REPORTER: Olivia Rousset:
They say the largest city in South America never stops, but for one week in May the streets of Sao Paulo were deserted. Open warfare had broken out between criminal gangs based in the jails and the city's police. Within a week, hundreds were gunned down in execution style murders.
HELENITA (Translation): I was with my son screaming for him not to die and begging God to save him.
ISRAEL (Translation): The guys said, "Your friends are dying but so are mine. My friends are being killed, so I must kill whoever I get".
APARECIDO (Translation): Things won't get easier. My son won't come back. But I keep on, you know, searching. I get this film playing in my head, "Why was it like this?"
The story begins in the dangerously overcrowded prisons of Sao Paulo. The PCC, or First Command of the Capital, is the gang that controls the prisons here. Formed almost 15 years ago to improve prison conditions, it now runs a vast criminal empire. The authorities planned to break up the PCC power by isolating its leaders in maximum-security jails. But an audio tape of the plans was leaked to the PCC and all hell broke loose.
REPORTER: On the 14th of May, here in San Bernado Prison, and in about 80 prisons across the state, riots broke out - setting off a bloody chain of events that is still being felt today.
- But the PCC response didn't end inside the prisons. Demonstrating their enormous power they used mobile phones to coordinate an unprecedented attack on the city's police. They ordered their contacts outside the jail to shoot as many policemen as they could find. Within two days 43 law enforcement officials and four civilians had been gunned down.
PROFESSOR IGNACIO CANO, VIOLENCE STUDIES, RIO DE JANEIRO UNIVERSITY: May was a very major event for the country. It wasn't the first of its kind. But the scale in which it happened, the number of prisoners that went in rebellion, the number of policemen who were attacked and killed, the number of municipalities in which they acted, implied that there was a huge coordination and the state was totally unable to detect and stop that before it happened.
Some police died when their stations were attacked in drive-by shootings, others were ambushed on the streets while they were on duty.
REPORTER: At 3:40 in the morning on the 13th of May, two military policemen went into this restaurant on the outskirts of Sao Paulo for coffee, leaving their colleague, Anderson Andrade, minding the car. Minutes later, shots rang out and they returned to find that Anderson had been murdered.
APARECIDO (Translation): How can it be that a man who's in jail, held inside a prison classified as maximum security, commands everything that goes on out here?
Anderson's parents, Aparecido and Marlene, haven't come to terms with the fact that their young son was killed just because he was a policeman.
APARECIDO (Translation): When he joined, it was because he had no other prospects. No other job prospects, right? So, to be honest, he didn't join because he really wanted to.
IGNACIO: So the policemen were very afraid and rightly so. And apparently, some of them decided to take revenge into their own hands, which then, far from improving things, made things worse.
After the police had been killed, Sao Paulo turned into a bloodbath. Within a few days, more than 400 people had been shot dead, in what are widely believed to be revenge attacks by the police. Police ombudsman Antonio Funari de Filho is investigating these killings.
FUNARI (Translation): Sao Paulo on the Monday was empty. There was a certain anxiety about the police reaction. It was practically like there were two teams and everyone wanted the police to kill the bandits. That's when it was really scary, and this feeling, this anti-PCC, anti-criminal atmosphere in general, might provoke excesses. More than excesses - crimes, other crimes.
IGNACIO: The idea that we needed to have a response no matter what, no matter against whom, the statements by authorities and by policemen saying that we had to strike back. But we had no information, we had no intelligence - who were we going to strike against?
In the slums, or favelas, World Cup fever is in full swing. But a handful of people here aren't watching the game - they're in mourning, and not even football will help them forget. These women had family members killed within hours of the attacks on police. Like the many of those killed, these three young men had regular jobs and no criminal record. They were murdered at around 10:30 at night on Mother's Day. At the time, Helenita and Israel were watching television, while the boys were talking out the front of the house.
HELENITA (Translation): Then suddenly I heard this pap pap pap, endless, unceasing. I said, "My God, what's going on? Israel, go and have a look." But I didn't think my boys were still outside. The TV was on downstairs. I don't like to think about it. He went outside and said, "Woman! It's our boys who are out there on the ground." I went out in my pyjamas and put my son on my lap. My pyjamas got coerced, soaked in blood. And I said, "My son, don't die, don't die, don't go away!" And I screamed, "My God, don't let my son die!"
