The Sentencing Council of the 1st Rio Jury Court acquitted the seven military police officers accused of participating in the death of dancer Douglas Rafael da Silva Pereira, the DG. The crime occurred on April 22, 2014, in Pavão-Pavãozinho communityin Copacabana, south of Rio, during an operation by the Pacification Police Unit (UPP).
Named as the author of the shot that killed DG, soldier Walter Saldanha Correa Junior was cleared of the crime. Walter said that, in the early hours of April 22, “he consciously and voluntarily fired firearms at Douglas Rafael da Silva Pereira, known as DG, when he was jumping onto the roof of Creche Solar Meninos da Luz, causing him to injury to the back, described in the cadaveric examination report as the cause of the dancer’s death.”
The state Public Prosecutor’s Office, in its indictment, said that “the homicide occurred for a bad reason because the 1st accused, despite noticing that the victim was fleeing, assuming that she was a drug dealer, shot her dead, even though she was unarmed and did not pose any danger to her. your safety.”
The police officer was arrested shortly after the dancer’s death, but in 2015, the defense obtained a habeas corpusand Walter Saldanha awaited trial in freedom.
The other soldiers who were part of the UPP team and participated in a police patrol through the community were acquitted of the charge of false testimony, they are: Rodrigo Vasconcellos de Oliveira, Rodrigo dos Santos Bispo, Rafael D’Aguila do Nascimento, Alessandro da Silva Oliveira , Eder Palinhas Ribeiro and Evandro dos Santos Dias.
The jury made up of seven people from society unanimously decided to acquit the seven military police officers. “The jurors submitted to the questions decided to acquit the seven accused of all the charges attributed to them. In view of what was decided by the jurors, the state’s punitive claim to convict Walter Saldanha Correa Junior for the crime of homicide and the other six military police officers who participated in the action in the community of Pavão-Pavãozinho for the crime of false testimony was judged to be unfounded,” he wrote. Judge Alessandra da Rocha Lima Roidis, head of the 1st Jury Court, delivered the sentence.
Douglas worked on the program Heatpresented by Regina Casé, on Sundays on Rede Globo. The dancer’s death generated several protests at the time of the crime.
