My 2-cents on this great thread For past 3 yrs, I’ve been …

My 2-cents on this great thread

For past 3 yrs, I’ve been working on a project that’s required me to study lynch mobs in Brazil

To call rate of lynchings here a problem is an understatement

& I think it correlates w ppl’s thirst for a law & order strongman like Bolsonaro

1/13

The rise of @jairbolsonaro was predictable.

Brazilians have been craving "law & order" for years, but their democratic leaders largely ignored them. I started writing about this in Nov 2015, after I was caught in a fatal shootout in the Amazon 1/?
— Brian Winter (@BrazilBrian) October 6, 2018

Back in 2016 I crawled the news for reports of lynchings across Brazil

What I found: 180 deaths — 180 people killed by an angry crowd

That’s 1 every 2 days

I wrote about that in the article linked below (keep in mind: the year hadn’t ended yet)

2/13

https://t.co/LwOST2qJf0

Experts all told me same thing: vigilante justice is a byproduct of people’s belief that the state does not fight crime effectively

This is true everywhere

Consider the Philippines, which had elected strongman Duterte: https://t.co/2rJLGd2vwy

3/13

https://t.co/2rJLGd2vwy

So what about this last week before the elections in Brazil? Have there been any vigilante killings?

Let’s go back to last Saturday

4/13

In the early hours, a man recently released from prison was beaten to death by 4 others in the center of Brazil’s richest city, São Paulo

Killing took place in the middle of the street, on the doorstep of the country’s most prestigious university

5/13

https://t.co/0sryICfcdx

On Sunday, a local horse race in the rural northeast turned into a bloodbath when a man shot 4 ppl (all aparently survived)

As soon as he ran out of bullets, the crowd set upon him & beat him to death

6/13

https://t.co/MISXot7mDa

On Monday, newspapers in the picturesque beach town of Fortaleza reported that a local man had died at the hands of a lynch mob, motive unknown

7/13

https://t.co/vRBlEblQMo

Same day, in Minas Gerais, a state in the heart of Brazil:

A furious mob torched the house of a suspected child abuser, tried to beat him to death, and threw rocks on the cop cars that tried to intervene

Portuguese speakers: read the comments

8/13

https://t.co/ESbZiMEDQl

It’s still Monday: we’re in Manaus, a capital city in the Amazon region

A man tries to hold up a store. He is seized by a crowd, shot by a “mysterious vigilante” and then beaten to death

10/13

https://t.co/MrQ619vWSe

Tuesday, southeast region: police receive a call about a suspected thief having been captured by a mob

At the scene, they find the suspect beaten unconscious, his limp body splayed on the sidewalk. They take him to a hospital

11/13

https://t.co/WujKa4sFCM

Finally, it’s Wednesday. We’re back in Minas Gerais

For the second time in two days, a man in the state is seized by an angry mob after being accused of sexually abusing a child. The police intervene. The man has to be taken to the ICU

12/13

https://t.co/tqJzWqosOq

Maybe I’m reading too much into a topic that has monopolized my attention for the better part of 3 years

But a country in which extrajudicial killings are so common as to be routine does not, in my opinion, look at a strongman with with disgust

13/13