Brazil Police Forces Mentally Ill Black Man Into Their Cruiser, Releases A Gas Grenade, Then Watch As He Dies;

International out­rage has been sparked after a Black man died from smoke inhala­tion as Brazilian police trapped him in a tear gas-filled SUV. While law enforce­ment says he was “active­ly resist­ing” arrest, oth­er reports offi­cers were using cru­el and exces­sive force. The pub­lic is call­ing foul and lin­ing the streets in São Paulo in protest. A video, released on social media, shows sev­er­al cops from the Brazilian Federal Highway Police (FHP) forcibly hold­ing the hatch­back of the truck down on Genivaldo de Jesus Santos, a man of African descent diag­nosed with schiz­o­phre­nia, while thick smoke from a tear gas can­is­ter they released seeped through the cracks. Observers described the encounter as offi­cers cre­at­ing an impro­vised gas chamber.

Reports stat­ed the inci­dent hap­pened on Wednesday, May 25, in Umbauba, a town in the north­east­ern state of Sergipe. 
The man is approached by the FHP for rid­ing a motor­cy­cle with­out a hel­met, WSWS​.org reports. A record­ing shows the armed offi­cers, car­ry­ing assault rifles, aggres­sive­ly inter­ro­gat­ing Santos — and at one point curs­ing at him. His nephew, Wallyson de Jesus, who wit­nessed the alter­ca­tion, said the police took his uncle’s med­i­cine for his schiz­o­phre­nia out of his pock­et. “They threw some kind of gas inside the trunk and went to the police sta­tion,” de Jesus said. “But my uncle was uncon­scious. They took him to the hos­pi­tal, but it was already too late.” 
The video cap­tures three offi­cers, Kleber Nascimento Freitas, Paulo Rodolpho Lima Nascimento, and William de Barros Noia, vio­lent­ly engag­ing the man, for what wit­ness­es say last­ed for about 30 min­utes. And then after get­ting him into the patrol vehi­cle, the offi­cers decid­ed to toss a tear gas can­nis­ter inside of its trunk, the wit­ness­es say. 
Before his death, Santos, 38, can be heard scream­ing in the video, as his legs seem to flail des­per­ate­ly through the white clouds of smoke. As he calls out in agony, a crowd can be seen gath­er­ing. At no point did the offi­cers seem fazed by the onlook­ers and pro­vid­ed no relief for the man before he expired.
Later the offi­cers report­ed Santos was strick­en with a “sud­den ill­ness” on the way to the police sta­tion. The police divert­ed from the precinct and took him to the munic­i­pal hos­pi­tal, where he was pro­nounced dead. A med­ical exam­in­er, George Fernandes, a spokesper­son for Sergipe state’s foren­sic insti­tute, declared he died of “mechan­i­cal asphyxia.

The institute’s report, accord­ing to Reuters news agency states, “This obstruc­tion can occur through sev­er­al fac­tors, and at this first moment it was not pos­si­ble to estab­lish the imme­di­ate cause of the asphyx­ia, nor how it occurred.”

The foren­sic insti­tute is required to sub­mit its final, more in-depth report to the country’s fed­er­al police with­in 10 days of the death. The FHP released a state­ment about Santos’ killing call­ing it a “fatal­i­ty.” According to the Brazilian pub­li­ca­tion, Poder 360, the depart­ment said the death was “unre­lat­ed to the legit­i­mate police action.” The offi­cers admit­ted in their report they ordered him to “dis­em­bark” and “lift his shirt,” after stop­ping him for dri­ving his motor­bike with­out his hel­met. An English trans­la­tion of the police’s account of the event reads, “Continuously, it was deter­mined that the indi­vid­ual put his hands on his head and opened his legs, so as to make pos­si­ble the per­son­al search, but this order was like­wise dis­obeyed.” It con­tin­ued, “At all times passed his hands along the waist­line and through his pock­ets.” The cops fur­ther claimed because of the “agi­ta­tion of the approached,” “restraint” of his per­son­age was nec­es­sary. Further claim­ing Santos had “resis­tance” to his arrest and that the vic­tim “began to strug­gle and vio­lent­ly oppose the police, even get­ting into fights with them.” The offi­cers claimed they had to use “immo­bi­liza­tion tech­niques,” in addi­tion to pep­per spray and tear gas, the only tech­niques “avail­able.” Santos is said to have calmed down at a cer­tain point, and was then tak­en to the police sta­tion, but “began to feel sick” and was “prompt­ly res­cued.” “The team quick­ly pro­ceed­ed to the local hos­pi­tal, where the nec­es­sary med­ical pro­ce­dures were adopt­ed,” the offi­cers wrote. FHP attrib­uted Santos’ death to a “sud­den ill­ness.” Once the video and images were released on social media, view­ers react­ed by blast­ing the police force, par­tic­u­lar­ly when his men­tal ill­ness was made pub­lic. By the next day, protests start­ed emerg­ing as dozens of peo­ple took to the roads of the town to block high­ways and burn tires.According to Democracy Now, one pro­test­er said, “Genivaldo was tor­tured for a crime he did not com­mit, a Black man with men­tal health issues. The fam­i­ly begged for his life, but they were not heard.” Some Brazilians likened Santos’ death to that of George Floyd, an African-American mur­dered also in a police-involved killing on the same day two years prior. 

Charles Preston tweet­ed, “I went to a protest in Rio for Genivaldo de Jesus Santos. He was killed Wednesday by police trap­ping him inside the trunk of his car and throw­ing tear gas inside. George Floyd was killed on the same day two years ago. I’ll post some pic­tures.” A mem­ber of the Coalition for Black Rights civ­il rights orga­ni­za­tion tweet­ed his dis­gust, “These two pieces of ver­min know they are being filmed and yet they still applied a death sen­tence. There is no more decen­cy or embar­rass­ment. They tor­tured and exe­cut­ed the guy.” Others said it is anoth­er exam­ple of police bru­tal­i­ty in that South American nation, also point­ing to the more than 20 peo­ple killed by offi­cers dur­ing a raid on a favela in Rio de Janeiro a few days pri­or. The Brazilian Public Security Forum, an inde­pen­dent group, said in a state­ment, Santos’ death “shocked Brazilian soci­ety due to the lev­el of its bru­tal­i­ty, expos­ing the institution’s lack of pre­pared­ness to guar­an­tee that its agents obey basic procedures.”