Brian Winter – Reuters, 11/07/2012
A policeman searches a motorcyclist at a checkpoint in Sao Paulo October 8, 2012. Credit: Reuters/Paulo Whitaker/Files
The murder of a female police officer in front of her daughter in Sao Paulo, Brazil’s biggest city and financial capital, has increased pressure on President Dilma Rousseff and local authorities to halt a drug-related crime wave in which dozens of police have died.
Marta Umbelina da Silva, 44, was opening the garage in her home Saturday night when two assailants shot her ten times in the back, throat and abdomen, police said. Her 11-year-old daughter screamed for help and Silva, a mother of three, was taken to a nearby hospital, but she could not be revived.
More than half of the 90 police murders this year in greater Sao Paulo have occurred in similar execution-style fashion.
Brazil Portal 