Residents of the city of Umbaúba, on the southern coast of Sergipe, captured on video police officers brutally murdering a man on Wednesday, May 25. Two Federal Highway Policemen killed Genivaldo de Jesus Santos, 38 using a makeshift gas chamber.
The victim’s nephew, Wallyson de Jesus, witnessed the situation and said that his uncle had a mental disorder.
“They asked him to raise his hands, and found cartridges of medication in his pocket. My uncle got nervous and asked what he had done. I asked him to calm down and listen to me,” reported Wallyson.
In the images recorded by city residents, one can see Genivaldo being arrested by two policemen. He is on the ground and before officers shove him in the trunk of the car.
While one of the policemen holds the lid of the trunk to ensure that it remains closed, the other throws, inside the closed space, large amounts of gas. One can hear Genivaldo’s loud screams and thrashing legs before he eventually goes still. When the compartment is opened again, the man is no longer moving.
Gas Chamber
During the Holocaust, gas chambers were designed as part of the Nazi policy of genocide against Jews. The Nazis also targeted the Roma people, homosexuals, the physically and mentally disabled, intellectuals, and the clergy. The strategy was used to kill millions of people between 1941 and 1945.
The other side
In a statement, the Federal Highway Police (PRF) said that the man “actively resisted” the approach. The agents then used “immobilization techniques and instruments of lesser offensive potential” to contain the so-called aggressiveness of the victim, who became ill on the way to the police station, according to the police.
Read the full note from the PRF:
“On today’s date, May 25, 2022, during police action on BR-101, in Umbaúba-SE, a 38-year-old man actively resisted an approach by a PRF team. Because of his aggressiveness, immobilization techniques and instruments of lesser offensive potential were used to restrain him, and the individual was taken to the Civil Police Station in Umbaúba.
During the transfer, the man fell ill and was immediately taken to Hospital José Nailson Moura, where he was later treated and died.
The team registered the incident with the Judicial Police, who will investigate the case. The Federal Highway Police in Sergipe regrets what happened and informs that a disciplinary procedure has been opened to investigate the conduct of the officers involved.”
“Has the PRF become a Gestapo?”
The Black rights movement mobilized in São Paulo, on Friday, May 27, for the 25 victims of the Vila Cruzeiro massacre, in Rio de Janeiro, and for Genivaldo Jesus Santos. The action will be held in front of the headquarters of the Federal Highway Police in São Paulo.
“Has the Federal Highway Police become the SS, the Gestapo?” asks historian and activist Douglas Belchior, coordinator of Uneafro Brazil.
“Remember how Bolsonaro always talks about the Federal Highway Police? He praises them, defends them, and offers them salary increases, it is the police that he likes the most. All our police are murderers, cowards, genociders, and racists, but it is good to pay attention to the Federal Highway Police, they are Bolsonaro’s police, and they are the ones who proudly and fervently accompany the motorcades that Bolsonaro promotes all over Brazil,” he points out, in a video calling for the May 27 action.
PRF presence in three massacres
Besides their participation in the deadly police raid with the Special Operations Battalion (BOPE) in Vila Cruzeiro, resulting in 26 confirmed deaths, Federal Highway Police agents were alongside military police officers in two other massacres.
Also in conjunction with the Military Police of Rio de Janeiro, in February of this year, the PRF was involved in an operation that resulted in at least eight deaths in the neighborhood of Penha. The alleged objective of the action, according to authorities, was to arrest Adriano Souza Freitas, known as Chico Bento, alleged chief of the Comando Vermelho gang.
In October of last year, at least 25 people were killed in a police raid carried out by the Federal Highway Police and the Military Police of Minas Gerais, in the city of Varginha, in the south of the state. In a statement, the police said that alleged bandits had attacked the police officers in an action justified by the fight against the so-called “new cangaço.”
This article was compiled from several articles originally published on Brasil de Fato.
