The Federal Highway Police (PRF) will install body cameras in the uniforms of its officers starting next year. The equipment could help to clarify the circumstances of homicides such as that of Anne Caroline Nascimento Silva, during an action by the corporation on the Washington Luiz Highway, on Saturday, 17 June.
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The forecast is that, in April 2024, a tender for the purchase of equipment will be made. Studies conducted by a working group created by the corporation predict that 6,000 officers will start using bodycams, equivalent to half the force’s staff.
Pilot Project
The project to implement body cameras in the PRF will work as a kind of test project in the federal government, since bodycams have not yet been adopted by any of the federal forces. The forecast is that, after the Highway Police, the equipment will also be used in the Federal Penitentiary System, to prevent mistreatment of prisoners.
Why the Federal Highway Police
The choice of the PRF to start the project was a response by the Justice Minister, Flávio Dino, to the explosion of lethality in the corporation’s actions during the Jair Bolsonaro government. In Rio only, 40 people were killed in actions by the corporation in the first six months of last year (2022), according to a survey carried out by GLOBO based on data obtained via the Access to Information Act. The number is greater than the sum of what was registered in the previous three years.
Also, a few incidents with national impact pressured authorities for a measure to fight the increase in deaths. One of the most known took place last year, in Sergipe, when a biker, Genivaldo Santos, was arrested for driving without helmet and killed by three agents, during the arrest procedures. After being arrested, Santos was thrown into the trunk of a PRF vehicle by three agents and forced to inhale tear gas.
Source: O Globo
