Hallmark holidays and murder - São Paulo

Justice for Brayan? Maybe.

Here is one of these urban stories which has no redemption. There is no good lesson to be learned from this. You choose whether or not to read on.

On June 28 of this year, a Bolivian immigrant family was held up in their house. When they could not cough up more than $4500 reais (US$2100), the assailants threatened to shoot the 5-year old son, who was apparently screaming and crying. And they ended up doing so; in leaving the house, one of the assailants killed Brayan with a gunshot to the head.

The four assailants were subsequently caught and put into prison (a teenager is also suspected but is in the juvenile prison system). Prison in Brazil is not fun (I'm guessing it's not fun anywhere but fortunately don't know the truth of it). The PCC is the organized prison mafia and runs a pretty tight ship of hierarchy and membership dues, etc. It is pretty hard to leave prison a better man or woman.

What happens in prison, stays in prison. In one of those prison justice moments that send chills up your spine, two of the four suspects were killed by fellow prisoners last week. They were forced to drink a lethal cocktail of cocaine and Viagra, mixed with water and disinfectant. Taken to the prison hospital, they soon died. While it seems somewhat obvious (to me) that this is retaliation for taking the life of a child, there is no final answer.

Drink up!

But, as they say, read on. And you know I can't resist reading on a Folha article. What happened to the other two adult assailants, including the one that is suspected of being the gunman? Let's see...they are "foragido" or fugitive. How did they get out? Did they escape? Not hardly. It turns out that were released for Mother's Day. A Hallmark holiday if ever there was one. Yes, the amnesty of mother's day where all good murderers get to go home and kiss their mothers. Who will want to kiss the murderer of a tiny tot.  I am beginning to believe that amnesty is a way of easing the prison overcrowding--what percentage of these folks actually go back to prison at the end of the day? I don't know. Not sure I want to find out.

True story. Look here.