I have no peace, says black man attacked by police officers with spray paint – 04/26/2024 – Daily life

A pair of military police officers were removed from street duty after they were caught spraying pepper spray in the face of musician Cesar de Carvalho, 31, on Tuesday morning (23).

The episode took place in Vila Nova Cachoeirinha, in the north of São Paulo.

A video of the scene, recorded by a family member, went viral on social media after being published by Paraná deputy Renato Freitas (PT).

The report from Sheet spoke with Carvalho in the office of his lawyer, Beatriz de Almeida, in the center of São Paulo.

According to Carvalho, the aggression began after a confusion over paying the rent where he had been living for around eight months. He said he chose the neighborhood in light of police persecutions in the central region, where he had previously spent much of the day.

Carvalho reported that he always paid the rent in the amount of R$600 to the owner of the property. However, one month the woman was away, a man showed up and introduced himself as her ex-husband and co-owner to whom he was supposed to deposit the rent from that point on.

That month, the amount of R$650 was deposited, with the justification that the increase would be used to repair a damaged door.

A short time later, the owner returned and charged the rent. Carvalho then told what happened and the woman stated that it was a scam carried out by her ex-husband.

Carvalho stated that he reached an agreement with the owner and remained in the property.

On Tuesday, the man reappeared in the morning and told Carvalho that he had an eviction order and that he should leave the house. If he refused, he allegedly grabbed a knife and ran after the musician.

“I saw that he was trying to kill my life,” said the musician. It was at that time that her ex-husband called the police.

“I was up to date with my rent. There was no way he could evict me.”

According to Carvalho, the police have already approached him. When he said he would call his lawyer, his cell phone was taken away.

Concerned about what had happened, a family member who had gone to the scene began recording the scene.

In the images it is possible to see when a military police officer holds the man’s neck and presses him against the gate of a residence.

Even though the man approached was unresponsive, with his arms crossed, one of the police officers sprayed the man in the face from a short distance away.

Carvalho said he was taken handcuffed and in the vehicle’s guard to a police station, where he remained for around an hour and a half.

“I don’t have confidence in returning home. I don’t have peace. I don’t have peace. I can’t sleep”, he declares.

A report of disobedience and contempt was filed against him.

“All applicable legal measures were adopted and the Public Prosecutor’s Office was contacted. We understand that the violence suffered by Cesar de Carvalho resulted from the police approach for racial profiling”, stated lawyer Beatriz de Almeida.

In a statement, the SSP (Secretariat of Public Security) declared that the police officers’ conduct contradicts the PM’s operational protocols, which opened a Military Police Inquiry to investigate the facts. “The institution does not condone misconduct or excesses by its agents,” he added.

Asked about the dismissed military police officers and a sequence of cases of police violence that have occurred in recent months, the governor of São Paulo, Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans), said that procedural failures will be severely punished.

Tarcísio praised the PM’s work and said that the state has shown improvements in several criminal indicators. He stated, however, that military police officers need to internalize that “there is no support for a lack of discipline, for an inadequate approach, for a procedural error.”

“We will not tolerate any type of deviation. What we cannot allow is isolated cases to contaminate a large corporation, which works with excellence, which has good training, which has a tradition”, said the governor. “We are heading in the right direction. And there are problems, there are deviations here and there and we punish these deviations so that they don’t happen.”