March 2002

Dear Friends,

Recent newspapers have published polls that indicate people public safety is the greatest concern of the people of São Paulo. Doubtless some of their fears are a result of recent events: the kidnaping and murder of the mayor of an adjacent city, the murder of another mayor, the long-term kidnaping of ordinary as well as wealthy citizens (usually released traumatized, but physically unharmed), massacres by the police, organized crime placing bombs in courthouses, and prison uprisings abetted by the prisoners’ access to high technology. The center where I have begun a sort of internship with victims of domestic violence is in Jardim Ângela, the neighborhood the UN called the most violent in the world in 1997.

There I am beginning to hear of the residents’ fears of drug
traffickers as well as their fears of the usually violent police
responses that endanger entire neighborhoods. So it is not hard to
conclude that throughout the city people of all walks of life feel
frightened and insecure. Today’s paper reports a poll that shows
that in this city people fear the police more than they feel confidence
in them. Based on my own witnessing of a number of incidents of
police brutality, I too lack confidence and am afraid of them.

People in residential areas of São Paulo often belong to
neighborhood associations that contract private security agencies to provide 24-hour-a-day guards who have little cabins on the sidewalks from which they watch the streets. In less strictly residential areas nearer the center of the city, residents and storekeepers hire guards to patrol. When I pay the monthly condominium (owners’ association) bill for my share of the doorkeepers’ salaries, the water, etc., I also pay for these contract guards.

Shortly after I moved into the apartment, I read an article in the newspaper—complete with pictures—showing that in the small park
nearby, guards were tormenting a sleeping homeless person to get him to leave. The guards that my owners’ association employs are those who patrol the park. Two nights ago, while walking our dog, I overheard one of "my" guards threatening a drunk who was crouching on the sidewalk, probably preparing to spend the night there, in front of a closed store. I should note that here stores are shuttered with heavy metal "garage-door" type fronts, so that they are impervious to any drunken (and most non-drunken) attempts to
open them. The guard was fondling his baton and insisting that the drunk go elsewhere. I intervened and said that he had a right to be in a public place, that he was not harming or threatening to harm anyone. The guard responded that recently he had accosted a man with a large knife and risked his life to protect me as part of his job. I asked where was the drunk’s knife? The guard replied that he was only doing his job; that if he allowed the drunk to stay, his job would be in danger—doubtless the truth. I insisted that the drunk had a right to stay, and that if the guard persisted, I would call the police. A futile threat, and the guard knew it.

In the end, the guard backed off and I talked for a few minutes to the drunk. Asked why he didn’t go to a city shelter, he said there he was always humiliated. I’m not certain that a shelter would accept someone drunk, anyway. Since the guard had moved down the street, I gave our patient dog his walk, the route of which I had altered in order to keep an eye on the guard. When I passed the sidewalk in front of the store again, the drunk had moved a distance away, I think to an area not subject to the guard’s surveillance.

I am very troubled by the experience. My money (a tiny fraction of it) goes to keep my neighborhood free of undesirables. Some may be potential criminals, most certainly are not. The undesirables are defined by their poverty, basically homelessness. I remember what Saint-Exupery said, "The law in its magnificent impartiality, prohibits the poor as well as the rich from sleeping under the bridges." Or, in this case, on the sidewalk. But even here, I suspect that there is no such law; there is only almost universal fear.

Last Sunday during the day I was walking near a plaza. There was a white haired, well-dressed woman walking toward me. Between us was a ragged, shirtless, skinny man. The woman passed the man and remarked to me that he was eyeing her (large and elegant) purse. She was obviously afraid. I said that I thought that he was only poor, not a criminal. She was clearly unconvinced that there wasn’t an inevitable connection.

Please pray for the wisdom and love that can transform our fears and real, human vulnerabilities, that we may find solutions to suffering, ours in our fears, as well as the suffering of the victims of our fear.

I would love to hear from any of you who may read this.

Shalom, Salaam,

Linnis Cook

The 2002 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 258