The City Council of Rio de Janeiro approved on Tuesday (15), definitively, the bill authorizing the use of firearms by the Municipal Guard (GM). The next step now is to regulate how change will occur in practice.
The project of amendment to Organic Law No. 23-A/2018 adds that the corporation can carry out public security actions, such as ostensive, preventive and community policing. And will receive specific training and training for weaponry use.
This was the second discussion session of the theme. In today’s vote, there were 43 votes favorable and seven opposite votes from the councilors, to score exactly the same as the VOTE IN FIRST DISCUSSIONwhich occurred on the last day 2.
The theme gained new impetus this year with two attempts by the City Hall to present their own projects, which were not even placed in vote by the plenary. There was an agreement between executive and legislature for a similar project, in process since 2018 and authored by a group of councilors, to be recovered.
Among the points to be regulated, and that have caused disagreements since the beginning of the year, are the proposals of:
- Creation of a separate elite group within GM,
- Hiring temporary agents or by contest,
- Permission for agents to remain with the weapons after hours of service
- Possibility of using body cameras.
Debate
During today’s session, councilors reinforced positions in favor and against guard weaponry. Councilman Pedro Duarte (Novo) used the example of other cities to argue that the river could not be an exception.
“The Rio de Janeiro Municipal Guard needs to be armed to be effective in offering more security to the carioca citizen. I had the opportunity to visit the guards of Curitiba, Belo Horizonte and Sao Paulo, three capitals that have had their corporations armed and trained for a long time. This is the way, empowering the guards and providing the appropriate structure,” said Pedro.
Councilwoman Monica Benicio (PSOL) criticized the lack of technical planning in public safety.
“We should be discussing here positions and salaries, intelligence actions, guard restructuring, work scale, etc. The problem of public safety with more violence is not solved,” said Monica.
Security plan
Anthropologist and professor Lenin Pires, from the Department of Public Security of the Fluminense Federal University (UFF), criticizes the absence of a prediction of a Municipal Security Council, with representatives of civil society, and a clear security plan, which justifies the main needs of the use of armed force in the city.
“The instrument for the exercise of municipal security is the security plan, designed from a diagnosis. In it should include information, studies, research, evidence that puts in perspective what it should be the use of this municipal guard, what it will focus, how it will act. Much is said of the amount of agents and weapons, and there is not even a security plan,” says Lenin.
“The fact is that this debate is placed today due to the inefficiency and incompetence of the state government, which has only operated on the militarization of the Military and Civil Police. There is no commitment to the development of technologies, with police intelligence, investigation, with preventive action. And the municipal guard would go along the same way,” he adds.
