Happy Endings - São Paulo

For the past couple of weeks, a motoboy has been making my neighborhood more than a little nervous. He has robbed kids leaving schools, taking cell phones and tablets. He has attempted to rob a woman walking with her 3-year old child in a stroller. In spite of reinforced police presence, he was able to get away with it....until Tuesday afternoon when he was caught "em flagrante" in the neighborhood. He was hauled to the local police station and the following note went out over the neighborhood's security page on facebook: 

O ASSALTANTE QUE ESTÁ ROUBANDO NA S PROXOMIDADES DOS COLÉGIOS SANTA CLARA, SANTA CRUZ, RAINHA DA PAZ E VILALOBOS, ESTÁ DETIDO NO 14 DISTRITO POLICIAL DE PINHEIROS , NA RUA DEPUTADO LACERDA FRANCO. POR FAVOR, QUEM FOI OU CONHECE ALGUEM QUE SOFREU COM O ASSALTO,POR FAVOR VENHAM FAZER O FECONHECIMENTO DOS PERTENCES E DO MESMO. É SEGURO. QUANTO MAIS PESSOAS VIEREM, MAIS PROVAS PARA MANTER O MESMO PRESO

Basically, the neighborhood was informed that the suspect was being held at the station and if anyone had been robbed in the last couple of weeks to go down and identify him. Seven teenagers from one school went and all identified him as the perpetrator. Multiple identifications means that the chances are better for this criminal to be off the street for more than a day. Maybe it will be 10 days now.

Misplaced Sympathy? Police Forces- São Paulo

Okay, before getting distracted by a brain-damaged seal yesterday, I was originally going to post about this story "Metade das escolas forma policial em até seis meses" ("Half of schools graduate police officers in under six months"). Basically the story, as written by the highly reliable and objective Folha de São Paulo (sorry, does my sarcasm show?) is that there is an undue hurry to get police officers out on the street. Instead of a comprehensive community-oriented classwork, there seems to be a churning out of grey-uniformed officers ready only for the most obvious situations, and given only outlines of conflict resolution and mediation.

Now if you've seen Cops, that fine American tv program, you would think that conflict resolution was about 80% of a US police officer's job. You know, so-and-so doesn't want to move out of the trailer but his wife has thrown everything out the window including his television and maybe his dog. So, the negotiations begin. I get the feeling here in Brazil that there is not much negotiation: just haul off whoever to the station. If, as a friend points out, the police show up at all.

As many of you know, I have a natural sympathy towards the police. I grew up in towns where police officers were effective, were community members who contributed to the community well-being, and folks who you could always approach if you needed help. We knew many by name. I would also point out that the reverse is not true: not many knew MY name because I was a good girl. Really.

When I moved to São Paulo, big city or not, my natural instinct was to trust the police, unless given a reason otherwise.  And so far, I do not have a reason to do otherwise. After 8 years living here (between two postings), I still can't shake my trust and respect of the police. I have had nothing but neutral to good interactions. Okay, some of them, like the toner incident, are just plain ridiculous. The instinct to trust is not, though, the natural inclination of most Brazilians. And lest we all forget, this country is less than 30 years away from a military dictatorship where many REALLY BAD things happened at the hands of the police. I get it. Well, no, I don't. I don't think you can understand that kind of fear and uncertainty until you have lived it.

This Folha column seems to provide more reason for sympathy for the currently undertrained men and women of the police forces--folks who have nothing to do with Brazil's military past. Studies have proven that six months is just too short a time to get good officers who are focused on the important issues of daily police work. Imagine: in six months time, they are handing these trainees guns, pointing them in the direction of a car,  and putting them on the front lines against experienced criminals. Instead of conflict resolution classes, and how to handle protests, they are learning about the law. Which is good, but one should not replace the other.

The police force in Brazil is one of the most underpaid in the world. A starting-out military policeman in São Paulo makes R$26,000 (US$10,000) per year. A starting police officer in New York City makes US$41,000 per year. In London, US$33,000. And the Brits don't even have to carry guns! Yes, cost of living differences, etc. I know.  

It seems clear that the police force in Brazil is undertrained and underprepared. What this means for the World Cup and the Olympics; well, that's anyone's guess. But my expectation is not a pretty one. I still lean towards sympathy to this underpaid group. One of the moments that my sympathy felt strongest was when a military policeman here explained to me that crimes that result in penalties under four years (theft, for one) mean that the perpetrator is out on the street the very next day. There is simply no room left in the prisons for petty thieves. Imagine that you have chased someone for hours on a Thursday, and he waves hi to you from a bar on Friday. And we wonder why police men are frustrated.

