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The funeral of a black man who died while being beaten by security guards at a supermarket followed protests that echoed those of the racial justice movement in the United States.
Joao Alberto Silveira Freitas, father of four children, was buried with a white T-shirt in a coffin covered with the flag of his favorite soccer team in the city of Porto Alegre.
“I just want justice,” his partner, Milena Borges Alves, told Globo.
“That’s it. I just want them to pay for what they did to him.”
Mr. Freitas was buried in a coffin covered with the flag of his favorite soccer team
On Friday, protesters painted “Black Lives Matter” on the sidewalk of Avenida Paulista, one of the most famous in Sao Paulo, after a series of protests across the country, many of them at branches of the chain of Carrefour supermarkets.
Military police used pepper spray to disperse crowds outside a supermarket in the northeastern city of Recife.
The outrage was fueled by a widely circulated video showing one guard restraining Freitas while another repeatedly hit him in the face.
Another clip later showed a guard kneeling on his back in the store’s parking lot in Porto Alegre on Thursday.
Both guards have been detained and face possible murder charges, according to police authorities.
The CEO of France-based supermarket group Carrefour, Alexandre Bompard, said on Twitter that the images were “unbearable” and promised to go beyond the “insufficient” steps already taken by the company’s Brazil branch.
Protesters start a fire during a protest at the entrance of a Carrefour supermarket where he died
“My values and Carrefour’s values are not compatible with racism and violence,” he said.
Carrefour previously said it would terminate its contract with the security company and fire the store manager on duty.
Black and mestizo people make up about 57% of Brazil’s population, but constitute 74% of the victims of lethal violence, according to the Brazilian Forum for Public Security, a non-governmental organization.
The percentage is even higher, 79%, for those killed by the police.
