Rumors, audios, and videos were widely shared though WhatsApp and Facebook while the executions happened, showing what was happening on the outskirts of Belem. There was an unofficial curfew in several places on the periphery, given the expectation that there would be a violent retaliation to the death of the policeman and that the death squads that was wreaking havoc (presumably made up of military policemen) did not intend to take any prisoners. This group supposedly was covered by the official Rotam operation and they intended to kill any suspects.

It is important to highlight here that the deaths did not occur due to gunfights or resisting arrest. They were outright murders. The state government itself recognizes in an official statement that they were homicides, even though it does not conclude that the Military Police took part in them. Luiz Fernandes, Secretary of Public Security of Para, also admits that investigators are working on the hypothesis that death squads were acting there.

However, the sequence of events cannot be understood unless we comprehend their context: The local drug war dynamics.

In Belem, 66% of the population live in irregular buildings, favelas (slums) or the like, which, first, sprouted up near the center of the city (such as neighborhoods Guama, Jurunas, and Terra Firme — the last one being the stage of the murders) and, more recently, in the suburbs. They are very dense areas, with very little space between houses, allowing for the settlement of a large number of migrants from the state’s countryside and from the neighboring state Maranhao.

These areas, however, not unlike many others in Brazil, are marked by precarious access to basic utilities, like sewage disposal, and poor protection of the dwellers’ property rights (despite expropriations and evictions being uncommon in Belem). Moreover, as a result of drug prohibition, they end up under the rule of violent dealers.

Some time ago, it became known that the drug warlords were financing the militias. According to a report from the beginning of the year about the actions of militias in Guama and Terra Firme, these groups were formed by criminals and policemen (generally who are no longer formally affiliated with the Police) for the protection of drug dealers against other dealers and the police. They also regularly extort the local population. According to a Terra Firme dweller, who was quoted on the above report:

They ask people for money and kill whoever gets in their way. It is criminals killing criminals, but there are several honest citizens who are victims as well. When they are bothered by someone, they create a situation for a crime to happen.

The group which acts in the Guama neighborhood, made up mainly by retired police officers, is supposedly involved in the murder of young people, those “who walk around the streets at the wrong time, thieves and drug users,” as a local put it. Out of fear, silence prevails.

The story also tells that the police usually work on the hypothesis that these are hired gunmen, who are paid to enforce debts or murder the borrowers, denying the existence of militias and death squads that are financed by stolen money from the local populations. The events of the 4th seem to have changed that perception, since the government itself has admitted that death squads have been involved.

The general fear after the death of Corporal Figueiredo illustrates how real police, militia, and drug violence is in these areas. This fear has, for the first time, reached the richer areas of Belem, areas unfamiliar with the day to day uneasiness that the poor suffer through. Like never before, the night of November 4th made people, from very different social backgrounds, share the same fear.

Therefore, the murders were not a simple “isolated case,” but a perennial reality for the poor people of Belem, many of whom know or are related to someone who was murdered, were evicted from their homes by drug dealers, or just generally avoid staying out late (always!), afraid of what might happen to them.

These people, who suffer in every imaginable way, are denied the most basic and elementary way to reduce violent crime in Brazil: the end of the war on drugs. There is no reason, at all, that Brazilian cities should top the rankings for “most murders” in the world besides the failure of prohibition. Many cities are even more dangerous than Belem, but the causes of violence are similar. Most murders in Belem and elsewhere are related to drug feuds.

One of the main libertarian causes is the end of this abhorrent policy that takes away individual rights, puts behind bars many thousands of peaceful people and kills more than any substance addiction.

People who live in poor areas (and in other places, naturally) are sold the idea that only more repression will be able to solve the problem of public security. The drug user is the scapegoat and their frequent summary executions by the police are often welcomed.

Due legal process seems to be a burden to the police in Brazil, and its very existence seems to provide them with an even broader license to kill. We lose sight of the deep connections between the police, drug dealers and militias. The poor are the ones most exposed to the resulting police state, and the naive faith in the police as a guardian of order can only worsen their condition.

Belem shows vividly the monstrosity that the war on drugs is and its consequences to the urban dynamics in poor areas, marked by violence everywhere.

