Category Archives: Video

Camilo Coelho of Blog da Pacificação on UPPs & “moradores de bem”

Camilo Coelho, once a public security reporter for Jornal Extra, is now the driving force behind Blog da Pacificação, which has the mission of finding and sharing the stories of the “moradores de bem” (good residents) in favelas with UPPs. He has been doing this work for over a year. In this video, Camilo says there are tangible gains from this project and that cariocas want to believe that it will improve their city. He discusses his work and how it has made him a proponent of the UPP project, while admitting that more needs to be done in terms of social investment because the police alone cannot tackle all problems.

*Editor’s note: In this video, Camilo says that the blog is apolitical and that he does not work for the government, but is, instead, contracted by Casa Digital, an advertising agency “that believes in Rio.” Casa Digital is the digital media branch of the firm Agência Prole [http://prole.com.br/projetos.html], which manages the multimillion real contracts [http://prole.com.br/clientes.html] of Viva Rio, AfroReggae, and the city and state governments of Rio de Janeiro. It also managed the recent reelection campaigns for Mayor Eduardo Paes and Governor Sérgio Cabral, a campaign on which Coelho worked.

Paulo Storani, ex-BOPE captain, talks BOPE, UPP, militias & more…

Paulo Storani is one of the real life inspirations for the character Capitão Nascimento in the Tropa de Elite films. A BOPE captain for five of his 17 years in Rio de Janeiro’s Military Police, he has a Master’s in anthropology, teaches and conducts research at four area universities, was the secretary of public security in the city of São Gonçalo, gives motivational speeches, and is a public security consultant.

Between two of these speeches, Captain Storani told Rio Radar about why BOPE is still essential to Rio, why it is moving its headquarters to Complexo do Maré, why militias are “the problem of the decade,” why the UPP is a short-term project that will not solve Rio’s public security problems, and the #1 solution to change this.

Col. Paulo Amendola (ret.), Founder of BOPE, Says UPPs are a “Romantic” Idea for Rio de Janeiro

Col. Paulo Amendola (ret.) is a fixture in Rio de Janeiro’s public security history. As a Military Police official, he founded an elite hostage rescue team called the Nucleo de Companhia Operações Especiais in 1979, which would grow to become the Batalhão de Operações Especiais Policial (BOPE), made world famous because of the Tropa de Elite (Elite Squad) films directed by José Padilha. In 1994, Col. Amendola was selected by then-mayor Cesar Maia to create Rio’s Municipal Guard, a non-police security unit that assists in patrolling Rio’s streets, parks, and public structures. Currently, he is a professor at Estácio de Sá University, a consultant in public security, and is a contracted commentator for Rede Record TV.

Col. Amendola sat down with Rio Radar in his university office to discuss the founding of BOPE, why UPPs are a “romantic” notion, and his views on the cultural gap and lack of training that are hindering UPPs.

Ignácio Cano on: Public Security: Past, Present & Future

Ignácio Cano is a professor and researcher at the Laboratório de Análise da Violência at the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. He has been studying public security, violence, police, and society in Rio and Brazil for fifteen years. Rio Radar had the chance to sit down with Professor Cano at his home office recently for a long talk. We didn’t have the heart to cut much content, so, as a special feature, we are releasing the content in four installments:

  • The Role of Militias
  • Corruption & Politics
  • UPPs
  • Public Security: Past, Present & Future

In this video, Professor Cano reflects on his fifteen years studying public security in Rio de Janeiro and looks back on an op-ed he wrote for O Globo newspaper in 2007, outlining four changes needed to decrease violence and improve policing in the city. He considers the progress that academics have made in entering the public discourse, improvements that have been achieved, and possibilities for the future.

