The general commander of the São Paulo Military Police, Colonel Cássio Araújo Freitas, said in an interview with CNN this Wednesday (4), that all episodes of police violence that occurred in recent days are under rigorous investigation by the corporation’s Internal Affairs Department.
“The errors were personal and specific, and the responsibility lies with the institution. That is why the institution is investigating, whether through military police investigations or through investigations”, he highlighted.
“My analysis is that we still manage to treat these as isolated cases, because the institution never encourages this. None of these personal failures that happened are failures that happened because of some wrong teaching, because of some protocol that was understood. Quite the opposite”, continued Freitas.
Cases of police violence in SP
This week, 13 PM officers were dismissed for their involvement in an action in which a man was thrown by a police officer from a bridge, last Monday (2), in the south zone of the capital. A military police investigation was also launched.
Another case that had repercussions was the execution of a man with 11 shots in the back, also in the south zone of São Paulo.
The first version presented by military police officer Vinicius de Lima Britto, who was off duty at the time, was that the young man had mentioned that he was armed, and that was why he fired the shots.
Also at the beginning of November, 4-year-old Ryan da Silva Andrade Santos was shot dead in the city of Santos, on the coast of São Paulo. According to the Military Police, the shot that killed the child “probably” came from an agent’s gun.
Two weeks ago, medical student Marco Aurélio Cardenas Acosta was killed by a military police officer during an attack inside a hotel in the south of the capital.
According to the police officers’ version, the young man was “altered, aggressive and resisted the approach, getting into a fight with the team”. Security cameras caught the action and differ from the version presented by the agents.
Harm reduction
During the interview, Colonel Cássio Araújo de Freitas highlighted that the corporation has increased the use of body cameras from 10,000 to 12,000 devices on the streets, and stated that Governor Tarcísio de Freitas’ desire is to increase the number to 15,000 cameras.
“We have doctrines, we have teaching in our teaching units, we have training based on the appropriate, legal, proportional use of force. This culture of violence is a much more social, national, Latin American phenomenon than one or another institution. It is not encouraged, quite the contrary, it is fought”, highlighted Freitas.
The general commander reported the existence of a project to “reduce collateral damage” in the actions of the Military Police.
“There are three main axes, the first of which is: training, intensification of our training. We are already an institution that trains a lot, but it is clear that we need to train more. Mainly emotional control”, he said.
“Another axis is the issue of logistics, more equipment, especially non-lethal or semi-lethal equipment. And the third is our eventual handling of some of our procedures. How not to act until support arrives, for example, is something we are analyzing”, concluded the commander.
This content was originally published in “Personal and specific errors”, says commander of the SP PM about police violence on the CNN Brasil website.
Source: CNN Brasil

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