A Spanish woman visiting Rio was shot and killed by Rio police. Maria Esperanza Jimenez Ruiz, 67, was visiting a crafts fair at the Rocinha favela with her brother and his wife.
According to reports,
Police said officers opened fire on a vehicle in Rocinha, one of the city’s largest so-called favelas, or slums, hitting a passenger in the neck. The victim, whom police identified as 67-year-old María Esperanza Jiménez Ruiz of Spain, was taken to a nearby hospital but couldn’t be revived. After the shooting, police determined that the vehicle was providing an organized tour of the community.
Two police officers are now under arrest.
Police and other public employees are not getting paid because debt service over last year’s Olympics,
The surge in police violence has come amid severe budget problems in Rio following the Olympics last year. Police officers, like other civil servants, aren’t receiving their salaries on time, let alone sufficient funding for equipment ranging from office supplies to patrol cars. A touted initiative to introduce community policing to troubled neighborhoods like Rocinha has fallen into disarray.
Rio state police have killed over 700 people in the first eight months of 2017.
In other news, Odebrecht subsidiary Braskem deposited US$1,5million in a bank account belonging to Emilio Lozoya, advisor to Mexico’s president Enrique Peña Nieto and former Pemex director.
The 2012 transaction was discovered as part of the ongoing Odebrecht corruption investigation.
