Essay On Vigario Funeral Massacre

On the 29th August 1993, twenty one people were killed by police. This massacre occurred in Vigario Geral, one of the six hundred favelas in Rio de Janiero. It was as a result of four policemen being killed by local drug dealers, that this event came to be. To make matters worse, of the twenty one people that were killed, none were involved with drug trafficking. Two causes were the killings of the four policemen and the living conditions of the favela residents. Two consequences of the massacre were an increased sense of mistrust between the police force and the favela residents, as well as the rise of Afro Reggae.
One cause of the Vigario Geral massacre was the killing of four policemen some time before the massacre. They were killed by local drug lords and it was as a response to these attacks that the police killed twenty one people in retaliation. The original four policemen, consisting of a corrupt police chief and three of his men, were gunned down outside a local church. The police then decided that the best way to handle this situation was to send a military police force to carry out a revenge attack in the favela
There are six hundred favelas in Rio de Janiero alone, and all of them provide inadequate housing and resources for the people that live in them. This is partly due to the fact that there are not nearly enough job opportunities, which in turn means that a lot people have to resort to a life of crime in order to provide for their families. Specifically young people, who have grown up in communities where the sight of a dead body isn’t shocking, and violence surrounds them. The drug cartels are almost romanticised within the favelas, children aspiring to join them when they are old enough. The police are feared, hated by the favelas inhabitants and so they are shot by the drug lords. The police then retaliate killing favela residents and an endless cycle