Rio de Janeiro Brazilian Police Profiled in New Documentary

This heavily armed group wears black uniforms and their faces are often masked, and their symbol includes a skull with crossed pistols. The force has a tough training regime and a tough reputation Elite Squad in action.

It is not some illegal paramilitary force but an elite battalion of the police in Rio de Janeiro known as Bope, the Battalion for Special Police Operations. They were created to deal with kidnappings, but their job now is to take on the most dangerous drug gangs in the country, a battle fought with high-calibre weapons in the city's favelas or shanty towns.

Their role has made the force extremely controversial, with accusations that they have killed innocent people whose only crime was to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Now the launch of a new movie called Tropa de Elite or Elite Squad has put this police unit in the spotlight in an unprecedented way.

The film is often grim viewing. It includes scenes in which captives are tortured by police officers to obtain information, and one in which an unarmed suspect is killed. At the same time, a drug gang burns a screaming captive to death, his body wrapped in tyres as he is set alight, apparently to destroy all human remains.

Some police officers are presented as honestly trying to do their job, but many others are portrayed as corrupt. The movie also points an accusing finger at the hypocrisy of rich young people who complain about violence in Brazilian society, but who use the drugs that finance the gangs which dominate many favelas.

The Brazilian police tortures and kills - that is a fact Rodrigo Pimentel, scriptwriter and former Bope member […]. It is estimated that 11 million people saw a pirate copy of the film before it was released.

In a survey in Veja news magazine, 79% of respondents said they believed the film showed the police as they really are, and 72% thought the drug dealers in the movie were treated the way they deserved. But 51% said torture was not an acceptable way to get a confession from a drug trafficker.

Fonte: http://www.bbc.uk By: Gary Duffy - BBC