Geisa was worried about Damiana.
Today we know that Damiana had already suffered a stroke.
I think she mentioned it to us.
Geisa became desperate when she noticed that Damiana was getting worse.
This is my mother.
She has to write everything down because she can't talk
due to the problems she had after the incident.
She wrote: "At one point, I couldn't stand the torture any longer.
"I called Sandro and said: 'Why are you doing this to us?
"'It's not our fault what you are going through.'
He said: "Lady, I don't want to kill. I just want to get out."
"But if there's no other way, I'll turn the heat on."
I saw my mother on the bus, her mouth distorted. Geisa was comforting her.
That's when Geisa started to shiver, in shock.
When she saw my mother's mouth, she panicked.
Hey there, you bunch of heroes!
One is dying from a heart problem
and I'm gonna shoot the other at six. This ain't no action movie!
In a very frail voice, she told Geisa: "I can't stand it anymore."
He stuck the gun out of the window.
His whole arm out of the window. Then his head too.
The elite police outside and he sticks his head out of the window!
He stuck his arm out and only had a gun.
They could've shot his arm.
He wouldn't be able to kill us unarmed!
You can't leave six people at someone's mercy
when you don't know what he might do.
In that situation, a sniper shot would have been ideal.
But this was being broadcast live to the whole country
and the outcome could be that something like...
...half a kilo of his brain would be splattered all over the bus windows.
I wouldn't like to see that. My family wouldn't like to see that either.
But, technically, that would've been the best thing to do.
When I saw the police in the park
my biggest fear was that someone might take a shot.
I believe that if someone had fired at us, he'd have shot me as well.
If a sniper's shot had hit him
in the triangular area between his eyes and mouth,
the bullet would have hit his nervous system.
He'd have been dead in 7 milliseconds.
He wouldn't even have blinked.
We had men capable of taking this shot.
You don't want to take risks, right?
I dare you to do something. Come out, cowards!
Col. Penteado asked me to take the shot.
He asked me if I could take the shot. I said I couldn't.
My gun was in the holster and I couldn't shoot him
without him noticing my movements.
So he said: "Get over there,
"and get a volunteer to take the shot."
So that's what I am doing here. The guy who's giving the thumbs up
if I'm not mistaken, is Captain Ricardo Soares.
It's him offering to take the shot.
Col. Penteado favoured that option.
He wanted the shot to be taken.
Some officers told me the governor called.
Others said that the chief of police was in charge of the situation from afar.
Only Col. Penteado knows the truth.
But no one is capable of dealing with such a crisis from a distance.
To me it makes no difference who interfered.
Whoever it was, he made a mistake.
Once he took the first call, probably from the governor,
he had to follow orders. He had to carry out his orders:
"Spare the kidnapper's life."
Any laymen in police tactics could point out
at least ten opportunities for a clear shot.
Especially us, who are trained for it.
"Sergio, why don't you take us outside to form a circle around you?
"With a circle of people... They won't be able to shoot you.
"Everybody will see. There are cameras.
He said: "Lady, you don't know what a criminal's life is like.
"I can't ask for the support of the gangs.
"I can't be arrested. If I am, I'll be killed."
Then my mother started to talk to Sandro about his life.
He said: "Lady, you know nothing."
She replied: "I do. My brother is in prison."
He said: "Look what they did to my back."
He showed her what they did to him in prison.
She said: "That thing on your back, my brother has it too.
"My brother is a convict like you.
"He went through everything you went through."
Geisa asked him to let her leave
because her mother was feeling sick. She called Damiana "mom".
When he said Damiana could leave,
Geisa followed her, expecting to leave with her.
That is what she wanted to do.
"No. She's the only one leaving. You're not going!"
Then he said: "Let her go. She's gonna die anyway."
I heard it because I was right next to him.
Let me go with her! She'll collapse. Let me go.
This is what happened with Damiana.
She gained her freedom by telling him things.
She even said she had a child in prison who was suffering like him.
She said she understood him.
I remember he said:
"If you have a child in jail, then it's OK."
And he let her go.
The Department of Justice of Rio de Janeiro accuses
Sandro do Nascimento e Ricardo Vieira.
On February 17, 1998, around 1 pm, in Copacabana,
the accused began a hold-up
"I have a '45. Give me all you got!"
