00:01And in Brazil, far-right Sao Paulo Governor TarcÃsio Freitas oversees one of the nation's most violent police forces,
00:08where it has not been very effective in fighting crime. Correspondent Ramir has more.
00:14Sao Paulo Governor TarcÃsio Freitas, a staunch ally of ex-president Jair Bolsonaro,
00:21who is rapidly emerging as a 2026 presidential hopeful for the Brazilian far-right,
00:26campaigned on a promise to be tough on crime. He's put more police on the streets.
00:31But last year, the state suffered its highest number of rapes in history,
00:35and the number of killings by police officers rose by 61 percent.
00:40I witness police violence on the streets constantly.
00:47I have been closely following the issue of police violence.
00:51And I see that it's increasing every day because the current state government in Sao Paulo,
00:59run by Governor TarcÃsio de Freitas,
01:02has been encouraging the police to become more violent.
01:05In downtown Sao Paulo, Governor Freitas' military police have targeted street vendors in a series of sweeps,
01:12during which they confiscate their goods,
01:15in some cases beating and even killing them in the process,
01:18as happened to Ngagne Mabaye, a Senegalese immigrant, earlier this year.
01:24He was eating lunch with his vendor's cart closed at his side.
01:33A group of police officers came up and tried to seize his merchandise.
01:39He tried to stop them from taking it.
01:41He was completely surrounded by police officers,
01:45and he picked up a steel bar to defend himself and hold on to his things.
01:50They shot him and he died on the spot.
01:53They killed our Senegalese brother,
01:56simply because he was trying to work.
01:58There were over 14,000 cases of rape registered in Sao Paulo last year,
02:02with over 11,000 happening to children under the age of 14.
02:06The number of killings by police officers rose from 504 in 2023 to 813 in 2024,
02:14when 40% of all killings registered in a state were committed by police officers.
02:19There is an over-investment in repressive action,
02:28in detriment to prevention and intelligence,
02:30and this is increasing the number of police killings.
02:35So this increase in police killings is closely tied to political choices.
02:39As in many other places around the world in recent decades,
02:43promising to be tough on crime is an effective election strategy.
02:47However, the policing systems resulting from these campaign promises
02:50rarely seem effective in actually fighting crime.
02:53Brian Muir, Telesur, Sao Paulo.
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