A video circulating on social media shows a military police officer throwing a man off a bridge in the south zone of São Paulo. According to information, the case occurred in the early hours of Monday (2), in the Cidade Ademar region.
In the images, it is possible to see a police officer picking up a motorcycle that is on the ground and lifting it. Two other agents approach. Then, the first PM pulls over the motorcycle near the bridge. Afterwards, a fourth military police officer arrives bringing the man. He approaches the edge of the bridge, grabs the man by his shirt and throws him into the river. See below.
According to the investigation of the CNNthe thrown man would be a motorcyclist who had fled from an approach by the PM in Diadema, in ABC. The police officers who appear in the images belong to the 24th Diadema Battalion.
Another video circulating on social media shows a body, wearing a t-shirt similar to that of the man thrown by the PM, floating in the same river. There is still no confirmation that this is the victim.
The São Paulo Police Ombudsman reported that he was aware of the images and requested access to the body cameras of the police officers involved in the incident, as well as the removal of all of them from their duties.
In a note released this Tuesday morning (3), the São Paulo Attorney General, Paulo Sérgio de Oliveira e Costa, classified the images as “appalling and absolutely inadmissible”.
“This Attorney General’s Office will determine, this Tuesday, that the Public Security Special Action Group (GAESP) joins the natural prosecutor of the case so that the Public Ministry makes every effort to punish exemplarily, at the end of the criminal prosecution, those responsible for a police intervention that is very far from reassuring the population”, says the note.
CNN asked for an official note from the Public Security Secretariat (SSP) about what happened, but there has been no response yet. On social media, secretary Guilherme Derrite stated that the agents will be punished.
“Years of the PM’s legacy cannot be tarnished by unprofessional conduct. Police do not shoot in the back in a robbery that does not threaten life and do not throw anyone over a wall. For the good police officers who should not bear the burden of irresponsibility on the part of some, there will be severe punishment,” he wrote.
