City Councilwoman Marielle Franco Killed by Gunshots in Rio de Janeiro

03/15/2018 - 14h49

City Councilwoman Marielle Franco (PSOL Party), 38, was killed on Wednesday night (the 14th) on Joaquim Palhares Street in the Estácio neighborhood in Rio's northern zone.

She and the driver of the car she was in were shot and both died at the scene. An aide who was in the car with them survived.

In the City Assembly, she was head of the Women's Commission and last month had been nominated as rapporteur of the commission that is following the Federal intervention in Rio's public security.

Currently, she had been looking looking into accusations regarding the Mayor's Office's activities in Vila Kennedy, a slum (favela) in Rio's Western zone that had been chosen as a kind of laboratory for the intervention. Last Friday (the 9th), street merchant kiosks were destroyed in a shock order action that provoked a revolt among local residents.

Marielle had been opposed to the action. Last month, she declared that the Federal intervention was a farce.

	Rodrigo Chadí/Fotoarena/Folhapress
	Marielle Franco (PSOL)

On the 10th, she had published a piece on her social network pages denouncing abuses by the 41st Military Police battalion against residents of the Acari favella

She was active in organizations like the Brasil Foundation and Cesam (Maré Center for Solidarity Actions) as well as at Alerj (Rio de Janeiro Legislative Assembly) itself.

Marielle was a 19-year-old-mother. On her site, she had written that she had gotten started in her human rights militancy after signing up for a university entrance exam preparatory course in her community and losing a friend, "victim of a stray bullet in a shoot-out between the police and drug traffickers in the Maré Complex).

Translated by LLOYD HARDER

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