Ignácio Cano on: UPPs

Ignácio Cano is a professor and researcher at the Laboratório de Análise da Violência at the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. He has been studying public security, violence, police, and society in Rio and Brazil for fifteen years. Rio Radar had the chance to sit down with Professor Cano at his home office recently for a long talk. We didn’t have the heart to cut much content, so, as a special feature, we are releasing the content in four installments:

  • The Role of Militias
  • Corruption & Politics
  • UPPs
  • Public Security: Past, Present & Future

In this, the third in a four video series, Ignácio offers his thoughts on the Police Pacification Units program that was initiated in Rio de Janeiro in December of 2008. He discusses walking the fine line of encouraging improvements to policing while at the same time retaining a critical eye. As well, he outlines reasonable expectations for the program and decries overly optimistic expectations of the program as being a burden to both the establishment and its civil society critics.

Ignácio Cano on: Police, Corruption & Politics

Ignácio Cano is a professor and researcher at the Laboratório de Análise da Violência at the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. He has been studying public security, violence, police, and society in Rio and Brazil for fifteen years. Rio Radar had the chance to sit down with Professor Cano at his home office recently for a long talk. We didn’t have the heart to cut much content, so, as a special feature, we are releasing the content in four installments:

  • The Role of Militias
  • Corruption & Politics
  • UPPs
  • Public Security: Past, Present & Future

This video addresses connections between police and political corruption and the increasingly united voice of civil society against “business as usual.” Ignacio directly links higher level corruption to violence in the city and ponders security in 2017, when the mega-event well runs dry and speaks frankly about Rio’s political leaders.

Prof. Ignácio Cano on: Militias

Ignácio Cano is a professor and researcher at the Laboratório de Análise da Violência at the Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro. He has been studying public security, violence, police, and society in Rio and Brazil for fifteen years. Rio Radar had the chance to sit down with Professor Cano at his home office recently for a long talk. We didn’t have the heart to cut much content, so, as a special feature, we are releasing the content in four installments:

  • The Role of Militias
  • Corruption & Politics
  • UPPs
  • Public Security: Past, Present & Future

In this first installment, Prof. Cano explains the subversive role of militias and talks about past and future research that LAV is doing on the subject. He discusses political connections and responses to militias and how these groups are just as bad or worse than drug traffickers.

Steven Pinker: A Brief History of Violence

This is a TED Talk given by Steven Pinker in 2007 that gives a very deep historical contextualization of violence in society. Based on his research, any of us should be overjoyed to live in even the most violent neighborhoods of Rio de Janeiro…

Steven Pinker charts the decline of violence from Biblical times to the present, and argues that, though it may seem illogical and even obscene, given Iraq and Darfur, we are living in the most peaceful time in our species’ existence.

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Steven Pinker’s books have been like bombs tossed into the eternal nature-versus-nurture debate. Pinker asserts that not only are human minds predisposed to certain kinds of learning, such as language, but that from birth our minds — the patterns in which our brain cells fire — predispose us each to think and behave differently.

His deep studies of language have led him to insights into the way that humans form thoughts and engage our world. He argues that humans have evolved to share a faculty for language, the same way a spider evolved to spin a web. We aren’t born with “blank slates” to be shaped entirely by our parents and environment, he argues in books including The Language Instinct;How the Mind Works; and The Blank Slate: The Modern Denial of Human Nature.

In 2003, Harvard recruited Pinker for its psychology department from MIT. Time magazine named Pinker one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2004. His latest book is The Stuff of Thought, previewed at TEDGlobal 2005. He is working on a new book that studies violence.

Rio Radar Extra: Cecília Olliveira – Eminent Domain, Foreign Misconceptions & Media Failures

Rio Radar Extra: Journalist and blogger Cecília Olliveira discusses eminent domain removals in Morro da Providência and the sporting mega-event focused policies of the city and state.

Rio Radar Extra: Journalist and blogger Cecília Olliveira discusses foreigners’ misconceptions about security in Rio de Janeiro and the failure of the local major media in covering crime in the city.

 

Interview w/ Luciano João Dos Santos – Rocinha, PAC, UPP & politics in Rio de Janeiro

Luciano Dos Santos agreed to be interviewed by Rio Radar and spoke about his time working for the Memories of PAC project, how Rocinha has changed for the better in his lifetime, residents’ acclimation to drug trafficking and fear of the looming UPP invasion, and why he sees things a bit differently.

You can see some of Luciano’s work at http://www.memoriasdopac.org.br/.