Thiago Menezes Flausino, a 13-year-old boy who dreamed of becoming a professional footballer, was shot and killed by military police in the Cidade de Deus favela in Rio de Janeiro early on Monday. His family say he was executed while riding on the back of a motorbike, with no crime other than being a young Black boy in a low-income community.
According to the human rights NGO Rio de Paz, Thiago is the ninth child under 14 to die in a shooting in Rio this year, with a tenth dying since. Most are hit by stray bullets during police raids, but Thiago's family insist he was not caught in crossfire but deliberately shot. His aunt, Nataly Bezerra Flausino, said he was hit by more than five bullets, which passed through his small body.
Police claim they were fired upon first, but residents deny this, alleging officers simulated a gunfight, intimidated witnesses, and tampered with security camera footage. The police narrative, repeated online, depicts Thiago as a drug trafficker carrying a gun, a claim his family and activists reject. 'Thiago didn't have time to be a gangster,' said Fábio Ferreira da Silva, his football coach.
Thiago's funeral was held on Tuesday at an evangelical church, attended by more than 200 mourners, including distraught teenagers wearing T-shirts with his photo. He was buried at the Pechincha cemetery amid calls for justice. 'The state is murderous,' said Silvio César, a local youth centre leader. 'We just want justice.'
Leftwing lawmaker Renata Souza has called for the application of the Ágatha Félix law, named after an eight-year-old shot in 2019, which aims to speed up investigations into child homicides. However, accountability in police violence cases is rare, according to Cecília Olliveira of the monitoring group Fogo Cruzado, who noted that officers are often not prosecuted or properly investigated.