By the way, I also read in a second article in the paper that there are actually eight different police forces in Brazil. Ready for the list? Federal, Guarda Municipal, Civil, Rodoviária, Portuária, Legislativa, Militar and Cientifica. 

Now in English: 
1. Federal (crimes against the government, white collar crime, drug trafficking investigations, also the guys that check every last item I bring into the country. As wikipedia says: "The Federal Police is the Brazilian equivalent of the American FBI, DEA, ATF, TSA, USBP, INS and Secret Service all rolled into one." They are busy.)
2. Municipal Guard (security forces of the cities/towns, protect municipal treasures such as buildings, parks and sculptures),
3. Civil (the state investigation and detectives group)
4. Highway (seems obvious), 
5. Legislative (no clue), 
6. Military (the chase and apprehend guys) 
7. Scientific (no clue--CSI São Paulo? Forensics? Seem to be part of the Civil Police. Maybe.)

And I'm not even going to touch on the really scary dudes like the Tropa de Choque (shock forces). Think SWAT. Think getting out of the way fast. That's a whole lot of weaponry.

An exercise in futility - CONSEG - São Paulo

Cartoon credit: www.marcbilgrey.com

I was going to write about beer today. I have lots to say about beer. But something happened between yesterday and today and that was another CONSEG meeting. Some of you may remember my first CONSEG meeting back in June which was, frankly, a silly affair of passing the baton to the new board. You can read it here: Yes We Can! Neighborhood Security.  I missed the July meeting since I was in the USA. I was pretty excited to go to this meeting because between June and now, this city was rocked by protests about everything from bus fares to violence. We should have lots to talk about.

Stepping back a bit, maybe you have forgotten what a CONSEG is. Why would you remember? Because you re-read my blogs all the time, right? Okay, from the Conseg site, this is the definition of the CONSEG's mission: "CONSEGs are groups of people from the same neighborhood or district who meet to talk about, analyze, plan and follow-through on community security issues, develop educational campaigns and strengthen bonds of understanding and cooperation between various local leaders." Community security meets neighborhood watch.

And here is what actually happened. 20 or so people showed up in the audience. Of these 20 people, I recognized at least 15 from the last meeting. So, there is longevity in attendance. Serious longevity. Of the 20 people, 90% were over the age of 60. And of the 20 people, 90% liked to hear their own voices. They mostly had no respect for the vice president's calls for order. But I am jumping ahead.

The long table on the stage at the front of the room was taken up by the president of the Conseg, a representative of CET (traffic cops) and SPTrans (ummm, traffic too? Let me look it up. Ah, here it is: the public transport system guys), a representative of the submayor (the sub-submayor), the civil police (and he was quite polite), the military police (we got the new bam-bam-bam captain and our usual lieutenant) and the civil guard.

As always, the meeting started with standing up and applauding the Brazilian flag. This is weird.  Then the civil police talked about the events of July in a most relaxed way. Mostly our crime statistics had stayed stable, which seems unlikely but how am I to argue with men with guns? Our neighborhood's biggest problem coming out of July is the existence of the "Black Block"  (yep, he said it in English, but with a Portuguese pronunciation which made it the Blackie Blockie, and no I did not giggle though I wished to). The Black Block was blamed on Germany, by the way, though I did not catch why this is. Origins of skinheads? I don't know. These are the troublemakers who infiltrated the Passe Livre group (the group that wanted lower bus fares and went about it with peaceful marches) and just want to break things. As he says, they are just here to wreck stuff. Then he proceeded to identify the bad guys as mostly students and middle class. And that there was "pézinho" or little foot in University of São Paulo. This provoked some hissing that I assume had to do with some alumni in the audience.

So here I am thinking that we are off and running on security issues. But instead we get diverted down a road of too much noise in the neighborhood, how the civil guard is dealing with homeless and illegal businesses and then the SPTrans guy talks about the new Mobility Plan for the city. He mentions that the city is close to total breakdown since the number of people in cars is equaling the number of people in public transport which provides an answer to a fancy equation and basically we are all dead meat. I can hardly wait for the World Cup, you?

At this point, four people leave the room and go to the anteroom to discuss football loudly. And at this point (1 hour into the meeting), I have come to the following two possible conclusions about the lack of attendance and relevance of this meeting:

1. The residents of the neighborhood do not give a sh** about security. How else to explain the lack of attendance and lack of discussion?
2. The residents of the neighborhood do give a sh•• about security but realize that the CONSEG is not able to do anything or get anywhere on this subject.