The main cause of all these deaths is not the lack of police repression or more executions, but the state itself and its criminalizing impetus, that enriches warlords and makes peripheral communities ever more vulnerable.

Translated by Erick Vasconcelos.

Among the medications seized were estrogen, insulin, tramadol and many other drugs with no recreational value. These substances were stolen by the FDA under the guise of consumer protection. “Consumers have little or no legal recourse if they experience a reaction to the unregulated medication or if they receive no therapeutic benefit at all. In addition to health risks, these pharmacies pose other risks to consumers, including credit card fraud, identity theft or computer viruses,” said one FDA parrot. No word on why they continue to impose these risks on consumers through the strict regulation of these chemical compounds rather than opening them up to the stabilizing forces of the market.

Laid bare, the actions of this federal gang are wholly unsympathetic. After the seizure, the online pharmacies were reported to internet providers and domain registrars, effectively shutting down the consumer’s ability to obtain their medical supplies. These people are not the junkies the FDA so easily demonizes. These are people medically restricted by government decrees. These are people priced out of the official prescription drug market. These are the disempowered, but the FDA has unknowingly empowered them through their theft.

I have a question for the FDA: How long do you think this can last? How sustainable is your policy of controlling what we put in our bodies? Surely at this point, the DEA has learned that online drug markets are a Hydra. Cut off one head and two shall appear. How long until you give up the vain attempt of managing our lives? It is becoming, everyday, more and more impossible.

By swiping the medication of thousands, the FDA has in fact acted in the best interest of those who have already moved to a world free of control. The online pharmacies which dealt in illegal prescription drugs have made their home on the clear web. To the credit of our federal foes, these pharmacies have remained under their influence and will indeed become an extinct species soon enough. But those seeking their medication will remain, and will be left with two options: to acquiesce to your will or to join those of us who have descended into the Darkweb.

The undeniable, unpreventable fact our would-be central planners must face is this: There will be markets. Over the past four years, the online narcotics trade has proven this time and again. Through takedowns and arrests of vendors and market kingpins, the federal government has been unable to slow the traffic of this burgeoning agora and not a second goes by that any heroin user cannot within a matter of minutes purchase her own stash in almost any personal quantity she desires.

By pushing online pharmacies off the clear web, they empower young entrepreneurs with new opportunities. These victims of yours, they will receive their medication again, and they will have the black market to thank for it. They will contribute to the revolution which is increasingly making you irrelevant. We have the Food and Drug Administration to thank for this.

These are our bodies. These are our minds. You can no longer control them. We are taking them back and there is no amount of guns or legislation which can stop this. Your best move in this waning game of chess is to back down, to cease driving more and more people to a world you cannot hope to control or participate in.

To understand the influence Shulgin had on the world completely, we must also dwell on the internal shifts he caused in others. With that said, allow me to indulge you in a drug story. Nearly 3 years ago, I was at a low emotional point in my life, perhaps the lowest. I was 22 and imagined that life had already dealt me the cards of introverted misery and resentment that I would carry until my grave. But, one night a young woman sent me a text asking if I would be interested in going to a small rave and experimenting with MDMA. At this point, I knew as much about Molly as your grandmother probably does. It was a goofy new speed which made people dance and hug each other. Hardly my scene, I thought. However, my friend was persistent, insisting that this would get me out of my rut of aggression and despair with the world around me. So I acquiesced.

What happened later that night will never lose its’ full and splendorous meaning to me. This fad party drug had somehow connected me to a room full of people I didn’t know at all or had little acquaintance with, but for perhaps the first moment of my life, I felt open. I felt unashamed. I felt loved. I felt free. If my subjective experience allowed for it, I might have wept for a decade wasted in depression and isolation, but no, I was not capable of regret. I was only capable of embracing this, of embracing my new found friends, who to me were no less than saviors in this moment. On that night, I came out as bisexual to a room full of people, something 5 years prior was literally unthinkable to me and had become more or less a part of me I didn’t feel was worth sharing. That night, it was worth sharing. I was worth sharing.

Alexander Shulgin made that experience, and many more like it, possible. His research liberated me. While the headlines today read that Shulgin as the godfather of “the party drug ecstasy”, Terrence McKenna first described him as the godfather of psychopharmocology. Rather than influencing party culture, which will inevitably take hold of powerful psychoactive chemicals, Shulgin was the first to synthesize MDMA as we know it today and to apply it as a therapeutic agent. Today, MDMA is openly used by psychiatrists in the treatment of PTSD, with often times miraculous results.