Helenita and Israel's son, 25-yearold Edvaldo, died instantly from bullets to the head, neck and torso. His two friends, Fabio and Israel, were also killed.
ISRAEL (Translation): Look at the bullets. Here, here and here. It went out the other side. And this is concrete.
This bullet was taken from the arm of one of the survivors. Three of the boys were shot dead, and two others were injured, but survived.
VICTIM (Translation): There were many shots, so we fell to the ground and pretended we were dead until they left.
Afraid of the police retribution, this survivor agreed to be interviewed only if we kept his identity hidden. He spent two weeks in hospital being treated for four gunshot wounds.
VICTIM (Translation): In my arm here. One in my arm. One in my bum. One in my rib - it hit my spleen, so my spleen had to be removed. And the one in my back hit my intestine.
While everyone in this favela is too scared to say it outright, they all think the killers were policemen.
VICTIM (Translation): The car had no number plate. The guys were wearing masks. But they were seen, according to some people, their car was seen beside a police car. They were chatting.
Within minutes of the shooting, two police cars arrived at the scene. They collected the spent cartridges and bullets from the street and left without talking to any witnesses. The official explanation is execution by a 'death squad' - a shadowy term that in the past has been associated with the police.
REPORTER: What does that mean? What does a death squad mean? ISRAEL: Death squads are from the police. HELENITA: "Not sure i f it's the police or a death squad," they said.
ISRAEL (Translation): I don't know what it is.
IGNACIO: Death squads are people who most of the time belong to police or used to belong to police and use masks so they can't be identified. The fact that there was this impulse of revenge in Sao Paulo brings the fear that some of these policemen may resort to these tactics again, may use a mask and go out and kill a few people undercover so that they can't be identified.
Antonio Funari de Filho is shocked at the reappearance of death squads and, despite his position as ombudsman, he doesn't rule out police involvement. While the police admit to killing 126 people, there are still hundreds of unsolved cases. Funari is collecting the autopsy reports for 69 executed by death squads.
FUNARI (Translation): We have 69 cases with unknown perpetrators.
DR (Translation): But there are more.
FUNARI (Translation): There are more. It is a criminal without a face. So it's not known if it's just a criminal, or a criminal policeman. Rhe truth is that those killed were mostly young people, black or coloured, poor, and with no criminal record. 'Eu Sou Favela' - Seu Jorge
Brazil has the second-worst income distribution in the world. As the gap between rich and poor increases, the poor end up squeezed into favelas on the edge of the city. Crime thrives here - it's how many people survive.
ANDRE (Translation): Our country is a favela, because, for the elite, everyone in the favelas is to be pitied.
Andre has been a street kid, a drug addict, a murderer and a prisoner. He is going to his friend's place in the Suzano favela to the north-east of the city. Andre tells me three people a day are killed here by police everyday.
ANDRE (Translation): A guy from the favelas doesn't trust the police. He will take care of his own security as he knows that if a policeman catches him at 10pm or after midnight in a dark alley, he might not come back.
Now reformed, Andre is a rap artist and community leader. While serving his sentence for murder, Andre was witness to the infamous massacre in Carandiru Prison in 1992 that led to the formation of the PCC. An altercation between prisoners ended when military police came in shooting. Official reports say they killed 111 prisoners - Andre claims it was closer to 600.
ANDRE (Translation): So most of us spent all night carrying corpses. They threw them into lift shafts and garbage trucks to compress them. It's controversial when I say this, because I was there.
While the notorious events at Carandiru have passed into prison legend, jails throughout Brazil frequently erupt into riots. Even though they're met with brutal force, the prisoners have nothing to lose.
ANDRE (Translation): When its cold and rainy, why would a guy burn his mattress? He does it to get attention from someone who can help him get out of there.
Prisons are horribly overcrowded, inmates are often abused and there is not enough food, let alone toilet paper or soap.
