About the 17 year old Brazilian girl who killed 30. For some perspective, see the movie "Pixote"

[HamdenRice]

"Pixote" is a classic of Brazilian realist cinema about street children. From the few details of the 17 year old Brazilian serial killer story, especially the suggestion that she had accomplices, and that she killed for "revenge" and "justice," it sounds like she was from that sector of society. I am not trying to excuse what she did. I just think some of you might find the context interesting. (Sorry also to start another thread, but after posting a version of this in that thread, it seemed to me this is a somewhat different topic.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixote

I saw Pixote when it first came out in the early 80s. It was so graphic I didn't think I could sit through the whole thing. It's ironic that Inglorious Basterds and its violence is being discussed on another thread. Tarantino's extreme cinema violence is stylized violence. Pixote could have been shot with a camcorder on the streets and in the reformatories of Brazil, and makes Tarantino look like Disney. Tarantino works hard to imagine the worst violence imaginable -- and yet a film that shows life on the streets and in the reformatories of Brazil is much more stomach turning.

Street children in Brazil are hunted like feral dogs by that country's brutal police and shot execution style in the streets and alleys.

The most infamous incident in this hunting and killing of children was the Candelaria massacre, when as many as 50 Brazilian police officers were eventually charged in organizing or participating in a plot in which a group of armed men, some actual police officers, arrived in the middle of the night at a church, the Candelaria Church, which provided food and other assistance to homeless children, and systematically tried to kill 70 street children huddled in front of and around the church. Eight children were murdered and about 60 survived. Almost all the police were acquitted.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candel%C3%A1ria_massacre

Criminal organizations and corrupt police also use street children to commit murders and robberies, to pimp for prostitutes and carry out drug deals, and much more.

You may think you have some concept of the worst of the worst slum conditions or crystal meth infested small towns in the US. Then you see a movie like Pixote and realize that the worst of the worst in the US simply cannot prepare your imagination to wrap your mind around for the conditions under which millions of Brazilian children live. I hate to say it but even the street children of Africa's cities -- and I've seen them, and know an adult South African, now middle aged and middle class, who lived pretty much as a street child in Soweto -- have it easy compared to Brazil's children, because while African children are hungry, poor and abused, there doesn't seem to be a kind of police/ mafia/ reformatory school industrial complex perfectly evolved to degrade, destroy, criminalize and murder children in Africa, such as there is in Brazil targeting its street and slum children.

Pixote starred actual slum children, along with adult professional actors to play the adult characters in the film. The boy at the center of the film, named Pixote, was played by an 11 year old slum dweller, Fernando Ramos Da Silva. Within a few years of his performance he had been murdered by police. The reasons were given by his family -- and indeed foretold by Da Silva himself before his death. The police were not amused by the movie and Da Silva's portrayal of a brutalized but criminal child, and on his return to the streets, even though his economic situation had improved, they constantly harassed and arrested him. He was shot to death at age 19 for "resisting arrest."

[madrchsod]

1. i`m going to have to watch that movie.....

"city of god" is another great movie...

[malaise]

2. Good post

I agree with you.

[HamdenRice]

3. Addendum: 44 out of 62 survivors of church massacre died within 7 years

Just came across this, but didn't want to keep editing the OP. As I mentioned in the Caldelaria massacre, police tried to kill about 70 street children.

62 survivors were counted. The Independent reported that of the 62, 44 were dead within a few years from murders, drug over doses, AIDS -- including one who hijacked a bus in Brazil's most famous crime, which was televised live.

I guess the point is that for children like this, life is very, very cheap and murder is common place. The girl in the OP may have been desensitized to murder.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/violent-death-claims-survivors-of-brazils-child-massacres-699359.html

Violent death claims survivors of Brazil's child massacres

By Nicole Veash in Rio de Janeiro

Saturday, 9 September 2000

Seven years ago, off-duty policemen shot and killed eight street children living outside one of Rio's landmarks. The indiscriminate killing, which became known as the Candelaria Massacre, drew condemnation from all over the world.

Tales of Brazilian police shooting unwanted street children for kicks filled the media, prompting the international community to donate millions of pounds in aid.

But despite the publicity, money and countless pledges of support, the children of Candelaria were quickly forgotten. Most of them have since died in violent circumstances.

About 70 children lived rough in front of Candelaria Cathedral at the time of the shooting. Of the 62 who survived, 44 are dead, and most never made it to their twenties.

[TheWraith]

4. This girl wasn't a street child. She was reported to have a regular family. nt

[HamdenRice]

5. So did Da Silva. I wrote about street children and slum children. nt

[robdogbucky]

6. Great movie, Hamden

I also saw it when it came out in '80-'81. I have a relative that taught in the American School in Sao Paolo for 10 years and they relate those same conditions all over Brazil's large cities. What a beautiful, brutal, vibrant country for all of this suffering to take place in. It is a realtime tragedy of unimaginable proportions.

Also, City of God kind of updates this same scenario and provides the genesis for how the present persecution of the "Runts," evolved into the object of institutionalized police harassment in Rio's largest slum.

Another one that portrays street urchins and exploitation in yet another country, India, is Salaam Bombay. These stories all includde actual street kids as the cast for the movie. Just like in Slumdog Millionaire.


Just my dos centavos,

robdogbucky

[HamdenRice]

7. City of God is excellent also !

It is more stylized. One of the remarkable things about City of God, which the director doesn't really draw direct attention to, is the way the city itself grows and changes -- from a kind of outpost of detached houses to a favela that a warren of two and three story structures and alleys.

[Quantess]

8. I'll have to check it out.

[Number23]

9. Rec'd. The subject matter alone will keep me from ever watching this movie

(I cannot abide the mistreatment of children) but I'm rec'ing for your acknowledgement that many Americans could not even imagine the sheer hell that is life for so many of our brothers and sisters around the world.

[JNelson6563]

10. And the things we Americans cry about, just shameful.

So spoiled Americans are! You should hear the whining I hear at the fabulous choc. shop I run. Yesterday we sold cookies off the warming plate faster than they could warm up. You should've heard these women whine incessantly that their cookies were barely warm. Couple that with the fact they couldn't get a "skinny latte" and all I could think was "there is plague, pestilence, war and famine in the world, but this is surely worth a big stink!" Imagine how often I would like to just roll my eyes at these soft, whiney, self-centered people.

Oy.

Julie