I really don't understand how tens of thousands of people take to the streets in July to say "we've had enough" and not one shows up to say politely to the commanders of the military police and civil police "what are you doing and how can I help you?" Okay, late in the meeting, a Senhor Benedito, aged 70ish and pretty mad, says there was a gringo recently assaulted in the neighborhood and word is getting out that Sao Paulo is dangerous and what are we going to do? This is the forum to get in front of the security forces. Where is everyone? Is it easier to walk down a street and protest than attend a monthly meeting at 7:30 pm? Please someone explain. I am guessing I am heading to conclusion 2: people care about security but don't think that CONSEG is the place to make changes.

The military police did answer Sr. Benedito. They are doing what they can. If they know a problem, they will help. The community must do their part and give feedback through police reports (B.O.s) about the crimes. They can only concentrate their forces where they know there are many problems. Also, the parents complaining about assaults around schools should be counseling their kids not to pull out their iphone and other expensive gear and wave it around.

He also mentioned that the justice system must be refined. One of the local policewomen was held up crossing through the local park by three minors with a knife. She pulled out her gun and badge and they were all arrested. Two hours later, these minors were released minus their knife, and the three cell phones they had stolen. There was no way to hold them.

At this point, when the meeting was getting interesting and about security, the president of CONSEG interrupted and said that we would be celebrating the 453 years of the Pinheiros neighborhood on 13 August at 7:30 pm in this same building. Anyone who wants details can let me know. Then he told everyone to stand up and applaud the flag. Meeting over.

Back to beer tomorrow. Should be more fruitful.

Gallery of Heroes - or report your crimes when we have toner - São Paulo

As promised a few blogs ago, here is the story of my introduction to crime reporting in São Paulo.

Last year, a 21-year-old alumna of my alma mater came to stay with us for a couple weeks while on an 11-country tour. Debbie was studying martial arts worldwide on a Watson scholarship, and was in Brazil to study capoeira for a few months--mostly in Bahia but also two weeks in São Paulo. Debbie was very independent and in spite of not speaking the language or knowing the city, she searched the web for an intensive Portuguese class, which she found in a neighborhood about 30 minutes by bus from our house. She then found the bus line that would take her there and she was off.

On her third day of class, I received a call on my cell phone when I was in a meeting. Debbie was calling from her Portuguese class. She breathlessly said that she had been robbed on the bus. Someone had unzipped her small over-the-shoulder purse and taken her wallet with Watson ID, bus pass, cash, keys to my house, and a number of smaller items. She had not lost her cell phone. Without going into details on how the crime had taken place, she asked what she should do.

I told her to find the closest police station to report the crime. Two minutes later she called back and told me that the people in her Portuguese school (the Brazilians) told her not to bother. The reason? Reporting is pointless, according to them, the police would never catch the guy. I had a different opinion—I wanted her to report the crime so that statistics would show that the buses in a certain area were dangerous, and that (theoretically) more security would be assigned there. I told her to take a taxi back to my house and I would pay for it, and then we would go to the police station together.

When Debbie got home, she told me the whole story. She had been seated on the bus facing the "cobrador". Buses in Brazil are manned by a bus driver and the "cobrador" or money-charger who will change any bills (exact change signs as blazoned on NY buses are not here). She was wearing her small purse slung over her shoulder, and with her hand on top of it. Debbie is Chinese-American. According to her, the money-taker started making racist gestures at her such as making pulling his eyelids to make squinty eyes, and speaking to someone just out of sight on the other side of the turnstile. Debbie did not understand what they were saying. Finally, she removed her hand from her purse to gesture “me?” and to try to understand. During these moments when she was distracted from her bag, someone unzipped it, and took her documents and money. When Debbie discovered it, she immediately assumed the money-taker was involved and tried, in English, to complain or get some help. No one on the bus spoke English. No one helped her. She left the bus in tears.

Close to our house is a large park called Villa-Lobos. At the entrance to this park, down a few hundred meters, there is a Policia Militar (military police) station. I had noticed it a number of times before since it even abuts the running path through the park (though you cannot actually access it from inside the park, which seems bizarre). I said to Debbie we would try there first. We decided to take my car even though it was walkable—just in case it took a while and we ran into rodizio (rodizio is the six hour period one day a week when you cannot use your car 7-10 am, 5-8 pm). Off we went.

Police Station Villa-Lobos (from www.jureia.com.br/mostramateria.asp?idmateria=1606)

As we pulled up to the gated entrance, a military policeman comes to the car and asks “pois não?” which literally means “no?” but in this case means “yes, may I help you?”See a prior blog on this one.

Me: “We need to file a ‘boletim de occorrencia’”.  (crime report)

Guard: “Não pode.” (you can’t)

Me: “Por que não? (why not) "Aqui é delegacia?" (Isn’t this a police station?)

Guard: “Pois é." (Yes).

Me: “….?”

Guard: “Estamos sem “toner”” (We have no toner. “Toner” apparently has no translation in Portuguese)

Me: “O que?” (what?)

