Carandiru Massacre Memory

Here we present some importants documents raised by the investigation.

A Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry installed in the Assembly a day after the event collected testimonies and documents in order to clarify the facts of the 02 of October. From the steps of the deputies that PCI, the debates that took place in the Assembly revealed positions as of support or the rejection of police action, tension that could be observed since then also in civil society.

In terms of criminal cases, the prosecution of police officers involved took place in 2013 and 2014, divided into 5 different jury trials. After this delay of more than 21 years, police officers were sentenced to over 150 years in prison. "(...) The penalty imposed on the accused shall be served in closed original rules".

One of the biggest challenges of the project was to have access to documents of the Military Police. The institution repeatedly denied requests for access to information made by the research team, but thanks to the Access to Information Act, was confirmed that none of the police officers involved in the operation was investigated internally or liable for Internal Affairs of the Military Police.

The autopsy reports of the 111 victims clearly indicated that the military police fired in order to incapacitate and kill, and not to contain a rebellion. The vast majority of injuries with firearm hit the chest and the head. Many injury victims were already surrendered, kneeling or lying down.

The site report recounts the damage found in pavilions: shots brands of police and bloodstains on the walls. According to the report, in several cases the prisoners were trapped and killed inside their cells.
In their testimonies, the police claimed that responded to shots of detainees. The hypothesis that there were firearms inside the prison is strongly questioned by the Prosecutor.

Part of the families of the survivors sought compensation for moral and material damages in civil liability cases. According to a survey of the "Study Group on the Crime and the Sanction" in FGV, much of the compensation was granted for more than a decade after the Justice Massacre. Families still waited for yet another decade to have a decision supporting the indemnification. They waited in a queue common to all state creditors (the famous "line of writ"). It was not possible to determine how many families actually received the amounts of compensation. Sometimes the judgments sought to justify the police action as necessary to contain the "rebellion of the prisoners." In most cases, the values set in the first instance were reduced on appeal, because they were "bandit" or "stuck".

Every 02 of October, civil society comes together to remember the marks of Massacre and the omission of the State in the clarification of the participation of civil authorities. This is also a day dedicated to the memory of other episodes of police violence.

Music inspired in Carandiru Massacre by Racionais band group "Diary of a Prisoner"

In 1993, artist Nuno Ramos we objected to the depersonalization of the "111" installation at the Art Biennial. The artist has placed 111 bricks on the floor with the name of each of the dead prisoners. In the picture, the detail of the wall where they were fixed excerpt from the book "Cujo" and boxes with various coatings containing ashes of biblical psalms.

In the artwork that Nuno Ramos presented in the 2012 Brazilian Biennale, called "THEIR DAY - 24 HOURS 111", the prisoners' names murdered on October 2, 1992 were continuously read for 24 hours, again and again.

On the walls, four expansions of images taken by satellite, from neighboring regions to São Paulo, at times close to the invasion.

After 22 years of the massacre, without the accountability of the authorities, without proper repair of families, with the remain of several prisons with appalling conditions and violent police we have, will the House of Detention over?