A The death of Patrick Bastos Reis, soldier Reis, triggered the deadliest operation by the São Paulo Military Police since the massacre of 111 prisoners at the Carandiru prison. On the night of July 27, 2023, he was shot between the shoulder and arm, in Guarujá, on the coast of São Paulo, where Rota was patrolling. He was 30 years old. The bullet passed through the chest and hit his lungs and ascending aorta. He died in the health unit where he was rescued.
Since then, the PM has carried out operations in Baixada Santista that resulted in a staggering and, perhaps, even underreported count: 84 deaths. The corporation has stated that these deaths occurred in clashes with bandits.
The PM’s revenge began on Friday, the day after the death of soldier Reis. “Over the weekend, we received calls from residents without understanding what was happening,” recalls Fernanda Balera, coordinator of the Citizenship and Human Rights Center at the São Paulo Public Defender’s Office. She says that, upon arriving in Guarujá, she already knew that the rematch would be tough. “I heard that there would be a total of thirty people killed, one for every year of soldier Reis’s life,” she says.
The PM’s bloody fury, however, did not bring comfort to Cláudia, mother of soldier Reis, interviewed by John Baptist Jr. for report from the May edition of Piauí about São Paulo’s public security secretary, Guilherme Derrite.
Cláudia had moved from Santa Maria, in Rio Grande do Sul, to the capital of São Paulo, with her husband. They wanted to be closer to their only son and grandson. As soon as she learned of Reis’ death, she asked a Rota commander, whose name she did not want to identify, that the burial be in Santa Maria, where the family’s tomb is located. The officer denied the request, due to a rule according to which the body would need to be buried for at least five years in the PM mausoleum, at the Araçá Cemetery, in São Paulo. (The rule does not exist, but, shaken by the loss, the mother did not have the energy to research the subject.) She heard that a PM helicopter would pick up the family in the interior to attend the wake in the capital. “But then no one called anymore. I got a ride so I wouldn’t miss my son’s funeral.”
The burial became a major political act, with the presence of governor Tarcísio de Freitas and Derrite. After the funeral ceremony ended, Cláudia says that she never had contact with the PM again. “Derrite never bothered to call me,” she laments. After she learned that the five-year rule was an invention, Cláudia began looking for a lawyer to transfer her son’s remains to Santa Maria. She says she has not been informed about the progress of the investigations. “I found out from the press that the bullet that hit my son did not come from the gun seized by the police,” she said.
To this day, the Public Security Secretariat maintains the version that the operation was not revenge for the deaths of the police officers, but was part of a previous plan aimed at stifling the sale of drugs in the port region, controlled by the PCC. After 84 deaths, the PM arrested 2 thousand people, seized 240 weapons and almost 3.6 tons of drugs. Experts say that the volume of drugs seized so far is just over 5% of what the PCC ships per year through the Port of Santos. In parallel to this, Gaeco, from the Public Ministry, with intelligence work, launched a harsh attack against the PCC by destroying two bus companies that had revenues of more than 800 million reais and were being used by the criminal organization to launder drug money. drugs. The PM supported the operation. He didn’t need to fire a single shot.
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