The mother of student Thiago Menezes Flausino, Priscila Menezes Gomes de Souza, was heard this Tuesday (10), during the popular jury of the two military police officers accused of killing the 13-year-old boy, in August 2023, in the west zone of Rio de Janeiro.
The agents were in an unmarked car and fired three rifle shots at Thiago; two on the legs of the boy, who dreamed of being a football player.
The trial began late this Tuesday morning at the Court of Justice and is in the phase of hearing the prosecution witnesses. There is no estimated time for the decision to be made. Police officers Diego Pereira Leal and Aslan Wagner Ribeiro de Faria, from the Shock Battalion, are accused of Thiago’s death.
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Accusations
The police respond for the murder of Thiago, who was on the back of a motorcycle at the entrance to Cidade de Deus, and for attempted murder against Marcus Vinícius, the young man who was driving the vehicle and was shot in the hand.
At the time of the murder, the police were carrying out an operation using an unmarked private car. Investigations indicate that young people were not armed and there was no confrontation at the time of the action.
The agents are also accused of procedural fraud for having planted a weapon at the crime scene in an attempt to incriminate the victim and stage an exchange of gunfire. They even alter the statements to confirm that the car in the approach was not a vehicle with a siren.
For the Public Prosecutor’s Office, the police officers acted clumsily, in an illegal ambush operation, using a high-energy weapon.
Throughout the day, for more than six hours, the survivor, young Marcos Vinícius, his father, Wagner, as well as Thiago’s mother, Priscila Menezes, were interviewed.
Grief
In her statement, the mother reiterated that Thiago was a “polite, affectionate, smiling, happy boy.”
“He didn’t give much work, he liked going to school, he got ready to go alone and he liked to play football,” he said.
The boy attended two schools in the community and was a regular student at school. To prove it, he was shown with a school record showing more than 91% attendance, despite low grades in Portuguese and mathematics.
Priscila recognized her son in several photos with friends, training football, with his family and also riding a motorcycle. In one of them, the boy appears winning a school prize for the “most organized notebook”. “I don’t know if he came first or second in this competition, but this is the photo of him (celebrating),” he explained.
Images
During testimony, Thiago’s mother demonstrated suspicion of images shown by the police defense and found on the young man’s cell phone. The lawyers displayed photos of weapons, of hooded teenagers, with their faces turned away and images supposedly of Thiago.
“His face appears there, but that body is too strong to be his,” he said.
In another image, there is a hand holding a gun, however, with a heart tattoo. Thiago did not have any tattoos on his body, Priscila assured. The mother only recognized the boy in a photo with an object that appears to be a long gun, but expressed distrust. She suggested that the object could be an object for catching rats.
Survivor of the police action, Marcos Vinícius, the first to be interviewed, also confirmed that he never saw Thiago armed.
Before the jury began, the teenager’s father, Diogo Flausino, stated that the expectation is for the defendants to be convicted. “We expect justice. They have to pay,” he said, during another protest against police violence in front of the court. The agents claim self-defense.
To try to convince the jury, ten witnesses were selected, five for the defense and five for the prosecution. The trial was scheduled for the end of January, but was postponed until this Tuesday.
Justice
Outside the jury, Thiago’s relatives and friends were rooting for a verdict. Two of the boy’s schoolmates, aged 15 and 14, reported that he was happy and friendly. “He was a very nice boy, who joked, played, always wearing a comb in his hair, vain”, recalled one of them. “He was incredible, he always went with us to [comemorações de aniversários] pizza rotations, always a partner, the first to confirm”, added the other friend. “He was good”, she stressed.
*With collaboration from TV Brasil.