IGNACIO: Unfortunately, society and the state don't look inside the prisons unless there is a riot or people are able to break out. Otherwise, prisoners are almost transparent - no one sees them, no one looks at them. And when we look at them, it's unfortunately too late.
In the prisons and the favelas the PCC are like a parallel state - it collects membership fees and then provides support such as food and medicine to the poor and incarcerated.
ANDRE (Translation): The guy from the favelas has more trust in the thief or in the drug dealer, who is his brother and who he knows is loyal, than in the policemen who would arrest his own mother.
As much as the PCC is a Robin Hood to some they are brutal and violent to others. But as the events of May have shown, no-one can control them.
MAJOR OLIMPIO (Translation): The government showed itself as fragile, astonished and lost. And it did not take control of the situation.
Sergio Olimpio Gomes has been a major in the police for 28 years. He believes the government's failure to confront the PCC is to blame for the violence in May.
MAJOR OLIMPIO (Translation): As the American President Abraham Lincoln said "When the strategists fail, the soldiers die." The strategists in Sao Paulo state are very bad. They improvise and, as a result of that, we see the loss of many lives - not only police, but citizens too.
Major Olimpio knows it's these young police cadets who will bear the brunt of the future warfare with the PCC.
MAJOR OLIMPIO (Translation): When we join the police force, we make a pledge, which is a pact with society, to die, if necessary, in defense of society.
Under-resourced and often outgunned by the criminals, low-ranking police struggle to survive on a salary of around $150 a week.
IGNACIO: There is no way to survive on the basic salary. Many policemen live in the same slums as the drug dealers they are fighting. And they have to hide the fact that they are policemen. Many policemen hide their police uniforms and then they go home in plain clothes. They don't carry a gun, they don't carry ID, because if they are identified as policemen then they might be killed.
With low wages and difficult conditions, criminality in the police force is common. Police in Sao Paulo have resorted to extra-judicial killings in the past. But Major Olimpio doesn't accept that police were involved in these death squads.
MAJOR OLIMPIO (Translation):- The confrontation between police and criminals which took place were all incidents that were registered and are being investigated very rigorously. We aren't worried in the slightest about the conduct of the police officers.
The political response to the carnage on the streets of Sao Paulo has been drowned out by the World Cup. Geraldo Alckmin was the governor of Sao Paulo for six years and resigned a month before the violence began to run for President. Major Olimpio points the finger firmly at Alckmin for what he sees as years of neglect and mismanagement.
MAJOR OLIMPIO(Translation): He is partly responsible, he should probably get the most blame for the lack of control of the prison system and public security.
REPORTER: You were Deputy Governor for six years and then Governor after that for another six years - do you take some responsibility for the PCC gaining such strength? Why wasn't something done about that sooner?
GERALDO ALCKMIN(Translation): Sao Paulo state has done a lot of work in public safety, to the point that there has been a big reduction in the crime rate in Sao Paolo.
REPORTER: But the appearance of death squads - they were quite apparent that week - at the moment, the Ombudsman says there are 69 cases of death by execution, masked men - is this shocking to you? Are you surprised at this re-emergence of death squads?
GERALDO ALCKMIN (Translation): This is a matter for the state government. You should probably talk to them. Thank you, goodbye. If I knew it was about this, there would be no interview. This makes no sense at all. It's a state government matter.
In fact, Dateline did fully inform Alckmin of the subject of the interview.
REPORTER: But someone needs to answer for this. No-one is talking. Public security doesn't
Dateline also requested interviews with the head of public security and the police chief, but was turned down.
IGNACIO: Alckmin is fully responsible from a government point of view. He was not in power at that point, but the whole situation that led up to that happened in his government, and, most important, the Secretary of Public Security and the Secretary of the prison system are both men that he had indicated are his men. So there is no way that he can claim that he was not responsible for that.
It has been nearly two months since Carla's husband and Silvana's brother were killed along with Helenita's son on Mother's Day by a death squad - and they are in despair at the lack of investigation into who was responsible.
SILVANA (Translation): I am here to check how the case is progressing. My brother was unjustly murdered. Near my home. I'm not certain, but everything points to it being the police. Death squads.