Guard: “Não tem como imprimir o boletim" (We can’t print the crime report).

Me: “Podemos fazer eletronico e outro dia imprimir?" (can we do the electronic bit and print the rest out later?)

Guard: “Não pode” (You can't)

While flabbergasted that I cannot file a police report because the printer is out of toner, I finally pull it together to ask if there is another station nearby that might have some toner. He shrugs and says he doesn’t know. Pois é, the police man does not know if there is another police station. He tells me to keep driving down to the traffic circle about a kilometer away and ask someone there. I hope I will ask someone who is not a bad guy.

I drive on, and Debbie and I are shaking our heads about how crime cannot be reported without toner. We get into the Praça Panamericana and I happen to glimpse a sign that I’ve seen a million times before but never read. It reads “BPM- 13 Dist. – Sede” with a directional arrow. Aha! That means the Military Police Battalian 13^th district headquarters are nearby. Hooray! We start following the signs. The signs lead us up and down and around in circles. Just when we think it is hopeless, a sign pops up pointing back in the direction from which we came. Finally, we are down a tiny side street and I ask the neighborhood security guard where the station is, and he points across the street at a tiny white house, behind a metal grade, and down some stairs.

We park. We walk to the locked gate and ring the bell. No one answers. Down in the little BPM “house” we can see two uniformed men, from the shoulders down, from our angle, walking around. Either ignoring us or not hearing the bell. So I check out the gate, and notice I can pop the lock from reaching inside the grade. So I reach inside and unlock the gate.

We walk down the steps and into the large open room. Not a single seat. Just a huge long counter and one very surprised policeman behind it. Clearly wondering how we got in.

PM: “Pois não?”

Me: “We’d like to file a police report.”

PM: “You can’t do that here.”

Me: “Why not?”

PM: “You have to go to a police station.”

Me: (looking around and then looking pointedly at his uniform)—“isn’t this a police station?”

PM: “No, this is police headquarters.”’

Me: “Oh.”

The PM suggests that we go to the military police station at Villa-Lobos. I say it is out of toner. This does not seem to surprise him. He tells me of another station further away, and I make note of it. As I turn to leave, I notice a huge empty wall with a sign at the top. It reads “Galeria dos Herois” (Gallery of Heroes). It is completely blank.

We get back in the car. It is now 4 pm and I am starting to get nervous because of rodizio. But we head over to the other police station. I note there is no free parking. I wonder how people who have their money stolen park there. Maybe they have their cars stolen too. We walk inside. At a front counter is a man typing on a laptop, no uniform. We stand in front of him. He doesn’t look up. Finally we figure out that he is just a member of the community, and not affiliated with the police. No one greets us…so I keep walking back farther into the police station. There are about 6 people waiting on broken chairs watching a fuzzy TV novella. We keep walking.

As we walk past a window (with no information or signs), a muscled plainsclothes cop pops out of nowhere, gun holstered under his arm, and blocks our way.

Detective: “What do you want?”

Me: “We need to file a police report.”

Detective: “Really? (sarcasm? Or was he trying to joke?)

I explained to him the general outline and he said that we would need to wait since there were other people in front of us. He shows us the broken chairs. There are no numbers to decide who is next. We sit. And sit. After 15 minutes, another PM comes through and asks us all what kind of crimes we are reporting. He tells one couple that they can report their occurrence on line, because it is a theft rather than a robbery. He comes to us and we tell him how the situation is, and he said we could not do it online because the items were purposefully stolen, not that someone had picked up a lost item.

We wait 20 minutes more then I ask if Debbie can talk with someone who speaks English, since I have to go because of rodizio. The detective looks at me blankly. No one speaks English. I tell the detective that we have to go. He says “come back anytime, we’re here 24 hours a day.”

We never did report the crime. Four days later I return to the original police station and ask them if they had gotten their toner yet. They said no. Note to all gringos coming for the world cup: bring toner. I’ll find out the cartridge number.

Note: a couple of months ago I met the lieutenant in charge of the Villa Lobos police station. I told him this whole story and he added some information.

1. The police man at the entrance to the station who mentioned the toner missing was actually a contracted worker not a police man. I said that did not excuse his attitude. The lieutenant agreed. 

2. All police stations should take reports verbally if they are out of toner and keep them electronically until able to print. 

3. You cannot report crimes at police headquarters. 

4. The Gallery of Heroes is for photos of men and women who died in police service. It was a blank wall not because there were no heroes, but because there were no dead heroes. I apologized to him for that one.

5. He claimed that calling "190" which is the 911 equivalent in Brazil, you can get an English-speaking attendant who can help. He volunteered for us to do that together one day from the police station and see what happened. I have yet to find time to do that.