SAO PAULO, Brazil – Hundreds protested against a series of police brutality cases in Brazil’s Sao Paulo state on Thursday (Friday in Manila), ratcheting up pressure on its governor, who is seen as a possible presidential candidate in 2026.
Governor Tarcisio de Freitas — an ally of far-right former president Jair Bolsonaro — has been under increased criticism since a video of a police officer throwing an arrested man off a bridge went viral online.
The suspect survived and the officer was himself arrested and faces being kicked off the force.
The incident was one of a number of acts of police violence in recent weeks that have stirred public indignation in the state, Brazil’s most populous, and also nationally.
In downtown Sao Paulo on Thursday, hundreds of protesters demonstrated against the brutality, some holding a banner reading: “Who polices the police?”
Earlier in the day, De Freitas acknowledged that something needed to be done, after having earlier minimized the issue and defended his government’s record on crime.
“This is a moment for humility and to say: right, something is not working,” he said.
He added that he was “completely wrong” to oppose the compulsory use of body cams by officers and to back a measure that would have allowed them to switch them off when they wanted.
It was a stark change of tone from the governor, who in March dismissed a complaint made to the United Nations about police actions by saying “I don’t care.”
In early November, an off-duty police officer fired 11 bullets into a black youth who had shoplifted cleaning products in a supermarket, killing him.
Two days later, a four-year-old boy died of a gunshot during a police operation in the city of Santos, in which a teenager was also killed.
Two weeks after that, an unarmed 22-year-old medical student was fatally shot at close range by a policeman, after trying to escape arrest for having hit a patrol car with his hand.
At least 580 deaths occurred during police activity in the state of Sao Paulo between January and September, according to official figures. That was a 55-percent increase over the same period last year.
The fatalities have most impacted the black population.
Between January and August, the number of black people killed by police rose 83 percent compared to the equivalent 2023 period, according to a study by the Sou da Paz Institute based on official data.
The same study showed a 59-percent increase in the number of white people killed by officers.
De Freitas, who served as infrastructure minister in Bolsonaro’s government, has sought to position himself as a potential presidential candidate for Brazil’s conservatives.
Bolsonaro himself has been barred from public office until 2030 for making unsubstantiated claims of electoral fraud in 2022 polls that saw him beaten by current leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva.