(26 May 2019) Around 1,000 human rights activists and residents of Rio de Janeiro's favelas protested on Sunday against the police violence after the state saw a record 434 police killings in the first three months of 2019.
The protest called "stop killing us" took place on Ipanema Beach at the same time as a mass demonstration in support of Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro was happening on the adjacent beach. Bolsonaro and Rio Governor Wilson Witzel support shoot-to-kill policing tactics in neighborhoods where drug gangs operate.
"Enough with robbing us of our lives and dreams. Enough of living in fear of shootouts at our front doors " read pamphlets.
Many participants had lost family members to police violence.
"My feeling is anger, is sorrow and sadness. I'm here, my son will not come back, nothing that I or someone else does will bring my son back, but I would like this (police violence in the shantytown) to stop so no other mother feels what I'm feeling," said Sandra Mara da Silva, whose son, a professor of Jiu Jitsu working in a social project in the complex of the shantytown Complex of the Alemão, was killed on May 14th from a shot to his head.
According to witnesses, Jean da Silva was killed by a policeman when he was arriving at the place where he and children trained.
The authorities are investigating the circumstances around his death.
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