Someone has to say it, and seems like that someone is me. Is it not murder if a police officer does it? Cops (and ex-cops), mostly in the state of Rio de Janeiro, are affiliating themselves with militias, charging citizens and shops in favelas with "protection taxes" (we already pay taxes for that, though), and straight out murdering people, who may or may not be actual criminals, but are all black and/or poor. Here in the state of São Paulo, we recently had slaughter in a Paraisopolis neighborhood, to where they were called because (poor) people were throwing a street party, 9 were shot, more were trampled under the fleeing crowd – all 37 officers investigated for their excesses were later cleared of all charges – not to mention a case where police officers kidnapped a teenage boy as he was going home from his aunt's, murdered him, then allowed the mother all of fifteen minutes at his funeral before dragging her away on new charges (she'd been charged with drug trafficking, and acquitted, no news on the new charge). And, of course, just this week, the Bahia State Police performed the execution of a former Rio police officer who might have had ties to a corruption scandal involving the president and his sons. The former officer was mr. Adriano da Nóbrega, he had gone off the radar after he and the Bolsonaros' neighbor Ronnie Lessa (also a former policeman) were charged with having murdered congresswoman Marielle Franco and her assigned driver – ms Franco was at the time investigating the rampant police force corruption in Rio and their ties with the local militias. There was also a case of a 29-year old officer who was "retired" after speaking out against the Bolsonaros' apparent desire to destroy Brazilian society aa we know it.

But, hey, as long as it's only cops murdering people, who cares if they're essentially just mr. Bolsonaro's personal assassins? Yeah. Brazil. Great place.