Brazilians protest against police racism, killings

Hundreds demonstrated in Niteroi city on Thursday against racism and police violence in Brazil. Raising their fists and carrying banners reading "Black Lives Matter", the protesters shouted slogans demanding the end of racism and against the policies of president Jair Bolsonaro.

Mothers of some young black men allegedly killed by the police attended the demonstration and carried banners with pictures of their children. Bruna Mozee, mother of Marcos de Sousa said that she is fighting for justice. According to Mozee, Marcos was executed by the police in 2018 after alleged involvement in drug trafficking.

The number of deaths during police operations or with the intervention of policemen has increased in Rio de Janeiro since 2019 and keeps growing in 2020. Official figures reported by the Public Security Institute shows 606 people were killed in the first 2020 quarter, already an increase of 8 percent for the same period last year. A comparison for April's 2019 and 2020 of the same figures shows an increased number of deaths during police interventions of 43 percent.