RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A judge handed down lengthy sentences Saturday to three former Brazilian Federal Highway Police officers over the 2022 death of a Black man who died of asphyxiation in the smoke-filled trunk of an SUV.
Video of officers forcibly holding 38-year-old Genivaldo de Jesus Santos in the back of their police vehicle as a dense cloud of what appeared to be tear gas spewed from the car sparked outrage across Brazil and sparked protests in Umbauba, in the northeastern state of Sergipe.
Police said the man displayed aggressive behavior and “actively resisted” the officers who arrested him. They said officers immobilized him and then used “instruments of lesser offensive potential” to restrain him.
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The man could be heard screaming and local media later reported that the victim had tried to explain that he was taking medication for psychiatric disorders.
Jurors found the officers guilty of torturing and killing the man at the end of a 12-day trial. Judge Rafael Soares sentenced Paulo Rodolpho Lima Nascimento to 28 years in prison for murder, according to a statement from the 5th Federal Regional Court.
Soares sentenced the other officers, William de Barros Noia and Kleber Nascimento Freitas, to more than 23 years in prison each for torture resulting in death.
In August 2023, an internal disciplinary process recommended dismissing the three officers, a decision later confirmed by the Ministry of Justice.
Police violence has recently come into sharp focus again in Brazil. Last Tuesday, images of a military police officer in Sao Paulo throwing a man off a bridge into a river sparked widespread reaction.
A day earlier, local media G1 published a video showing an off-duty military police officer last month firing a series of shots at a young man who had stolen packets of soap, killing him. That incident also took place in Sao Paulo.
