Secretary Plans to Search Busses that Stop at Beachfront Areas in Rio's Southern Zone

01/12/2017 - 12h56

Rio de Janeiro's new Secretary for Public Order, Coronel Paulo Amêndola, 72, known for his hardline approach, wants to increase repression on the beaches of the city's southern zone during the summer.

One of the primary measures to be implemented will be searching bus passengers that get off at the beaches in the southern zone.

He declared that public transportation "dumps" people at the beachfront. When questioned about the pejorative connotation of the term he explained: "dump is a common term, a popular one, without denigrating the people who are there. We, the police, use it this way".

For Amêndola, the more people there are the more problems there are. "There are people who are simply looking for leisure but there are also marginals, delinquents, thieves. And for them, there will be repression."

According to him, meetings with the Judiciary are being held to define the legal procedures for measures to be adopted in order to prevent discrimination.

The new secretary says that he believes that the transportation public works projects undertaken throughout the city in the years preceding the Olympics have made it easy for people who live far from the beaches to access them.

And this, from his point of view, is related to the elevated crime indices in the summer of 2016, which was marked by a climate of insecurity around the beaches.

According to the measures being planned, passengers caught with weapons or firearms will be taken into custody and to the police station. If they have no identification or money, they will be considered suspects.

According to Amêndola, during the summer there will be 62 guards trained for action on duty per shift. On weekends, there will be 220 guards on the beaches, in addition to the regular Military Police patrols. "We believe that, with this, we will have peace on the beaches this summer."

Translated by LLOYD HARDER

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