Comments by "XSportSeeker" (@XSpImmaLion) on "Police Are Killing with Impunity Inside Rio’s Favelas" video.

Thanks Vice, for sharing this piece of news. But to put it more accurately, this isn't a problem of this administration in particular, and this isn't gonna be solved by whatever form of politics and comes around in whatever shape or form people might want. Murder rates by police action in Rio's favelas in particular tends to follow the economic trends of the state. You can blame the current president rhetoric just as much as you can blame the severe horrible political decisions of past administrations that led the entire state to complete bankrupcy. But it's just fruitless armchair politics. You are not there to see the daily routine of those places, you cannot fully understand why it happens. By the way, some of the most brutal killings that happened in Rio happened in previous administrations. You don't have to trust me, just search in news sites. First of all, people need to understand the geography of the city of Rio de Janeiro. The world famous favelas or slums are illegal and irregular occupations of Rio's mountanous region, which was supposed to be unoccupied, natural reserves. They sit side by side to downtown Rio, rich neighborhoods and touristic spaces, because it's actually a pretty tight space in relation to population numbers. Pull up Google Maps and Wikipedia and check for yourself. Yes, lots of poor honest workers live in favelas, but this does not negate the status of the place. It's lawless, labyrinthic, non regulated occupation of places that should have no people living there in the first place. As favelas are irregular occupations, it doesn't have anything regulated or official. Everything you can imagine from access to power, water, Internet, sewage, up to housing, commerce, among other stuff is all irregular. And a whole bunch of it is controlled, provided, and supported by criminal factions. What happens is that the place not only acts as a hotbed of crime in general like drug trafficking, blackmail, extortion, with the informal economy working inside favelas having to pay criminal factions to work in there, but it's also the perfect hideout for criminals who are commiting crimes outside favelas and into the city itself. It all ends there. All criminals of all natures escape to those regions. Yes, this is a failing of the state and government, but it is also a failing of the economy and the people. Honest working people should not be forced to live in conditions like those, but here we are. Everyone shares the responsibility of what happens in favelas. So, there are few options for effective law and policing in conditions like those. There has been a long stance going around on police never entering favelas unless it's for a specific action and reason, because of how dangerous it is to do so. If police don't chase criminals there, then the lawlessness extends it's reach to the entire city. If all a criminal has to do to escape law is run into a favela, there's zero hope for justice. But the economy is in such a state for such a long time that you have cases of police staff and military staff living in favelas having to hide their line of work not to be targeted. Because their wages are so low they simply cannot afford living outside favelas. This, again, has nothing to do with current administration - this is a long standing problem. Bope and regular police or military even have terms for when they have to enter favelas to give chase to criminals - incursions, basically. They are in an out as fast as possible, with large teams, heavy protection and weapons as possible. It's not because the police is violent or that they wanna kill a bunch of people, it's because they get in already under fire. Kids hired by criminal factions will use fireworks or whatever to warn criminal factions that the police is getting in, criminal factions will respond with heavy fire against anyone they see as police or military, and it really turns into a war zone. People who have at least watched Elite Squad movie will understand it a bit better, but the reality is even more dire than the movie portrays, specially nowadays. Mind you, the police and military are often understaffed, underpaid, underequipped and undertrained for this daily routine. You get one of your trigger happy US cops inside a favela and see how that goes. I'm willing to bet several US service members would rather be in Iraq or Afghanistan fighting ISIS cells rather than living the daily lives of cops in Rio, specially these days with the bankrupt state. So yeah, it's good that people know that such things are happening in Rio, and accountability is always a good thing to go for. But please, do not turn this into yet another ridiculous crusade against this or that politician like the whole Amazon is burning shitshow. This is solving nothing. I'm glad to see problems about my country being shown in international news, but if it's treated and portrayed in a shallow manner, it only makes things worse.
1