Disturbing New Data on Police Violence in Rio de Janeiro

Tension and violence between the police and communities of color is a well-documented problem in the United States, but it’s by no means uniquely American. A new report by Human Rights Watch released this week reveals the profound extent to which law enforcement operates with impunity in the state of Rio de Janeiro in Brazil, where military police are estimated to have killed more than 8,000 people over the past decade. Of those killed at the hands of police in Rio, an estimated 70 percent were black.

“Rio is the most dangerous [policing] situation in Brazil, and it’s among the worst in Latin America,” says César Muñoz, a senior researcher in Brazil for Human Rights Watch. “And after going down for several years, [the rate of] police killings is now going up again.”