São Paulo Governor Tarcísio de Freitas (Republicans) made another cut in the budget for the Military Police body camera program. The decision led to accusations by the opposition of sabotaging the cameras program. Even though the devices have already showed that they reduce the number of deaths of suspects and policemen, political groups aligned with the Freitas pressure him to terminate it.
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The Cut
On Friday (18/11), it was officially informed that R$ 11 million allocated to the program were moved to fund ostensive and daily police actions by the police forces. A survey by the PT, PCdoB and PV federation at São Paulo Legislative Assembly (Alesp) shows that the allocation has already been reduced from R$ 152 million to R$ 136 million. Until August, the government has spent only R$ 45 million of the resources dedicated for this purpose in 2023.
Government’s Version
Members of the Military Police stated that there are no cuts in the resource reserved for the cameras, but an emergency reallocation to honor the extra expenses of police officers.
Campaign Promise
In the campaign, Tarcísio even promised to terminate the cameras project. Nonetheless, since data that showed that the cameras led to reductions of police lethality and also the death of agents, he changed his mind. Yet, after the death of a Military Police officer in Guarujá, he has been pressured by allies to remove all the devices.
The death of this police officer led to an operation, named “Shield”. During the operation, the police killed at least 18 people in alleged clashes. However, most cases were not recorded on camera and there are reports of executions.
Source: Folha de São Paulo
