Policing

Protest in Rio de Janeiro against Deaths of 119 Police This Year

About 100 people demonstrated on Wednesday on Rio de Janeiro’s famous Copacabana beach to call for peace and to protest the deaths of 119 police officers so far this year.

The demonstrators, most of whom were relatives and friends of the dead Militarized Police officers, called for more efforts in the investigations of the deaths because the circumstances surrounding many of them have never been clarified.

Some of the protesters left manikins or dummies dressed as Militarized Police along Atlantic Avenue, which runs along Copacabana beach.

“Let it not just be a dream, by the end of the year let the number (of murders of police) be at zero ... We want to get it to zero and not get started again, for all these deaths of police not to continue because they’re men, heads of families. They have families ... (that are) destroyed,” said the relative of one of the officers killed this year.