Given their strong suspicion that the death squad is connected to the local police, they have come to see Marina Morato di Andrade, a public defender, to see if there is any hope of justice.
MARINA (Translation): So do you want to know anything specifically?
SILVANA (Translation): Yes. How the case is progressing. If they are really working on it. And if we are coming here in vain, wasting our time.
As it's the local police who will be starting the investigation, Marina has little hope to offer them.
REPORTER: Would you even recommend that the family go and see the local police considering they think that this death squad is connected to them?
MARINA: They go to the police for what? To take witness, they have to have something new to show them. And if they have something like a witness, I don't know if it is safe for this witness. How safe it is. And how safe the witness will feel.
No-one is offering a way out of this cycle of violence, and it continues. In July, 7 prison guards, three private security guards and one policman were killed on orders of the PCC. Ignacio Cano can only see it getting worse.
IGNACIO: Probably we are going to have a hardening of prison conditions. This, in turn, will trigger harder reactions from within the prison and the criminal gangs. So this will lead us further into this vicious circle of very violent crime, and very violent response and illegal response from the state, which again triggers even more violent crime. So my first thought was, "This is going to bring misery to us all."
For the parents of those murdered, the pain of a lost son is too raw to allow any hope for the future.
APARECIDO (Translation): Myself as a father, today I could not forgive. Maybe tomorrow or the day after I might think differently. But today, right at this moment, no. Because at this moment, I am suffering.
ISRAEL (Translation): His dream was not to die like this. He wanted a better life for him and for all of us. Everyone has their destiny.
Edivaldo and his friends, Fabio and Israel, were buried together here in one unmarked grave. The families can't even afford a headstone.
ISRAEL (Translation): Pray for us. And you stay with God, because he is our father. The guys who did this to you will pay. They will pay in heaven or in God's divine justice, but they will pay.
Reporter/Camera
OLIVIA ROUSSET
Editor
ROWAN TUCKER-EVANS
WAYNE LOVE
Fixer
ALEXANDRA ROCHA
Subtitling
PAULO WEINBERGER
Photos Courtesy João Wainer
They say the largest city in South America never stops, but for one week in May the streets of Sao Paulo were deserted. Open warfare had broken out between criminal gangs based in the jails and the city's police. Within a week, hundreds were gunned down in execution style murders.
HELENITA (Translation): I was with my son screaming for him not to die and begging God to save him.
ISRAEL (Translation): The guys said, "Your friends are dying but so are mine. My friends are being killed, so I must kill whoever I get".
APARECIDO (Translation): Things won't get easier. My son won't come back. But I keep on, you know, searching. I get this film playing in my head, "Why was it like this?"
The story begins in the dangerously overcrowded prisons of Sao Paulo. The PCC, or First Command of the Capital, is the gang that controls the prisons here. Formed almost 15 years ago to improve prison conditions, it now runs a vast criminal empire. The authorities planned to break up the PCC power by isolating its leaders in maximum-security jails. But an audio tape of the plans was leaked to the PCC and all hell broke loose.
REPORTER: On the 14th of May, here in San Bernado Prison, and in about 80 prisons across the state, riots broke out - setting off a bloody chain of events that is still being felt today.
- But the PCC response didn't end inside the prisons. Demonstrating their enormous power they used mobile phones to coordinate an unprecedented attack on the city's police. They ordered their contacts outside the jail to shoot as many policemen as they could find. Within two days 43 law enforcement officials and four civilians had been gunned down.
PROFESSOR IGNACIO CANO, VIOLENCE STUDIES, RIO DE JANEIRO UNIVERSITY: May was a very major event for the country. It wasn't the first of its kind. But the scale in which it happened, the number of prisoners that went in rebellion, the number of policemen who were attacked and killed, the number of municipalities in which they acted, implied that there was a huge coordination and the state was totally unable to detect and stop that before it happened.
Some police died when their stations were attacked in drive-by shootings, others were ambushed on the streets while they were on duty.
REPORTER: At 3:40 in the morning on the 13th of May, two military policemen went into this restaurant on the outskirts of Sao Paulo for coffee, leaving their colleague, Anderson Andrade, minding the car. Minutes later, shots rang out and they returned to find that Anderson had been murdered.
