Blacks are the majority of those killed in police actions in 6 states
Every four hours a black person is killed in police actions in Bahia, Ceará, Piauí, Pernambuco, Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo. This is shown in the study Target skin: the color of police violence prepared by the Network of Security Observatories, published this Tuesday (14). The states are six of the seven that are monitored by the network. The seventh is Maranhão, where the government does not follow the color of victims of violence, which for the organization is "another form of institutional racism".
The work is the result of data for the year 2020, which were obtained through the Access to Information Law. For the second time, the Observatories Network analyzes the numbers of the security secretariats of the monitored states. The first was last year.
According to the research, even “in a context of global health crisis, racism does not give a break and, on the contrary, kills even more, both by virus and by shooting”. The study pointed out that, among the 2,653 deaths caused by the police, with racial information in the six states of the network, 82.7% of them were black people.
Rio de Janeiro was once again the state with the most deaths of black people in police actions. In the case of the 1,092 dead who had their color/race informed, 939 records were of black people. Despite this, Bahia again had the highest percentage of deaths of black people by state agents, being the most lethal police in the Northeast. Pernambuco had a 53% increase in deaths caused by the actions of state agents, from 93% to 97% of black people among the victims from one year to the next.
In this edition, the Network of Security Observatories, for the first time, also presents the numbers of the capitals and found that 100% of those killed by the police in Recife, Fortaleza and Salvador were black people. In Teresina, 94% and in Rio de Janeiro, 90% of blacks were killed by the police.
For the network, the proportion of blacks killed by the police compared to their proportion in the population “is the most striking image of the racism that structures police activity. In all states, the presence of blacks among those killed by the police is much greater than in the population composition of the states, showing that death at the point of a rifle carried by a police officer disproportionately affects blacks in relation to non-blacks" .
Bahia
According to data from the Brazilian Public Security Forum, Santo Antônio de Jesus, in Bahia, is the city in which more black people die in police actions in Brazil. Among those with the highest number of dead, the state ranks third (595 dead). Rio de Janeiro appears in first place (939) and, in second, São Paulo (488), which is the most populous state in Brazil. The survey also showed that the police in Bahia, among all the states in the network, is the one with the highest percentage of black people killed in police actions, with 98%, while in the capital Salvador all police victims are black.
Ceará
The study Pele target: the color of police violence indicated that, in Ceará, blacks are seven times more likely to be killed than non-blacks. There, in the percentage of the general population, 62.3% correspond to blacks, but among the victims of state agents, black people reached 87.2%. The network highlighted that the finding occurred even with the state being “one of those that accumulate the most problems with regard to monitoring the color of victims. There are 106 colorless victims against 39 with racial identification”. In the capital Fortaleza, 100% of those killed by the police with racial identification are black.
Maranhão
In Maranhão, the network drew attention to the difficulty in obtaining results in the state because of the lack of monitoring of the color of victims by police officers. However, it was possible to verify that the number of people victimized by police officers in Maranhão, in total, rose from 72, in 2019, to 97, in 2020. “The variation between one year and another was 35%”.
Pernambuco
In Pernambuco, 113 people were victims of police actions in the state. Among them, 109 were black people, three white, and in one case the skin color was not identified. In 2019, the total number of people killed by the police in the state reached 74 cases, of which 93% were black.
Piauí
In Piauí, the percentage of victims of lethal police violence, of black people, reached 91%. With 94% lethality of the black population due to police activity, the capital Teresina was in third place among those monitored.
Rio de Janeiro
Even though it remains the state with the most deaths in police actions and interventions, Rio de Janeiro recorded 1,245 deaths in 2020, representing a reduction of 31% compared to 2019. However, "the value is the third highest record of the entire historical series.” Black people are 86% among those killed by the police. The capital is also the one with the highest total number of deaths (415). In the municipality, 90% of those killed in police actions are black. .
São Paulo
In 2020, São Paulo had 814 killed by the police. Of the total number of homicides, 770 occurrences were registered by the race of the victims and in 63.4% of the cases, they were black. Another piece of information that the survey revealed is that the proportion of browns (5.4%) and blacks (29.4%) among the dead is almost double the percentage of this same group in the population of São Paulo. Among whites, who represent 64% of the population of São Paulo, there are 36% among those killed by the police. In the capital, the percentage of blacks killed by the police is 69%, however, in number of cases, the municipality (317) is second only to that of Rio de Janeiro (415).
Observatory Network
After producing data in five states, the Observatories Network, which is a project of the Center for Security and Citizenship Studies (CESeC), with support from the Ford Foundation, in the second half of this year, expanded the study to Maranhão and Piauí. For this, the Network of Peripheral Studies, from the Federal University of Maranhão (UFMA) and the Federal Institute of Maranhão (IFMA) joined the work; the Center for Research on Children, Adolescents and Youth, of the Federal University of Piauí (UFPI) and the Black Initiative for a New Policy on Drugs (INNPD); in addition to the Office of Legal Advice to Popular Organizations (Gajop); the Violence Studies Laboratory (LEV/UFC) and the Violence Studies Nucleus (NEV/USP).
Text translated using artificial intelligence.
