SÃO PAULO – A 32-year-old man, suspected of stealing two boxes of bonbons from a convenience store in Vila Mariana, south of São Paulo, was handcuffed, tied by his feet with a rope and dragged by two military police officers in the early hours of this Monday (5/6).
The scene was filmed by a witness inside the Vila Mariana Emergency Care Unit (UPA), where the suspect, Robson Rodrigues Francisco, was taken by the PMs (Military Police) after being detained with two boxes of candy valued at R$30 (U$ 6,11) he seems altered and screams several times (see below).
The author of the video himself, a 32-year-old art educator who asked not to be identified, was taken by the PMs to the 27th Police District (DP) because he made the recording and said he was “dissatisfied with the way they were treating the citizen”.
“It’s absurd for the police to treat a human being that way,” he tells Metrópoles.
“What do you mean, we are in the era of slavery?” he asks.
According to him, the police tried to intimidate him, even asking for his documents. “They said I had to be trained in public safety to question what they were doing with that boy”, he says.
The educator says that, when he confirmed that he would go to the PD, one of the MPs made a gesture and, immediately, they turned on the cameras attached to the uniform. “Before, when they went to intimidate me, they weren’t connected”, she reports.
According to him, the suspect was tied up for at least three hours. It was around 3 am, when the police chief called to give a statement, that the boy detained by the PMs was untied. “He screamed in pain,” he says.
Theft in Oxxo
According to an employee at the Oxxo convenience store, Robson and two other young men entered the unit at dawn around 2:30 am on Monday and carried out a “draft”, placing various products in baskets. He suspected the action because Robson had already committed other thefts, pressed the panic button and went outside.
The trio left the store taking several products without paying. In addition to boxes of bonbons, alcoholic and energy drinks, valued at around R$500. The employee indicated the clothes and the direction in which the suspects would have gone.
Further on, on another street, the PMs found Robson Rodrigues Francisco with two boxes of bonbons. According to the police, “informally”, he “confessed that he had stolen from the market”. Still according to the PMs, Robson “was very upset and at no time did he follow the order of the police, requiring the use of force to handcuff him”.
The PMs requested support from another vehicle. According to the report, it took four police officers to arrest the suspect. “Even in handcuffs, Robson continued to resist and it was necessary to use a rope to tie his feet”, said the police at the police station.
Robson would have threatened to run away and also that he would “take the police gun and shoot several times” at them, according to the police report. The other two suspects were also arrested. Metrópoles approached the Secretariat of Public Security on Tuesday night (6/6) to question it about the conduct of the PMs, but did not receive a response until the publication of this report. The space remains open for demonstration.