"Your wallet, your money, all your belongings!"
After the robbery, the police arrested the accused,
taking them to the 12th Precinct to undergo appropriate formalities.
I hereby sentence Sandro do Nascimento
to 3 years, 3 months and 20 days in prison.
We are entering one of the worst jails in Rio,
the 26th Precinct: "The Vault."
As you can see, there is no natural light.
The conditions here aren't very agreeable.
It is a bit inhumane, all this darkness.
This is it: "The Vault". Closed in.
It's kind of sinister.
It was for real. The inmates dreaded it.
When they found out they were coming here, they went nuts.
As you can see, this cell would hold at the most 10 inmates
in very bad conditions, 10 at the most.
But there could be up to 25 or 30 inmates in here.
You know what they did? Half laid down, half stood up.
They took shifts. They also did this, see?
They hung over one another in hammocks.
They kept their toothpaste here. Everything was shared.
If I'm not mistaken, this is a communal strap.
They all hung over one another.
This is where Sandro stayed.
You had approximately 40 people in here.
Sandro was well-behaved.
Weird, isn't it?
People would say that because he robbed
and he was a street kid, he was a rebellious character.
It was quite the opposite. We, who met him here,
in prison he always behaved well.
Was he a criminal? Sure he was.
But here in jail he was well-behaved. He was a peaceful guy.
He never gave us any hassle. Never caused any troubled.
Although he lived in this...
I don't know what to call it. It is no jail.
Anyway, this is what they got.
Sandro made some friends here.
Because in here you had to make friends.
If you make enemies inside, you go to sleep and you're a goner.
No one ever paid Sandro a visit.
Nobody. Not a friend, much less a relative.
Nobody.
On New Year's Eve 1999, Sandro escaped with some guys.
They got the key, broke into our locker
and took my gun and Vitor's.
The leader was Odair of Mangueira.
Sandro, along with some other guys, just went with the flow.
Some cells were open. He was in one of them.
He took advantage of that and escaped.
When he passed by me, he said:
"Sorry, gotta go. This is my chance."
"Urgent. Sandro do Nascimento escaped from the 26th Precinct
on January 1, 1999.
One day, he calls me: "Auntie, I'm by the ferries."
I said: "Where? In Niteroi or Rio?" "Niteroi."
"I escaped with some friends. I'd like you to bring me some trainers."
"I need you to buy me some trainers and lend me some money."
"I'm going to change my life. You'll see. I'm going to change.
"I'll be famous worldwide."
He hugged me, he kissed and thanked me.
"Auntie, I'll pay you back." I said: "You don't need to."
"Sort your life out. Stop living like this. Quit running away."
NOVA HOLANDA FAVELA MARE COMPLEX
He said: "I don't want to live in Boa Vista with the family.
"I've got a house in Nova Holanda. I'll take you there someday."
We'd see each other in Nova Holanda, playing video games
on the main street of the favela.
We'd pick up a girl, go to different places,
the Stop Time Hotel...
We led similar lives. We'd smoke a joint, play soccer,
work out, fly kites.
Afterwards, he'd go to his house and I'd go to mine.
All in the neighbourhood. In Nova Holanda.
He developed a mother and son relationship.
Sandro started living with this woman.
She treated him like a son.
'cause I think you should be by my side."
He told me about his life, what he had been through.
"Life is short, mom."
That's how he explained it.
He'd come in and say: "I can't believe I have a home."
"I have a bathroom, I have a stove where I can fry chips."
He loved chips.
Then he'd fold his arms behind his head
and he would stare at the TV.
I took the bed out because he didn't like to sleep on the bed.
He liked to sleep on the floor, with the windows open.
He would tell me:
"This is like a dream."
"Is this room really mine?" "Of course. It is your bedroom."
"Can I have a TV set here, make a little corner here?" "Sure."
"If I feel like it, can I lock the door?" "Yes."
He'd ask my permission for everything.
I really wanted him to feel comfortable.
I said: "Son, if you want,
"when you get a job, even if it's not a regular job,
"you can build an extension to the house.
"Build an extension. You could raise your family close to me."
He had willpower,
but something put him off his track. Maybe it was fear.
I'm not sure if he was too shy, or someone threatened him.
I don't know.
He'd say: "I have to be someone in life.
"I want to be an artist. I want to do something with my life."
