Brazil police officers arrested after 'tampering with fatal shooting scene'`
Five policemen arrested in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, after they allegedly altered a crime scene
Eduardo Felipe Santos Victor was just 17-years-old
By James Badcock, Madrid
3:45PM BST 30 Sep 2015
Five policemen have been arrested in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, after they allegedly altered a crime scene to incriminate a 17-year-old boy gunned down during a confrontation.
Eduardo Felipe Santos Victor was shot in Rio’s oldest favela, Providencia, and as he lay dying, residents captured footage of officers firing a handgun into the air and then putting the gun in his hand.
The video was filmed from the window of a house in Rio’s Providencia favela on Tuesday morning and quickly spread on social media networks.
A Providencia resident who claimed to have seen the shooting told Globomedia, a Brazilian television station, that the victim had been attempting to surrender.
Armed police in the Providencia favelaArmed police in the Providencia favela Photo: Bloomberg
"He was armed but he surrendered. They could have arrested him," said the woman, who did not wish to identify herself. “After he raised his hands, they shot him”.
The policemen involved in the shooting later registered the incident as an instance of necessary self-defence.
“Drug trafficker dies after responding to the arrival of the police with gunfire,” the report sheet read, according to local media reports.
Two of the five have been accused of fraud for mnanipulating evidence. The other three are being questioned.
Tuesday’s shooting is not the first disturbing incident involving officers from a Police Pacifying Unit (UPP), squads of local agents who have patrolled many of Rio’s favelas since 2008.
Last week an 11-year-old boy was fatally shot during a shoot-out between UPP agents and suspected criminals in the Caju favela.
In Rio de Janeiro state, 349 people were killed in confrontations with the police in the first half of this year.
The spokesman for Rio de Janeiro’s UPPs, Ivan Blaz, told reporters that “the video shows a flagrant manipulation which strikes a heavy blow to public confidence in the UPP”. He added: “We cannot allow the force’s hard-won gains to be thrown away by regrettable cases such as this one."
