was fine, Rafaela told The Associated Press. Minutes after he sent the message, police burst in and shot the 14-year-old in the stomach with a high-caliber rifle at close range.<\/p>\n

Jo\u00e3o Pedro Matos Pinto was one of more than 600 people killed by police in the state of Rio de Janeiro in the first months of this year. That\u2019s almost double the number of people killed by police over the same period in the entire U.S., which has 20 times Rio\u2019s population. Like Jo\u00e3o Pedro, most of those killed in Rio were black or biracial and lived in the city\u2019s poorest neighborhoods, or favelas.<\/p>\n

\"Rafaela<\/img>
Rafaela Matos shows a photo of her son Jo\u00e3o Pedro Matos Pinto, at her home in Sao Goncalo, Brazil.<\/span>AP\/Silvia Izquierdo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As the Black Lives Matter movement brings hundreds of thousands to the streets around the world, demonstrators outraged by Jo\u00e3o Pedro\u2019s death one month ago have been organizing the largest anti-police brutality demonstrations in years on the streets of Rio.<\/p>\n

Still, the protests are nowhere near the size and public impact of other countries. To protesters, their struggle to gain momentum in the country where more than half the population is black or biracial, with a police violence problem that far overshadows other nations, is evidence of the depth of racism and complacence.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey kill teenager after teenager in their homes every day. We\u2019re here because we need to be,\u201d 19-year-old civil engineering student Jo\u00e3o Gabriel Moreira said at a June 10 protest in Duque de Caxias, a poor city in the Rio metropolitan area. He said he had never protested anything before this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cKill a young black man in a favela, it\u2019s seen as normal \u2014 he must be a drug dealer,\u201d Moreira said. \u201cRacism has always been veiled in Brazil. That\u2019s why so few of us are here. If Brazil had racial consciousness, this street would be filled.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rio de Janeiro police initially said they were pursuing a criminal in a joint operation by civil, military and federal police officers when they shot Jo\u00e3o Pedro on May 18. There was no sign of illegal activity at the house in the Salgueiro complex of favelas, according to Eduardo Benones, a federal prosecutor investigating the operation.<\/p>\n

Jo\u00e3o Pedro\u2019s father, Neilton Pinto, was serving up fish at a bayside kiosk when he heard the choppers. By the time he reached the scene, police had already taken the teen\u2019s body away, he said, sitting beside Rafaela for an interview just before the one-month anniversary of the incident.<\/p>\n

Police never took Jo\u00e3o Pedro to a hospital and his family began a frantic search. Rafaela, 36, received a glimmer of hope when she saw on her phone that her son\u2019s WhatsApp<\/a> was active.<\/p>\n

\u201cHi \u2026 ,\u201d she wrote. \u201cHi \u2026 Hi \u2026 Hi \u2026 Talk to me \u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

No response came from whomever was using Jo\u00e3o Pedro\u2019s phone. But a campaign swept across social media and his body was tracked down the next day, inside a police forensic institute.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood people live in the favela, people with families, who plan on growing in this life,\u201d Neilton, 40, said. \u201cI\u2019m sure if this were in wealthy areas, police wouldn\u2019t act this way, breaking down the house of someone good.\u201d<\/p>\n

Benones\u2019 investigation seeks to hold the Brazilian state responsible for Jo\u00e3o Pedro\u2019s death, alleging it occurred in the context of institutional racism. All depositions and eyewitness accounts Benones has reviewed indicate Jo\u00e3o Pedro and others present posed no threat to officers on the scene, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhy didn\u2019t police directors or whoever see that we\u2019re in a pandemic, so obviously a place that\u2019s already densely populated would be even more densely populated with kids? That\u2019s predictable,\u201d Benones said. \u201cYou can\u2019t say it\u2019s racism of that police officer, but a practice of police forces not taking care when dealing with the black population. And if something happens, it\u2019s seen as collateral damage.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rio police killed a record 1,814 people in 2019, according to official data \u2014 trip<\/a>le the number five years earlier. The 2020 death toll is on track for a repeat.<\/p>\n

Both President Jair Bolsonaro and Rio state Gov. Wilson Witzel won election in 2018 with campaigns that emphasized law and order, and both have said police should be able to kill criminals with almost no legal constraints.<\/p>\n

At a June 11 protest in Niteroi, another city in Rio\u2019s metro area, Bruna Mozer told how her son Marcos gave up on school and fell in with drug traffickers in his favela. Even though he surrendered when police found him with a walkie-talkie in 2018, officers executed him, she said. Marcos would have been 18 this year.<\/p>\n

\"Bruna<\/img>
Bruna Mozer holds a banner with photos of police violence victims, including her son Marcos, bottom center, during a protest.<\/span>AP\/Silvia Izquierdo<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cEvery day more mothers, victims of state violence, join our groups,\u201d said Mozer.<\/p>\n

Rio\u2019s civil police said in an e-mailed statement that it is investigating the circumstances surrounding Jo\u00e3o Pedro\u2019s death and that three officers have been suspended. Rio\u2019s military police didn\u2019t respond to multiple requests seeking comment.<\/p>\n

Brazil\u2019s Supreme Court on June 5 banned police operations in favelas until the coronavirus pandemic ends, in response to outrage over Jo\u00e3o Pedro\u2019s death.<\/p>\n

His life had been divided between home, school, church and the mall, his father said. He got good grades and wanted to study law. He told his dad he would make him proud.<\/p>\n

When Neilton lost his job, Jo\u00e3o Pedro entered public school, only to find it lacking teachers and classes. Rafaela got him into the private school where she teaches.<\/p>\n

His parents said they never talked to Jo\u00e3o Pedro about racism. Nor did they ever participate in protests, but they joined one on June 7. Rafaela said hearing Jo\u00e3o Pedro\u2019s name become a rallying cry has lightened their emotional load a bit.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never participated in events against racism or policing, never got involved with those things. Today we\u2019re living something we didn\u2019t expect, something that arrives and knocks on the door,\u2033 Rafaela said. \u201cWith this repercussion, we saw Jo\u00e3o Pedro wasn\u2019t the first, and he also wasn\u2019t the last.\u201d\n <\/p><\/div>\n

Source<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\n

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“#Teen\u2019s death stirs Black Lives Matter protests in Brazil” When Rafaela Matos saw police helicopters over her favela and heard gunshots, she fell to her knees and asked God to protect her son, Jo\u00e3o Pedro. Then she called the boy to make sure he was OK. \u201cBe calm,\u201d Jo\u00e3o Pedro wrote back, explaining that he…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[357,21861,21862,21860,21859,21857,21858],"class_list":["post-10360","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","tag-357","tag-joao-pedro-wrote-back","tag-explaining-that-he-was-at-his-aunts-house-and-everything-was-fine","tag-joao-pedro-then-she-called-the-boy-to-make-sure-he-was-ok-be-calm","tag-she-fell-to-her-knees-and-asked-god-to-protect-her-son","tag-teens-death-stirs-black-lives-matter-protests-in-brazil","tag-when-rafaela-matos-saw-police-helicopters-over-her-favela-and-heard-gunshots"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10360","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10360"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10360\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10360"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10360"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/buradabiliyorum.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10360"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}