While most known for his MDMA research, Shulgin thrived within the realm of more traditionally psychedelic substances, especially phenylethylamines and tryptamines, gracing us with the presence of new powerful agents of self-discovery.

Throughout his research, Shulgin remained transparent and friendly with the government and law enforcement, even sharing his compounds with agents of the DEA and writing manuals for use in the classification of drugs.  However, like all researchers of illegal substances, Shulgin’s research was shut down by the DEA in 1994.  The federal government had had enough of Shulgin’s two sides, one side an obedient chemist and the other a writer of subversive, drug-promoting literature. The DEA declared his more personal writing to be nothing more than “cookbooks” for illegal substances.

Shulgin knew his research would remain mostly isolated for his lifetime. Despite the definitive proof that MDMA and other psychedelics contain within them the solution to many psychological ailments, the U.S government has done nothing to tighten its’ grip beyond allowing strict therapeutic and lab research. The only political victory he experienced was through his testimony to Spanish authorities which had it effectively rescheduled as a substance of minimal danger.

I will not allow this to be Shulgin’s final legacy. He has been nothing less than a personal liberator of thousands, perhaps millions of minds. The drug war and the iron fist of government generally is anathema to a world fully exposed to the influence of Shulgin’s life’s work. I am freer because of him and have made it my own life’s mission to liberate others, to free them from the psychological constraints the drug war keeps us all in. While remaining for much of his life an apparent friend of the State, Alexander “Sasha” Shulgin used his position to ultimately undermine the drug war and started many down a path of self-discovery and mental freedom which will ultimately undermine the brutalizing, regressive nature of government power.

L’hanno portata fino alla macchina della polizia per portarla all’ospedale. Il sedile posteriore era pieno di armi e non potevano metterla lì: ci sono delle priorità. Così Claudia è stata messa nel bagagliaio, che per strada si è aperto lasciandola cadere a terra, i vestiti impigliati nel paraurti, ed è stata trascinata per quasi 400 metri. Alla fine i poliziotti si sono accorti che era caduta e l’hanno ripiegata a posto. Lei è morta.

La Polizia Militare ha negato quello che gli abitanti dei sobborghi di Rio de Janeiro, Morro da Congonha, Madureira, hanno visto. Dicono di aver trovato Claudia già sparata. Nel corso della stessa operazione, la polizia ha ucciso un sospetto spacciatore e ne ha ferito e arrestato un altro, sequestrando quattro pistole, radio e droga. Probabilmente ne valeva la pena: la droga distrugge le famiglie.

Se non fosse stato per la droga, la Polizia Militare non sarebbe stata costretta ad arrampicarsi su per la collina della favela, non avrebbe incontrato una minacciosa e violenta donna nera di 38 anni con una tazza di caffè, e non sarebbe stata costretta a sparare due volte nella sua direzione, cosa che comporta metterla nella macchina e portarla in ospedale. La droga fa a pezzi la famiglia. Claudia, ad esempio, aveva cresciuto otto bambini, quattro figli suoi e quattro nipoti. Adesso la sua famiglia è smembrata per colpa della droga.

Come possiamo pretendere che i militari aiutino una donna moribonda? Sono militari mica per niente. Li chiamano “soldati” (in questo caso, due sottotenenti e un sergente) e li mandano alla guerra. L’idea di proteggere le persone è completamente aliena ad un’organizzazione militare e la Polizia Militare ne è la dimostrazione ogni volta che entra in una favela e vede gli abitanti non come persone ma come potenziale danno collaterale.

Tra quelli coinvolti, il sottotenente Adir Serrano Machado è il più efficiente. È stato coinvolto in 57 azioni che riguardavano qualche forma di contrasto, lasciandosi dietro 63 morti. Il sottotenente Rodney Miguel Archanjo è stato molto più circospetto, con sole cinque azioni e sei morti. Il sergente Alex Sandro da Silva Alves, invece, ha fatto il debutto la domenica in cui Claudia è stata sparata: la sua prima operazione di contrasto.