"If you try hard enough, you will make it."
He'd say: "I want to work. I will talk to Aunt Yvonne."
She was his social worker.
"I want her to get me a job. I want to study and work."
He'd say things like that.
I'd say: "If you really want it, you can make it."
I was in touch with him two months before the bus incident.
He asked me for a job. He said:
"Aunt Yvonne, I'm tired of this life. I'd like to get a job.
"Look at me. Who would give me a job?
"I can't read or write. I don't have social security.
"I've never had a job. What can I do besides what I do now?
"Who'd give me a chance?" Nobody ever did.
He said that I'd see him on TV,
that he'd be famous.
I told him: "I really hope so. I want to see you as a big success."
"I want you to see it too. You'll see it."
"Even if I don't see it, you will."
THE NEGOTIATION CONTINUES
"By six o'clock, I'll kill a hostage."
He obviously wanted to get out of there. That's what he wanted.
TIME
He covered me, and I said: "I can't see a thing."
He said: "You don't need to." He said he would count to 100...
and then shoot me.
He counted "One..." and walked to the back of the bus.
"Two..." and he'd walk up to the front.
He counted "One, two, three" and then he'd jump to 60.
At each jump, I'd start an Our Father, but never finish it.
Your life passes before you in flashes of everything you've experienced
and everything you'd like to do and haven't done.
Hey officer, didn't you watch this film?
The guy threw her out of the plane.
I'm not throwing her out.
I'm gonna make her kneel and shoot her when I feel like it.
When he made me kneel down
it was clear to me that he was going to kill me.
You feel very fragile,
because you don't know if you'll live or die.
You're controlled by someone who is willing to kill you,
who has nothing to lose.
At the time, I thought I was simply going to die
and there was nothing I could do about it.
"Warn them. Tell them I'm gonna shoot her."
"Tell them I'm gonna shoot her, or you'll suffer."
I heard him tell Janaina to lay down.
I thought: "My time has come. If I'm gonna die, it's gonna be now."
It is a very tricky situation when there are cameras around.
Is it tolerable?
Is it tolerable in an incident with ten hostages? Yes.
It is not nice to hear that. No one likes to hear that.
However, casualties are a possibility.
We know there may be casualties.
Sergio!
There's a driver here for you.
Calm down! Put that gun away.
What are you doing?
Hey, sergeant!
I asked for a pistol and a hand grenade, right?
Now I'm gonna put the heat on.
I'm gonna kill one of them now.
Write it down: 300 dollars, two hand grenades, a rifle,
or else I kill one of them now!
Sandro gave us the opportunity.
When the kidnapper starts shooting the hostages,
it's time to raid the place.
Everyone started screaming. It was nerve-racking.
At that moment, I thought the police were going to raid the bus.
For the love of God!
The criminal would be shot by the sniper
and the squad would raid the bus,
finish him off,
and save the hostages' lives.
- He killed a girl, for Christ's sake! - He killed a girl!
- The guy killed a girl. - I told you he would.
We had no idea how bad the hostage was hit.
The first one is down, you have to go in,
even if it puts the lives of the others at risk.
We can't wait for him to shoot everybody.
That gunshot should have been our cue to move in.
Col. Penteado was talking on his mobile all the time
and checking with police chief Marta Rocha
and the local police commander,
who I think was from the 22nd Battallion.
He knew what he had to do.
For some reason, he didn't do it.
At that moment, some of us were positioned
and had a clear shot of Sandro.
But the colonel didn't authorize it. He wanted Sandro alive.
Please, let her go.
Don't do it, Sergio! Don't do it!
I think deep down he knew the right thing to do would be to take the shot.
There was someone possibly injured
and in need of medical attention. Time could be crucial.
But he didn't authorize the shot. He felt paralyzed
by the orders he had received,
even if they went against everything that he knew.
- Where are the rifles? - On their way.
They're on their way. Didn't you want a driver?
Where's the rifle and the grenade?
Mr Officer, let's talk.
I'm gonna kill another one.
If I don't get what I asked for.
I'm gonna shoot another one. If I don't get it by six, she dies.
The police didn't believe it,
they didn't want to believe that she was really dead.
For a while, we weren't sure if she had been hit.
Look, the driver is on his way.
We've agreed. I've got them with me.
She's gonna die now.
