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A black man died after being beaten by security guards at a supermarket in the Brazilian city of Porto Alegre on the eve of the Black Awareness Day observations, sparking outrage when videos of the incident circulated on social media.
A short clip showed a guard holding João Alberto Silveira Freitas just outside the doors of a Carrefour supermarket while the other hit him with repeated blows to the face. A store clerk stood to the side filming.
Other clips, filmed afterwards, showed a guard kneeling on Freitas’s back.
Eraldo Peres / AP
The murder of João Alberto Silveira Freitas, who died after being beaten by security guards at a supermarket in the southern Brazilian city of Porto Alegre, sparked outrage when videos of the incident were circulated on social media.
Dozens of protesters entered a Carrefour in Brazil’s capital Brasilia on Friday morning, chanting “Black lives matter!” One had a sign that read: “Do not buy at Carrefour. You could die. “Inside another Carrefour in Rio de Janeiro, protesters shouted” Carrefour Killer! “As a black man lay motionless atop the conveyor belt of a box.
Carrefour issued a statement lamenting the “brutal death” of Freitas, and said that “it will adopt the appropriate measures to hold people responsible for this criminal act.” He also said that he will end his contract with the security company, fire the store manager who was on duty and close the store out of respect for the victim.
The men who beat Freitas have been detained and are being investigated for homicide due to the victim’s suffocation and her inability to defend herself, said Nadine Anflor, head of the civil police in the southern state of Rio Grande do Sul, where Porto Alegre is the capital.
Eraldo Peres / AP
Activists, including members of Black Lives Matter, demonstrate against the murder on Brazil’s National Black Awareness Day.
One of the men was a temporary military police officer who was off duty, said Rodrigo Mohr, chief of the state military police.
The two spoke in a Twitter video posted by Governor Eduardo Leite, who highlighted recent state policies enacted to combat racial intolerance.
“Unfortunately, on this day when we should be celebrating those public policies, we come across scenes that leave us all outraged by the excessive violence that caused the death of a black citizen in the supermarket,” he said.
Black Awareness Day is observed as a holiday in many parts of Brazil.
In Rio de Janeiro on Friday, a group of people participated in a celebration with Afro-Brazilian dance and music in the working-class favela of Santa Marta. Members of a local samba school performed a ritual “washing” of the steps leading up to the hillside neighborhood.
Bruna Prado / AP
Members of the Mocidade Unida do Santa Marta samba school perform a good luck washing ritual called “Lavagem” while attending a ceremony marking Black Awareness Day in the Santa Marta favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on Friday, November 20, 2020. Brazilians celebrate the party with Afro-Brazilian dance, music and religious ceremonies, reflecting the deep cultural and social ties of the black community to the country’s history and honoring the legendary anti-slave leader Zumbi dos Palmares on the day of his death. (AP Photo / Bruna Prado)
Black and mestizo people make up about 57 percent of Brazil’s population, but make up 74 percent of the victims of lethal violence, according to the Brazilian Public Security Forum, a non-governmental organization. The percentage is even higher, 79%, for those killed by the police.
Local online news site G1 He reported that last night’s incident at the Carrefour in Porto Alegre followed a confrontation between Freitas and a supermarket employee, who then called security. Both guards were white G1 reported.
After George Floyd’s death earlier this year in the United States, the Black Lives Matter protests drew hundreds of thousands to the streets around the world. They also resonated in Brazil, where protesters came to demand justice for a 14-year-old boy killed by police in Rio de Janeiro.
Protesters in Brasilia also gathered on Friday in front of a government institution that promotes black culture to denounce their boss, Sergio Camargo. Camargo, who is black, has denied the existence of structural racism in Brazilian society and called the Black Lives Matter movement “left-handed trash”.
Eraldo Peres / AP
With the message in Portuguese “Black Lives Matter”, the activists demonstrate inside a Carrefour supermarket.
Speaking to journalists, Brazilian Vice President Hamilton Mourão lamented the incident at Carrefour, but denied that it reflected racism.
“Racism does not exist in Brazil. That is something they want to import here, ”said Mourão. ″ I lived in the United States. There is racism there. “
The French supermarket chain has been embroiled in controversy before in Brazil.
In August, a man died inside a Carrefour in the northeastern city of Recife; his body was covered by umbrellas and the supermarket continued to operate for several hours. Carrefour apologized in a statement and said it was changing its protocols for closing locations when deaths occur.
In 2018, a security guard at a Carrefour in São Paulo state beat a stray dog to death with a metal bar. The dog was well known in the area and Carrefour agreed to pay 1 million reais (NZ $ 268,209) to a fund for the protection of animals.
