Confrontation between police officers and drug traffickers
The sound intensity will depend on where the listener is. When he is in his apartment, in the neighborhood of Botafogo, for example, and bursts of gunfire erupt in the early hours from the Dona Marta favela, the noise can be so loud that it disturbs his sleep. But if he is in his home in Dona Marta itself, the auditory sensation is, they say, like plunging into the heart of a war.
Photo: Mirian Fichtner - Drug trafficking soldiers - Agência Tyba
Image description: This is a nighttime photograph of three individuals in an urban setting. On the left, we see a man in jeans and a white t-shirt with a mask on his head. He holds a weapon in his right hand. In the center, another man, also in jeans and a white t-shirt, with a mask on his head, holds a weapon in his left hand. On the right, a third man, wearing a white shirt and black pants, wears a cap with the inscription "Warriors" and holds a weapon in his right hand. The background shows a city lit up at night, with several distant points of light.Sometimes, the process begins with a murmur. Word that there's going to be a clash runs through the hillside community by word of mouth. App notifications like Whatsapp's buzz nonstop: those who are outside the favela need to be warned. The sound of TVs gets turned up, children have to stay indoors. The web of music that, in general, mingles through the alleys and narrow streets seems to shrink. Other times, however, there's no advance warning: only the first explosion, which sets off the sequence of gunshots, the screaming, the running, the silence of those who throw themselves to the ground, next to their families, trying to hold back their children's crying, to protect themselves from the bullets. Sometimes, the noise of an armored helicopter, the so-called "Flying Caveirão," equipped with machine guns, joins this macabre orchestra.
Photo: Oscar Macieira - BOPE Operation - Agência Tyba
Image description: The image is a photograph of a police operation on Morro dos Macacos, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2010. On the left side, we see a building with a white facade and a few windows. In front of it, there is a barrier painted green and yellow. Three police officers, equipped with weapons and backpacks, are running to the right. They are moving quickly, possibly in response to an emergency situation. In the background, inside the building, people can be seen watching the scene. The street sign "Rua Uniao" is visible on the right.There's the sound of the police officers' combat boots. The clap-clap of the rubber flip-flops worn by drug traffickers, usually still boys, slipping along the rooftops. The dry crack of revolver shots and the burst of gunfire with its long, terrible sound: rifles, machine guns. There are the shouted commands unfolding amid the chases and the convulsive crying of mothers over the bloodied bodies of their dead children. There's the flash-pop of photographers' cameras, in some cases, and the reporter's voice narrating yet another confrontation for TV. There is, in the days that follow, the voice of the police officer imposing "hardships" on residents' daily routines, the sound of zippers being pulled open on backpacks and bags to be searched, the abrupt bang of doors being kicked open, in episodes of police abuse that some favela residents manage to describe, despite their fear. There are also many kinds of silence entangled with these everyday stories of shootouts and deaths, of confrontations and fear. Of a private war.