APARECIDO (Translation): How can it be that a man who's in jail, held inside a prison classified as maximum security, commands everything that goes on out here?
Anderson's parents, Aparecido and Marlene, haven't come to terms with the fact that their young son was killed just because he was a policeman.
APARECIDO (Translation): When he joined, it was because he had no other prospects. No other job prospects, right? So, to be honest, he didn't join because he really wanted to.
IGNACIO: So the policemen were very afraid and rightly so. And apparently, some of them decided to take revenge into their own hands, which then, far from improving things, made things worse.
After the police had been killed, Sao Paulo turned into a bloodbath. Within a few days, more than 400 people had been shot dead, in what are widely believed to be revenge attacks by the police. Police ombudsman Antonio Funari de Filho is investigating these killings.
FUNARI (Translation): Sao Paulo on the Monday was empty. There was a certain anxiety about the police reaction. It was practically like there were two teams and everyone wanted the police to kill the bandits. That's when it was really scary, and this feeling, this anti-PCC, anti-criminal atmosphere in general, might provoke excesses. More than excesses - crimes, other crimes.
IGNACIO: The idea that we needed to have a response no matter what, no matter against whom, the statements by authorities and by policemen saying that we had to strike back. But we had no information, we had no intelligence - who were we going to strike against?
In the slums, or favelas, World Cup fever is in full swing. But a handful of people here aren't watching the game - they're in mourning, and not even football will help them forget. These women had family members killed within hours of the attacks on police. Like the many of those killed, these three young men had regular jobs and no criminal record. They were murdered at around 10:30 at night on Mother's Day. At the time, Helenita and Israel were watching television, while the boys were talking out the front of the house.
HELENITA (Translation): Then suddenly I heard this pap pap pap, endless, unceasing. I said, "My God, what's going on? Israel, go and have a look." But I didn't think my boys were still outside. The TV was on downstairs. I don't like to think about it. He went outside and said, "Woman! It's our boys who are out there on the ground." I went out in my pyjamas and put my son on my lap. My pyjamas got coerced, soaked in blood. And I said, "My son, don't die, don't die, don't go away!" And I screamed, "My God, don't let my son die!"
Helenita and Israel's son, 25-yearold Edvaldo, died instantly from bullets to the head, neck and torso. His two friends, Fabio and Israel, were also killed.
ISRAEL (Translation): Look at the bullets. Here, here and here. It went out the other side. And this is concrete.
This bullet was taken from the arm of one of the survivors. Three of the boys were shot dead, and two others were injured, but survived.
VICTIM (Translation): There were many shots, so we fell to the ground and pretended we were dead until they left.
Afraid of the police retribution, this survivor agreed to be interviewed only if we kept his identity hidden. He spent two weeks in hospital being treated for four gunshot wounds.
VICTIM (Translation): In my arm here. One in my arm. One in my bum. One in my rib - it hit my spleen, so my spleen had to be removed. And the one in my back hit my intestine.
While everyone in this favela is too scared to say it outright, they all think the killers were policemen.
VICTIM (Translation): The car had no number plate. The guys were wearing masks. But they were seen, according to some people, their car was seen beside a police car. They were chatting.
Within minutes of the shooting, two police cars arrived at the scene. They collected the spent cartridges and bullets from the street and left without talking to any witnesses. The official explanation is execution by a 'death squad' - a shadowy term that in the past has been associated with the police.
REPORTER: What does that mean? What does a death squad mean? ISRAEL: Death squads are from the police. HELENITA: "Not sure i f it's the police or a death squad," they said.
ISRAEL (Translation): I don't know what it is.
IGNACIO: Death squads are people who most of the time belong to police or used to belong to police and use masks so they can't be identified. The fact that there was this impulse of revenge in Sao Paulo brings the fear that some of these policemen may resort to these tactics again, may use a mask and go out and kill a few people undercover so that they can't be identified.
Antonio Funari de Filho is shocked at the reappearance of death squads and, despite his position as ombudsman, he doesn't rule out police involvement. While the police admit to killing 126 people, there are still hundreds of unsolved cases. Funari is collecting the autopsy reports for 69 executed by death squads.
