August 2011 assassination of Judge Patricia Acioli and the ensuing arrest this week of Complexo da Maré Battalion Commander Claudio Luiz Oliveira, the alleged mastermind behind the ambush carried out by five or six other cops, apparently in retribution for Acioli’s anti-militia actions in the São Gonçalo bedroom community next to Rio de Janeiro. Oliveira led the São Gonçalo battalion at the time of the judge’s death.
The new military police chief is colonel Erir Ribeiro da Costa Filho, who most recently headed up Rio’s newly-upgraded 190 emergency telephone number operation. He has experience in the militia-ridden West Zone of Rio, as well as in São Cristóvão. Costa Filho has a history of whistle-blowing within the military police and in the case of at least one government official.
State Public Safety Secretary José Mariano Beltrame said he wants police to present their annual tax declarations.
The state’s response to all three strikes listed above and Duarte’s resignation itself indicate a firm stance– with laudable transparency and accountability– against police corruption and crimes.
In the wake of Oliveira’s arrest, Duarte turned in his resignation from the hospital where he underwent a prostate operation this past Monday. This morning he gave a telling radio interview (not available online, unfortunately) from his hospital bed. Duarte told interviewer Ricardo Boechat that he quit because he believes he holds ultimate responsibility, having assigned Oliveira to São Gonçalo. Boechat asked how Duarte came to make that assignment, knowing that the commander was under investigation for earlier wrongdoing, although not indicted.
Duarte also said that military police may have behaved in a particular fashion in the environment that encouraged police violence, before the new public safety policy was implemented in 2008. Now, they have a chance to change– and he believed in giving the men and women under his command that chance.
Implicit in his words is the fact that Rio’s police force, largely underpaid, simply doesn’t have enough manpower prepared for the new public safety enviroment.
To learn about what State Public Safety Secretary is doing about police attitudes and behavior, set to be implemented early next year, read this earlier post.
This entry was posted in Brazil, Transformation of Rio de Janeiro / Transformação do Rio de Janeiro and tagged bribery Rio police, Caso Juan, Colonel Erir Ribeiro da Costa Filho, Colonel Mário Sérgio Duarte, corruption Rio police, José Mariano Beltrame, military police, pacification Rio de Janeiro, Patricia Acioli, Rio de Janeiro crime, Rio police chief. Bookmark the permalink.