He's gonna shoot another girl. He's already killed one.
He's gonna shoot her soon.
You are not the one with a gun to your head. "Keep calm!"
Give me a break!
Trust you? When there's a girl bleeding on the floor?
Is that what you want? Shit!
He asked everyone to scream,
to shout, to look desperate.
Janaina, Geisa and I, we all understood.
Everybody cooperated, by screaming and crying
beyond the despair that we really felt.
I knew that nothing had happened, that it was a bluff,
because the other women didn't jump out of the windows.
I think that anyone on a bus going someplace
coming from college, going home, would have jumped.
Mr Officer, one is already down.
Another one is going down. There's gonna be lots of blood.
Lots of blood.
He wasn't going to kill anyone because it wasn't in his nature.
Or else he'd had done if before in his life,
as a street kid, lost in the world, without a thing.
He would have killed before if that was in his character.
At the last second, with the gun pointing at my head,
he said: "I'm not gonna kill you, but I'm gonna shoot
and I want everybody to scream."
It was when I heard someone open a window. I think it was Geisa.
I heard everybody screaming, I was screaming too.
We were putting on an act. It was an act.
When I realised I was alive,
I started crying
to get out of my system everything I had gone through
that whole afternoon in his power.
That's when I realised I was OK, that I was alive.
You cry out of joy.
You realize it's all over.
He wanted people outside to see how desperate we were
so he could get what he wanted.
Parallel conversations were going on.
One for the cameras and the people outside
and one for us inside the bus.
He was in control of the situation.
He could change things any time he liked.
I'm gonna do this one in front of you
for you to see.
Don't you want a driver?
Sergio, don't you want a driver?
He's on his way. It takes time.
There's no driver here.
- Deputy, get over here! - The driver is on his way.
Deputy!
Deputy, for the love of God!
Deputy, get over here!
Get over here!
You don't want to come here?
You gonna quit kicking ass?
You're scared, aren't you?
You fucked with me and now you're scared!
I'm gonna shoot her.
He's making his last moves,
but he doesn't have it in him to kill an innocent person.
You draw up his psychological profile.
He wants to get out of there, he doesn't want to be arrested again.
When you're arrested, they take you to the police station.
They beat you up really bad when you get there.
If you try anything, it's even worse. If you try to argue, it's worse.
They knock the shit out of us. They do what they have to.
TYPICAL POLICE STATION RIO DE JANEIRO 2002
We were at the 31st Precinct.
They brought us here beating us up on the way. They kicked our butts.
It's very crowded in here. There's no place to sleep.
They treat our families badly.
They give us rotten food.
We're constantly hassled. I have leprosy. There's no medical assistance.
People are fucked over, some are in here illegally
when they should be back with their families.
There's no room in the prisons... There is, if you pay them off.
We'll probably be beaten up after you leave.
They beat us up.
These are subhuman conditions.
I've been in jail for over a year.
Neither my family in Paraguay nor the consulate knows about it.
They should be informed because I was wrongly accused.
The situation in Brazil is really bad.
And the prisoner's situation is the worst of all.
How can a prisoner be rehabilitated?
How do they expect this country to be less violent?
Treating prisoners the way they do?
They're not gonna feel good when they leave jail.
They'll probably mug and kill more and more.
Take me, for example.
I'm in jail after I've done my time.
I'm still in custody.
This is crazy! Nothing works in this country.
They only care about the elections. Reality is really sad.
What you see ain't a third of it.
The things we go through here,
what we have to go through here, it's really like hell.
We would be better off dead than in here.
That is the truth.
It's better to be dead than to be in jail.
This ain't gonna do any good...
When they've been arrested before, they are more violent.
It's harder to make them surrender because they know what jail is like.
Hey, this is because you're not getting it.
This is because you're trying to be a hero.
You're trying to be a smart-ass
and you have no respect for the life of a citizen.
This is because you're letting a pretty girl like her die.
This is because if you were smart, none of this would happen.
Let's count together! Count to seven.
During the whole time, it looked like he was angrier with her.
She lied to Sandro. She told him a lie,
that she had a brother in prison. Sandro found out it was a lie.
This must have caused the opposite effect of the Stockholm Syndrome.
He lost trust in her.
It seemed that if anyone had to die, it would be Geisa.
On the bus she said that Damiana was her mother.