FUNARI (Translation): We have 69 cases with unknown perpetrators.
DR (Translation): But there are more.
FUNARI (Translation): There are more. It is a criminal without a face. So it's not known if it's just a criminal, or a criminal policeman. Rhe truth is that those killed were mostly young people, black or coloured, poor, and with no criminal record. 'Eu Sou Favela' - Seu Jorge
Brazil has the second-worst income distribution in the world. As the gap between rich and poor increases, the poor end up squeezed into favelas on the edge of the city. Crime thrives here - it's how many people survive.
ANDRE (Translation): Our country is a favela, because, for the elite, everyone in the favelas is to be pitied.
Andre has been a street kid, a drug addict, a murderer and a prisoner. He is going to his friend's place in the Suzano favela to the north-east of the city. Andre tells me three people a day are killed here by police everyday.
ANDRE (Translation): A guy from the favelas doesn't trust the police. He will take care of his own security as he knows that if a policeman catches him at 10pm or after midnight in a dark alley, he might not come back.
Now reformed, Andre is a rap artist and community leader. While serving his sentence for murder, Andre was witness to the infamous massacre in Carandiru Prison in 1992 that led to the formation of the PCC. An altercation between prisoners ended when military police came in shooting. Official reports say they killed 111 prisoners - Andre claims it was closer to 600.
ANDRE (Translation): So most of us spent all night carrying corpses. They threw them into lift shafts and garbage trucks to compress them. It's controversial when I say this, because I was there.
While the notorious events at Carandiru have passed into prison legend, jails throughout Brazil frequently erupt into riots. Even though they're met with brutal force, the prisoners have nothing to lose.
ANDRE (Translation): When its cold and rainy, why would a guy burn his mattress? He does it to get attention from someone who can help him get out of there.
Prisons are horribly overcrowded, inmates are often abused and there is not enough food, let alone toilet paper or soap.
IGNACIO: Unfortunately, society and the state don't look inside the prisons unless there is a riot or people are able to break out. Otherwise, prisoners are almost transparent - no one sees them, no one looks at them. And when we look at them, it's unfortunately too late.
In the prisons and the favelas the PCC are like a parallel state - it collects membership fees and then provides support such as food and medicine to the poor and incarcerated.
ANDRE (Translation): The guy from the favelas has more trust in the thief or in the drug dealer, who is his brother and who he knows is loyal, than in the policemen who would arrest his own mother.
As much as the PCC is a Robin Hood to some they are brutal and violent to others. But as the events of May have shown, no-one can control them.
MAJOR OLIMPIO (Translation): The government showed itself as fragile, astonished and lost. And it did not take control of the situation.
Sergio Olimpio Gomes has been a major in the police for 28 years. He believes the government's failure to confront the PCC is to blame for the violence in May.
MAJOR OLIMPIO (Translation): As the American President Abraham Lincoln said "When the strategists fail, the soldiers die." The strategists in Sao Paulo state are very bad. They improvise and, as a result of that, we see the loss of many lives - not only police, but citizens too.
Major Olimpio knows it's these young police cadets who will bear the brunt of the future warfare with the PCC.
MAJOR OLIMPIO (Translation): When we join the police force, we make a pledge, which is a pact with society, to die, if necessary, in defense of society.
Under-resourced and often outgunned by the criminals, low-ranking police struggle to survive on a salary of around $150 a week.
IGNACIO: There is no way to survive on the basic salary. Many policemen live in the same slums as the drug dealers they are fighting. And they have to hide the fact that they are policemen. Many policemen hide their police uniforms and then they go home in plain clothes. They don't carry a gun, they don't carry ID, because if they are identified as policemen then they might be killed.
With low wages and difficult conditions, criminality in the police force is common. Police in Sao Paulo have resorted to extra-judicial killings in the past. But Major Olimpio doesn't accept that police were involved in these death squads.
MAJOR OLIMPIO (Translation):- The confrontation between police and criminals which took place were all incidents that were registered and are being investigated very rigorously. We aren't worried in the slightest about the conduct of the police officers.
