Brazilians reacted angrily to the killing of a mentally ill black man who was dumped by police in the trunk of a car for security and then gassed inside the car, killing him.
Ginvaldo de Jesus Santos was arrested last Wednesday because he was riding a motorcycle without wearing a helmet, but the arrest ended in a tragedy that was posted on social media by one of those at the scene.
And the French newspaper "Le Monde" says in its report on the subject, that the clip of this man's arrest and then suffocation spread the spread of wildfire.
The video begins with a regular search by 3 police officers of a man who lifted his shirt and spread his legs in compliance with police orders. The three officers are from the PRF, which is responsible for combating traffic violations and has often been praised in the amazing seizures. for drug shipments carried out by it.
On Wednesday, May 25, police arrested Santos, a fat black man, on the grounds that he was riding a motorcycle without a helmet.
What is remarkable about the matter, according to the newspaper, is that this event took place in the city of Umbauba, which has a population of 25,000 and is in the northeastern Brazilian state of Sergipe, where it is common not to wear a helmet on motorbikes, which is the most used means of transport in the region.
In the clip, along with Santos, his nephew Walison de Jesus, who tried to approach the police, and, according to his testimony, was alerting them to the psychological disorders suffered by his uncle, who was on this particular trip looking for the treatment he had been taking for 20 years for schizophrenia.
Suddenly, events accelerated, and a routine inspection turned into a dramatic event, as two police officers pounced on this man and threw him to the ground and quickly handcuffed his hands to his feet before putting him in the trunk of the police car, at a time when a third policeman detached a tear gas canister and threw it inside that box.
As for what followed, Le Monde described it as two long minutes that one cannot follow, as Ginvaldo Santos spent fighting death before surrendering himself to its executor asphyxiation.
And, according to the newspaper, onlookers around the car could be heard protesting and telling the police, "You're going to kill the man," but the police officers didn't move, Santos' screams of pain didn't help, and his legs twitched violently.
"These should have been arrested immediately because they set up a gas chamber in 2022 in the middle of the street," said Rafael Cadipani, a professor at the Getulio Vargas Foundation and a member of the Brazilian Public Security Forum.
He highlighted that Santos "had he been white, he would have received a different treatment," adding that if this event indicated anything, it indicated that "these police forces are ideologically polluted with Bolsonaro," referring to the approach of the current Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who is accused of being right-wing. extremist.