I read Damiana's diaries and found out that she told him
her brother had been in prison, or was still in prison.
He asked: "Where is your brother being held?"
Geisa didn't know what to say.
In fact, she knew everything about my uncle's life.
But my uncle never stayed in one prison for long.
That's why Geisa didn't know how to answer.
I was sitting down the whole time during the incident.
Then he grabbed me and yelled to the cops:
"Look how pretty this one is! If you don't like the other one, look at her."
He showed me off at the window for everyone to see.
He stayed with me at the back window,
pointing the gun at my forehead for everyone to see.
He told us to cry.
He told us to make things seem more dramatic than they really were.
There was a conversation going on inside the bus,
but he didn't want people to notice.
I didn't really believe that he would shoot me.
But, eventually, I actually started to believe it.
The fine line between pretence and reality was broken.
And I believed he would kill me right there.
Then I leaned against him and took hold of his arm.
I asked him not to kill me.
When I realised he might kill me, I begged.
He got annoyed and said: "Shut up or I'll really kill you!
So I looked at him and said:
"Well, don't you want me to pretend?"
Then he looked at me and I think he realised
that there was some ambiguity in what he was doing.
Either he wanted us to put on an act or he really wanted to kill us.
And then it seemed to me that he felt bad about it.
He felt bad about the fact that I was asking him to comfort me,
he who was willing to kill me, or pretending he would.
I didn't know if he was pretending or not,
but even if he was pretending,
an unexpected move could make the gun go off.
So even if it wasn't his intention to shoot me, it could happen.
Geisa was very scared. She couldn't even stand up.
Then she sat down and I said:
"Geisa, he won't kill you. He won't kill you."
She said: "He's gonna kill me!" I said: "He won't."
But she was still petrified.
I made her lean her head on my shoulder and hugged her.
I was trying to soothe her. She seemed to calm down a little.
I told them that they should make an effort to get closer to him.
"Be his friend, you have to be his friend."
I think the girl with the glasses understood it.
It seemed that she was doing stuff
to create a bond between her and him, which was what we wanted.
Since we weren't really making contact with him
we made sure that the hostages did.
I spoke to her, I talked to her
and told her this:
"You have to be calm."
"You have to make him feel that everything is fine."
At one stage when things were calmer,
I said to him:
"You must really like your sister. What's she like?"
"She has long hair, a little shorter than yours."
So I was trying to establish a friendly atmosphere,
as if we weren't there.
As if that conversation was taking place elsewhere.
I was trying to take his mind off the situation,
the feeling of being trapped.
I was trying to show that I cared about him, in some way,
not only because I was scared of what he might do to me,
but as a human being.
I don't know what led him to do that, to be who he was.
Now I think: "He was 21 or 22 years old, the same age I am now."
At the time I was 19. He had lived as long as I have.
What could have been happening inside his head?
What happened that led him to do that, to be the person he was?
BOA VISTA RIO DE JANEIRO
"O Fluminense" newspaper, March 27, 1988
The tragedy shocked the residents of Boa Vista.
Clarice was five months pregnant.
She was a cheerful, good-natured woman
much admired by her customers and loved by children.
The victim left a trail of blood, from the counter to the street.
She fell out of the door and dragged herself onto the street,
screaming for help that never came.
I can only imagine what it was like for Sandro
to see those three guys attacking his mother, stabbing her.
I think he stayed by her side during the whole ordeal.
He saw the knife in my sister's back. I'm sure he did.
My sister came rolling from the kitchen to the bar.
She fell onto her back, it pushed the knife in deeper.
He saw it all. He only called me after she was already lying on the floor.
He said: "Auntie, come and help Mom. She's hurt".
Incident report the body was found on the street
in front of the victim's shop.
A kitchen knife with a wooden handle
was in the victim's back, at the right shoulder.
The baby stirred in her belly.
I thought she was alive because the baby was moving a lot.
Maybe it was the lack of oxygen. I don't know.
The baby moved so I asked people to take her to a doctor.
But she was dead.
We were talking as if we were friends.
Then Gloria, who was near us,
asked me, at that moment, to put around his neck
a chain with an image of the Virgin Mary.
Then I asked him: "Do you believe in the Virgin Mary?"
That was the saint in the pendant. "No, I only believe in God."
Then, I asked him:
"Do you know who's the greatest victim in this bus? Of this incident?"
