Conectas, Justiça Global, Odara Instituto da Mulher Negra, and the Instituto de Defesa da População Negra expressed their repudiation of the Superior Military Court’s (STM) decision to acquit military personnel involved in the Evaldo Rosa and Luciano Macedo case. The organizations criticized the ruling, which reduced the sentences of the eight officers who were responsible for firing 257 rifle shots, from up to 31 years in prison to just over three years in an open prison regime.
The decision, according to the organizations, reinforces structural racism and legitimizes lethal actions by the Armed Forces against Black and poor individuals. Evaldo, a musician on his way to a baby shower, and Luciano, a waste picker who tried to help him, were killed without any legitimate self-defense or justification for such brutality, the organizations say.
Read the full note:
On the evening of Wednesday (18), the Superior Military Court (STM) legitimized the brutal execution of two Black men by the Armed Forces. In the trial of the military personnel accused of killing musician Evaldo Rosa and recyclable waste collector Luciano Macedo with 257 rifle shots, members of the Court acquitted the officers of Rosa’s death by a majority of nine votes, and ruled that Macedo’s case was involuntary manslaughter, where there is no intent to kill.
Conectas Human Rights, Justiça Global, Odara Instituto da Mulher Negra, and the Instituto de Defesa da População Negra hereby express their total repudiation of the outcome of this trial. The decision, which sentenced the eight officers to just over three years in an open prison regime, sends a message to Brazilian society: military personnel have state authorization to execute any citizen, especially Black and poor individuals, in a favela. All it takes is for the military to claim they felt threatened, even if those targeted are completely unarmed and defenseless, in this specific case, a musician on his way to a baby shower with his family and a recyclable waste collector who risked his life to save a stranger.
No protocol for the use of force was followed, and a sequence of 257 shots was treated as a minor offense. Downplaying the severity of these two executions undermines the very institutions that should safeguard the security of their citizens. Even Luciano’s heroic act, risking and losing his life to save Evaldo and his family, was met with brutality incompatible with the rule of law. All indications point to this being because he was Black and poor.
The majority of the justices followed the legal argument of the rapporteur, Air Force Lieutenant Brigadier Carlos Augusto Amaral Oliveira, who claimed that the military personnel initially acted in self-defense and had not intended to kill Luciano. This theory is completely refuted by forensic evidence included in the case, as highlighted by Justice Elizabeth Rocha in her vote. Rocha was the only one to uphold the original sentences, which ranged from 28 to 31 years of imprisonment in a closed prison regime. She was also the only one to speak of Luciano’s remarkable bravery and heroism.
The accepted argument represents one of the greatest legal errors in the history of Brazilian justice. It is impossible to claim self-defense when, on one side, there is a group of eight officers authorized to carry rifles, and on the other, two unarmed individuals who were not committing any unlawful acts. Clearly, firing 257 shots demonstrates an intent to kill.
The impunity that persists in the case of Evaldo and Luciano lays bare the structural racism embedded in the fabric of Brazilian society, which, in this instance, manifests in its most cruel and perverse form: the racism ingrained in the country’s public institutions. This was yet another instance of racial profiling, which, like so many other cases in Brazil, stems from the State’s assumption that every Black person is a criminal, effectively sentencing them to death at the hands of its security forces, for which there is no basis in the Constitution.
The case of Evaldo and Luciano is irrefutable proof that it is unconstitutional to try crimes committed by military personnel against civilians in military courts. The military must be subject to civilian and democratic controls of the use of force, through civil and criminal laws, adjudicated by the regular justice system. Military personnel should not engage in public security operations, as the rationale of the Armed Forces cannot be applied to interactions with civilians without the risk of unwarranted killings.
This trial has a profound social impact. It leaves Brazilian society as a whole with a bitter sense of impunity for the deaths of two Black men going about their work and leisure. It reaffirms to Black, Brown, and marginalized people that their lives are worth so little that even those who are supposed to protect their lives can take them away without ever being held accountable.
Conectas Human Rights
Justiça Global
Odara Instituto da Mulher Negra
Instituto de Defesa da População Negra