The political response to the carnage on the streets of Sao Paulo has been drowned out by the World Cup. Geraldo Alckmin was the governor of Sao Paulo for six years and resigned a month before the violence began to run for President. Major Olimpio points the finger firmly at Alckmin for what he sees as years of neglect and mismanagement.
MAJOR OLIMPIO(Translation): He is partly responsible, he should probably get the most blame for the lack of control of the prison system and public security.
REPORTER: You were Deputy Governor for six years and then Governor after that for another six years - do you take some responsibility for the PCC gaining such strength? Why wasn't something done about that sooner?
GERALDO ALCKMIN(Translation): Sao Paulo state has done a lot of work in public safety, to the point that there has been a big reduction in the crime rate in Sao Paolo.
REPORTER: But the appearance of death squads - they were quite apparent that week - at the moment, the Ombudsman says there are 69 cases of death by execution, masked men - is this shocking to you? Are you surprised at this re-emergence of death squads?
GERALDO ALCKMIN (Translation): This is a matter for the state government. You should probably talk to them. Thank you, goodbye. If I knew it was about this, there would be no interview. This makes no sense at all. It's a state government matter.
In fact, Dateline did fully inform Alckmin of the subject of the interview.
REPORTER: But someone needs to answer for this. No-one is talking. Public security doesn't
Dateline also requested interviews with the head of public security and the police chief, but was turned down.
IGNACIO: Alckmin is fully responsible from a government point of view. He was not in power at that point, but the whole situation that led up to that happened in his government, and, most important, the Secretary of Public Security and the Secretary of the prison system are both men that he had indicated are his men. So there is no way that he can claim that he was not responsible for that.
It has been nearly two months since Carla's husband and Silvana's brother were killed along with Helenita's son on Mother's Day by a death squad - and they are in despair at the lack of investigation into who was responsible.
SILVANA (Translation): I am here to check how the case is progressing. My brother was unjustly murdered. Near my home. I'm not certain, but everything points to it being the police. Death squads.
Given their strong suspicion that the death squad is connected to the local police, they have come to see Marina Morato di Andrade, a public defender, to see if there is any hope of justice.
MARINA (Translation): So do you want to know anything specifically?
SILVANA (Translation): Yes. How the case is progressing. If they are really working on it. And if we are coming here in vain, wasting our time.
As it's the local police who will be starting the investigation, Marina has little hope to offer them.
REPORTER: Would you even recommend that the family go and see the local police considering they think that this death squad is connected to them?
MARINA: They go to the police for what? To take witness, they have to have something new to show them. And if they have something like a witness, I don't know if it is safe for this witness. How safe it is. And how safe the witness will feel.
No-one is offering a way out of this cycle of violence, and it continues. In July, 7 prison guards, three private security guards and one policman were killed on orders of the PCC. Ignacio Cano can only see it getting worse.
IGNACIO: Probably we are going to have a hardening of prison conditions. This, in turn, will trigger harder reactions from within the prison and the criminal gangs. So this will lead us further into this vicious circle of very violent crime, and very violent response and illegal response from the state, which again triggers even more violent crime. So my first thought was, "This is going to bring misery to us all."
For the parents of those murdered, the pain of a lost son is too raw to allow any hope for the future.
APARECIDO (Translation): Myself as a father, today I could not forgive. Maybe tomorrow or the day after I might think differently. But today, right at this moment, no. Because at this moment, I am suffering.
ISRAEL (Translation): His dream was not to die like this. He wanted a better life for him and for all of us. Everyone has their destiny.
Edivaldo and his friends, Fabio and Israel, were buried together here in one unmarked grave. The families can't even afford a headstone.
ISRAEL (Translation): Pray for us. And you stay with God, because he is our father. The guys who did this to you will pay. They will pay in heaven or in God's divine justice, but they will pay.
Reporter/Camera
OLIVIA ROUSSET
Editor
ROWAN TUCKER-EVANS
WAYNE LOVE
Fixer
ALEXANDRA ROCHA
Subtitling
PAULO WEINBERGER
Photos Courtesy João Wainer