Amid the repercussion of the presidential decree that regulates the gradual use of force during police operationspublished this week, the Brazilian Public Security Forum (FBSP), a civil society entity that collaborated in the formulation of the standard, highlights that the measure reproduces guidelines from international treaties signed by Brazil decades ago and was already included in other legal texts in force in the country.
This is the case, for example, of the Code of Conduct for Law Enforcement Officials, adopted by the General Assembly of the United Nations (UN) since 1979, the Convention Against Torture and other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of the UN (1984) and the Basic Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement Officials (1990), also from the UN.
In 2010, following these precepts, the Brazilian government published Interministerial Ordinance 4,226/2010, which establishes guidelines on the use of force by public security agents. In 2014, with Law 13,060, the Brazilian State began to regulate the use of instruments with less offensive potential by security agents throughout the national territory.
“Thus, the publication of Decree 12,341/2024, published by the federal government, regulates standards that have already existed for a decade and places Brazil in compliance with international legal instruments to which Brazil is a party and signatory”, says the FBSP, in a note published this Thursday (26).
According to the decree, the use of firearms must be used as a measure of last resort, in order to prevent situations of police violence and abuse of conduct by public security agents. According to the rule, weapons can only be used when other resources of “less intensity are not sufficient to achieve the intended legal objectives”.
One of the points of the rule deals, for example, with the non-use of weapons against unarmed people fleeing, including in vehicles that violate roadblocks, as long as it does not pose a risk to security agents and third parties.
Police violence
On the same day that the decree was issued, young Juliana Leite Rangel, 26 years old, was shot in the head by federal highway police officers, during an action on Rodovia Washington Luís (BR-040), in Baixada Fluminense . The victim was going with his family of five to spend Christmas at a relatives’ house in Itaipu, Niterói, metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro, when the car was hit by several shots fired by the agents, near Duque de Caxias, in the metropolitan region of Rio de Janeiro.
The young woman’s father, Alexandre Silva Rangel, told the press that he had not received a prior order to stop and that he parked the car when he heard the vehicle’s siren, but the police had already come down shooting, hitting his daughter in the head. Rangel was driving the vehicle and was grazed in the hand by a bullet. Juliana remains hospitalized in serious condition in a hospital in the Caxias region.
In another case, military police officers were clearing a street in the city of São Paulo, when a disturbance occurred with residents. A 24-year-old man began filming the incident, had an argument with one of the police officers and ended up being shot at close range. In both cases, both in Rio and São Paulo, the agents involved were removed and investigations were opened to determine responsibility.
“The recent episodes involving the Federal Highway Police, whose agents, armed with two rifles and an automatic pistol, shot at the car of a family traveling on BR-040 on the night of December 24, hitting young Juliana Leite in the head, hospitalized in serious condition, and the case of the 24-year-old young man shot at close range by a Military Policeman while filming a violent attack in Osasco, in the early hours of December 25th, are factual examples of the need to establish national guidelines and procedures that regulate the use of force in national territory”, says the FBSP note.
International condemnation
Also according to the entity, the Brazilian State itself has already been convicted in the Inter-American Court of Human Rights for abusive use of force by the police of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, in recent periods, with the federal government being responsible for preventing for this type of occurrence to happen again.
The Brazilian Public Security Forum also criticized statements by some governors, such as Ronaldo Caiado, from Goiás, and Claudio Castro, from Rio de Janeiro, who demonstrated against the presidential decreeincluding suggesting the possibility of appealing against the instrument.
“It is up to the Union to comply with the decisions of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights, which determine the issuance of rules on the use of force. Therefore, the Brazilian Public Security Forum understands that, contrary to statements made by some governors against the issuance of Decree 12,341 , the attribution of regulation of international treaties to which Brazil is a signatory, a fact that only occurs after approval by the National Congress, is the exclusive attribution of the Union and does not constitute usurpation and/or invasion of competences of the states and the Federal District in matters of Public Security”, argues the entity.
