Outrage in Brazil as black man allegedly gassed to death in police car boot 

In Brazil, the death of a black guy who was dragged into the trunk of a police car and killed with a gas grenade has aroused uproar. 

 

Police in Brazil detain a mentally ill guy and put him in the boot of their automobile. 

A mentally ill guy is arrested and gassed in the boot of a police car in the Brazilian city of Umbaba. 

Genivaldo de Jesus Santos died of asphyxiation when cops forced him into a car and then threw a gas bomb at him. 

Brazilians have expressed their resentment over the death of a mentally ill Black man who was pushed into the back of a police cruiser by police officers who then threw a gas grenade inside. 

The federal highway police stopped Genivaldo de Jesus Santos, 38, in the city of Umbaba on Wednesday. Two cops in helmets are shown on video keeping the car boot closed on his writhing legs as clouds of gas billow from the vehicle. 

As Santos’ legs remain still, a spectator can be heard stating, “They’re going to murder the guy.” 

Santos died of asphyxiation, according to an autopsy report released on Thursday. He died two years after George Floyd was murdered in Minneapolis by a white police officer who was eventually convicted of murder. 

Santos had schizophrenia, according to his family, for which he was drugged. 

Witnesses to the event, including Santos’ nephew Alisson de Jesus, said he told the police that the guy was sick before they used a teargas grenade. “It was a torment session,” he told the local press. 

  

Police Brutality in Brazil 

In Brazil, where fatal police brutality is prevalent and disproportionately affects the country’s Black population, the tragic tragedy has caused shock.

According to the Brazilian Forum of Public Security, in 2020, police in Brazil murdered 6,416 individuals. Almost all of the victims were African-American. 

Renata Souza, a Black activist and politician from Rio de Janeiro, remarked on Twitter, “Police officers transformed an automobile into a gas chamber and killed a mentally ill guy.”

“In the face of such inhumanity, there are no words.” “Brazil is a concentration camp!” 

After Santos grew belligerent, federal highway police in the state of Sergipe utilised “immobilisation tactics” and “instruments with modest offensive potential,” according to a statement. According to the report, Santos got ill while driving to the police station and was brought to the hospital. 

When Santos arrived at the hospital, his relatives reported he was already dead. 

Santos was slain only one day after 26 people were killed in a police raid in Rio de Janeiro’s Vila Cruzeiro slum, the city’s second-worst police operation ever.  

In such circumstances, police personnel are seldom held accountable. However, there have been widespread requests for the police officers in the video to be investigated. 

“These two scumbags were aware that they are being videotaped, yet they applied a death sentence There is no such thing as decency or shame any longer.  

“They tortured and killed the person,” tweeted Douglas Belchior, a member of the civil rights organisation Coalition for Black Rights. 

“How did the rest of your day go after that?” Mine will be horrific since one of my friends or I may be the next victims,” he explained  

Santos’ death will be investigated by federal authorities, according to police.  

 

On Thursday morning, Santos was laid to rest. Before his funeral, residents of Umbaba held a protest, lighting fire to tyres on the road where he was killed and demanding justice, according to news site G1. 

“This was a horrific crime,” says the narrator. “They killed him with barbarism,” Santos’ widow, Maria Fabiana dos Santos, told reporters.

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