He stopped and stared at the floor, thinking about it.
Then, I said: "You." He thought about that.
It was as if he had just grasped the situation.
I said: "Sandro, do you want to come to mom's funeral?
He took a while to answer. He went to pee and came back.
I said: "Do you want to say goodbye to mommy before she goes to heaven?"
"Auntie, I'm gonna play marbles." Like nothing had happened.
"No, Auntie. I'm staying. I'm flying a kite." He had many excuses.
"I'm flying a kite." He hadn't forgotten what had happened.
He wanted to stay as far away as he could from that neighbourhood.
He wanted to be far from the place where he saw everything happen.
He would make a decision,
then he'd change his mind,
decide he didn't want to exchange the hostages.
He just wanted to stay there. He said he didn't trust the cops.
He said he knew they would kill him. If he didn't watch out, they'd kill him.
"I'm gonna die anyway. I've got nothing to lose."
When I got home that night, my mom said that
Sandro had run away, she hadn't seen him all day.
He went onto the streets and we never saw him again.
Whatever the outcome...
the hostages' chances of getting out of there unharmed
were far greater than his.
Dead or in jail, he was going to be worse off.
I'm against what he did with that bus. I'm against what the police did too.
It's all violence, right? Nothing can justify what happened.
But he wasn't going to kill anyone in that bus.
He was incapable of it. He never killed anyone, he never would.
You see, he threatened them, but he wasn't going to kill anyone.
Son of a bitch!
No way they'd get me back to jail. We'd all go to hell together.
I heard him say: "Let's go for a walk."
I felt all the emotion,
the relief that it was all over.
I didn't know what was going to happen.
That there was going to be shooting.
I said: "Geisa, he is not going to kill you."
She said: "He'll kill me!" I insisted: "He won't."
If he'd wanted to kill anyone,
he'd have done it in the beginning to show power.
I remember Geisa crying
and Sandro pointing a gun to her head.
When he decided to take Geisa outside, nobody was talking to him.
Not even the cops. He simply made up his mind.
I was talking on the phone when I suddenly realised
that he was leaving the bus.
Sandro leaving the bus wasn't good for the police.
Quite the opposite.
A static situation should never be allowed to become mobile.
If he had walked down the street with Geisa
he could have been lynched,
or he could have taken more hostages.
We didn't expect him to leave the bus.
We thought it was very unlikely, with all those guns around him.
We thought he had realised that any attempt to escape
would put his life in danger.
At that time, there were a dozen photographers kneeling in front of me.
When he got off the bus holding a terrified woman,
he thought he could use her despair to convince us to let him go away.
He wanted to get out onto the street with her,
run away and try to escape.
He was holding onto the girl, but he just wanted to get out.
Negotiate with the police? What? He was out of his mind.
He said he'd kill anyone who got in his way,
that he wanted to get away.
What could those cops do?
Where would Sandro go? Would they shoot him?
Would there be crossfire with many victims?
He was going to give himself in. There were lots of cameras.
He'd come out alive. He thought: "Who would kill me on TV?"
No one.
What was that policeman thinking?
Sandro had his back turned, so he took advantage.
But the machine gun's bolt wasn't armed.
He knew that if he released the bolt,
Sandro would spot him.
When he was about a foot from Sandro's head,
he released the bolt.
Unfortunately, Sandro spotted him.
He had a hostage, a gun with three bullets,
and Marcelo charging him with a gun pointed to his face.
What would be the normal reaction?
If someone tried to shoot him, his finger was on the trigger.
He should have used the hostage as shield and fired at his attacker.
Even though he knew that the other cops could kill him.
This was the obvious thing to do: turn around and fire at the policeman.
Mancha wasn't man enough to blow the cop's head off.
That movement of his head was enough
to make Marcelo miss both shots.
At that moment, people realised how unprepared we were.
All the things we asked for,
equipment, training, courses...
It fell to the ground at that moment.
I don't think that Marcelo received any specific orders.
"When he leaves the bus, you shoot."
I think it was an implicit order.
What did Marcelo do? He did what he was taught.
He took the initiative.
Unfortunately, that day we were going to lose.
He missed by an inch.
They're supposed to be trained to deal with these things.
We all make mistakes. But these are human lives. It's serious.
Very serious.
