City of Gang Stars

There has been a massive chain of violence going on in Brazil the last couple weeks. An organized gang known as the First Command of the Capital or PCC has initiated a series of riots within the prisons and megalopolis of Sao Paolo and Rio de Janeiro. Unbeknownst to me until reading today's Seattle Times article that Sao Paolo is the largest city in all of South America with a populous around 20 million people.

The paramilitary forces of the cities are taking extreme force against the citizenry and those believed involved with the underworld and uprising. Official government tolls the dead at around 100, the coroners office of Sao Paolo indicates the number closer at 270, with such overwhelming numbers they are burying bodies without confirming identity. There's a public secret that the police regularly take extreme measures against gang members with many people disappearing or found dead randomly. I would surmise that this situation warrants them to reach higher degrees of violence than before. Are human rights violations worse even outside of war? They are explicitly unignorable now.

"Under PCC pressure, guards and others said, administrators approved the delivery of 28 television sets to the Avaré prison so that inmates could watch this summer's World Cup soccer tournament."

This organized gang war between the military police and locals was instigated when the government attempted to destabilize the gangs leadership by taking them away from the general prison population. The PCC is a newly developed gang following in the same vein as the more popularized Red Command from Rio's Cidade de Deus or better known by the film we know as City of God. Their reach into the city's government and infrastructure is ridiculous. Not only running the neighborhoods funk dances but jamming on the country as a whole. You can find more info on this gang view of the Commando Vermelho


The desperation of the people is ridiculous, and the desire for survival within the prison system is de facto life or death without a gang. The PCC gang takes hold within the prisons and externally in Brazilian society through a distorted code of honor and bribery. I am even more curious now to understand how their environment was allowed to develop in such a way that there is now an everyday culture of hyperviolence; also, how Brazil became the most populous South American nation and why its government is overshadowed by military, Japan, and gang authority? Its a good time watch the City of God if you haven't, time to rewatch it and review the documentary in the extras section of the dvd, and time to track down City of Men that Jimbo has so fervently promoted.


(amazing how i can write up an informational post in a snap, yet struggle with a 3 page essay.)