Considerato tutto ciò, è chiaro che una demilitarizzazione indebolirebbe troppo la polizia, rendendo impossibile la lotta al crimine. Se vogliamo che qualcuno vada su per le favelas a confiscare erba e coca, dobbiamo avere i soldati.

Ma è proprio quello che vogliamo?

In campagna elettorale suona bene dire che la presenza della polizia è aumentata e che la battaglia contro la droga si è intensificata. Ma questo significa che centinaia di Claudia Silva Ferreira continueranno a morire. Perché l’unico modo per mantenere l’illusione di una città sicura e senza droghe consiste nello sparare persone innocenti nelle favelas.

Se continuiamo a pensare che la brutalità della polizia sia un’eccezione non arriveremo da nessuna parte. La brutalità della polizia brasiliana è istituzionale, e serve agli obiettivi del governo. Non è possibile controllare il traffico di droga, o sostenere la legittimità della missione dello stato nella “lotta al crimine”, senza l’uso della forza letale. Con l’attuale politica sulla droga, non c’è la possibilità di far cessare la violenza della polizia: senza questa, lo stato non potrebbe mai affermare il suo potere.

Per il momento, la Polizia Militare potrebbe almeno pubblicare un opuscolo con un elenco delle attività sospette che gli onesti cittadini dovrebbero evitare. Come essere neri e camminare con una tazza di caffè.

Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.

She was taken to a police car to be driven to the hospital. The back seat was full of guns, so they couldn’t put a wounded person there — they must have their priorities straight. So Claudia was put in the trunk, which opened along the way and let her fall to the ground, stuck to the bumper by a piece of clothing, dragged by the car for 1,200 feet. The policemen finally noticed she had fallen and tucked her back in place. She died.

The Military Police denied what residents of Morro da Congonha, Madureira, Rio de Janeiro’s suburbs, saw. According to them, Claudia was found already shot. In the same operation, the police killed a supposed drug dealer, wounded and arrested another one, seizing four pistols, radios and drugs. It was probably worth it, since drugs destroy families.

If not for the drugs, the Military Police wouldn’t have been forced to climb the favela hill, wouldn’t have encountered a menacing and violent 38-year-old black woman holding a cup of coffee, wouldn’t have been obligated to shoot twice in her direction, entailing the bothersome task of taking her to the car and then to the hospital. And drugs keep tearing families apart. Claudia, for instance, raised 8 children, 4 of her own, 4 nieces and nephews. Her family now is defaced because of drugs.

And how can we demand that the military aid a dying woman? They are the military for a reason. They are called “soldiers” (specifically, the policemen involved here were two sub-lieutenants and a sergeant) and sent to war. The idea of protecting people is entirely alien to a military organization and the Military Police proves it every time it invades a favela and sees the residents not as people but as potential collateral damage.

Of those involved, sub-lieutenant Adir Serrano Machado is the most efficient. He has been involved in 57 actions involving some kind of resistance, leaving 63 dead. Sub-lieutenant Rodney Miguel Archanjo has been somewhat more circumspect, having been part of only 5 of those occurrences, with 6 dead. Sergeant Alex Sandro da Silva Alves, on the other hand, debuted on the Sunday in which Claudia was shot, his first resisted operation.

Given all of this, it’s clear that a demilitarization would weaken the police too much, making it impossible for them to fight crime. If we want someone to go up the favelas to confiscate weed and cocaine, we’ve got to have soldiers.

But is that really what we want?

It sounds good in political ads to say that police presence in the favelas has increased and that the battle against drugs has been intensified. But what this means is that hundreds of Claudia Silva Ferreiras are going to keep dying. Because the only way to keep an illusion of safe and drug-free cities is to shoot innocent people in the favelas.

To keep thinking that police brutality is an exception will take us nowhere. Brazilian police violence is institutionalized and necessary for the government’s goals. It is not possible to control the drug trade, or maintain the legitimacy of the state’s mission to “fight crime,” without the use of lethal force. With current drug policy, there’s no possibility of ending police violence — without it, the state would never be able to affirm its power.

For now, the Military Police could at least publish a pamphlet listing suspicious activities that honest citizens should avoid, such as being black and walking with coffee.

Translations for this article:

• Italian, Lei Era la Regola, non l’Eccezione.