The cop came firing at him and he shot the girl.
If he'd shot the police and got away, I'd have applauded him.
If he'd killed two or three cops,
all his friends would have applauded him.
But he took the weaker option.
It was the most chaotic moment,
because I thought Marcelo had shot him.
So I tried to grab him, to pull him towards me.
Why? Because I thought his fingers spasms
could pull the trigger and kill Geisa.
So I jumped on him, thinking he was dead,
or almost dead.
But to my surprise, he wasn't dead.
I pulled him up and he was alive.
I leant over him and Geisa to try to get his gun
in case he fired more shots.
He had fired once as they were falling,
and twice more when they were on the ground.
When I got hold of him, he shot her.
Only one cop acted at that moment,
when Sandro fell to the floor and started shooting at Geisa.
He was the only officer who tried to take the gun from Sandro
and save the hostage's life.
He's the only one who deserves any credit: Captain Batista.
I knew she had been hit when I saw her.
From the look in her eyes, I knew a vital organ had been hit.
Son of a bitch!
I only had time to take the camera off the tripod and run.
Crowds came from everywhere to lynch Sandro.
They wanted revenge.
They wanted to take a little piece of Sandro home, as a souvenir.
I knew that if I ran,
no policeman would try to stop me.
I first saw her when a soldier,
a tall firefighter went past carrying her.
I looked at him. He was much taller than me.
He was strong, but he seemed to be struggling to carry her.
I touched her. I touched her feet.
Then I saw the blood stains.
A big blood stain on her front.
And when I felt her skin, it was very cold.
Her eyes were turned up and I realised she was dead.
They went at him to kill.
The crowd was pushing the police and yelling:
"Kill him! Kill him!"
The guy died in front of everyone. Thousands of people watched it.
The whole of Brazil saw him die.
The police thought that Sandro had been hit.
The blood on Sandro's head made them believe he was hit.
Could this have led the police to execute him? Yes.
I wouldn't bet against it.
The officers told me that Sandro was extremely agitated...
He was struggling, he shattered the police car's windscreen with his feet.
He bit the police officers,
he broke an officer's arm.
They say that's why they had to suffocate him, to make him faint.
As for Sandro's death, I have no opinion on the matter.
I don't intend to discuss it.
The crowd wanted to see a show. At the end of the show, the bad guy dies.
That's common in our society.
The police killed him by asphyxiation. They suffocated him.
Who in that situation wouldn't kill that hijacker?
As well as being a cop,
a policeman is a human being, who is there watching...
They too have feelings of hatred and frustration,
just like other people, who are powerless to act.
But policemen do have power.
That's normal for them, cowardice.
Cowardice is what they're good at.
Just think of it. They caught him alive and killed him.
You see? They love that.
If they could, they'd kill everybody they arrested.
But when there's people watching, they can't.
The police killed Sandro's friends
in Candelaria.
Now, they'd finished the job.
This story comes full circle.
The police do the dirty work that society doesn't want to see,
but that the public hopes will get done in some dark corner.
Society wants to get rid of all Sandros. We want all Sandros to vanish.
We don't want to face reality. We cannot bear it.
His invisibility was restored
by the police force.
Invisibility is perfectly achieved through death.
They killed him because they're used to killing.
They know they won't be punished because who stands up for the Sandros?
Who will stand up for the Sandros? No one.
I think I have forgiven Sandro for what happened.
But I know that's easy to say, because he isn't here,
for me to say it to his face: "I forgive you."
Can I forgive him? Yes.
I can forgive him for what he did to us,
but I cannot forgive him for having shot Geisa.
I can't forgive him for that.
Geisa was 20 years old.
She had her whole life ahead of her.
We were living our simple lives, the way we always did.
We were quiet in our corner,
happy, making plans.
And it all ended in a pool of blood.
Today we leave our homes uncertain if we'll be back.
They left home to run some errands. And she died on the way.
She died on the way.
I really wanted to bury my nephew.
But what would happen if I said I was Sandro's aunt?
They would come after me at my house, at my work...
There would be lots of reporters. I didn't want that.
I dressed him in a white shirt.
And I told him: "This is not what you wanted.
"Your dream was to work and raise a family.
"But you took the wrong path.
"This isn't what I wanted for you.
"But Jesus will forgive you.
"God bless you. Rest in peace."