Viral videos of a black man being asphyxiated with gas by two officers of Brazil's Federal Highway Police inside an SUV's smoke-filled trunk sparked outrage across Brazil on Thursday.
Images of the police stop Tuesday in Umbauba, in the northeastern state of Sergipe, show the officers forcibly keeping Genivaldo de Jesus Santos, 38, in the back of their police vehicle as a dense cloud of white smoke, which appears to be tear gas, emerges from the SUV.
The man can be heard screaming and his legs, which stick out of the SUV, kick for a time, until they eventually stop moving. The officers seem undisturbed by onlookers surrounding them.
Social media erupted over the images, and dozens of people gathered to protest Wednesday in Umbauba, where they blocked a road and burned tires.
"The population is outraged," a man can be heard saying in a video of the protest posted on Twitter. "They murdered the guy!” another told the crowd through a loudspeaker.
In a statement, the Federal Highway Police said the man had displayed aggressive behavior and was "actively resisting” the officers who pulled him over. The agents immobilized him, the statement said, then used "instruments of lesser offensive potential” to contain him.
The statement says Santos fell ill as he was being transported to a police precinct and was taken to a hospital, where his death was confirmed.
A preliminary autopsy concluded the man died of respiratory failure due to "mechanical asphyxia,” George Fernandes, a spokesperson for Sergipe state’s forensic institute, told The Associated Press (AP).
The incident "shocked Brazilian society due to the level of its brutality, exposing the institution's lack of preparedness to guarantee that its agents obey basic procedures," the Brazilian Public Security Forum, an independent group, said in a statement.
President Jair Bolsonaro said he would find out from the Federal Highway Police what happened. He also mentioned a separate incident two weeks ago when a man shot two on-duty highway officers.
The Federal Police opened an investigation. The forensic institute must submit its final, more in-depth report to the Federal Police within 10 days.
The incident comes just days after officers of the highway police participated in an operation in Rio de Janeiro that left more than 20 people dead. Police have said they had no choice but to use lethal force, but accounts from residents published in local media have raised doubts on that claim.
