Three former members of Brazil’s Federal Highway Police have been sentenced to lengthy prison terms for the torture and death of a Black man held in the boot of their squad car.

On Saturday, Justice Rafael Soares, a judge for the 7th Federal Court in the Brazilian state of Sergipe, gave one of the officers, Paulo Rodolpho Nascimento, 28 years in prison for the crime of aggravated homicide.

Two of his colleagues, William Noia and Kleber Freitas, each received 23 years in prison for torture resulting in death.

The sentencing was the culmination of a case that began in May 2022, with the arrest of 38-year-old Genivaldo de Jesus Santos.

Protesters in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, call for justice in the case of Genivaldo de Jesus Santos during a demonstration on May 28, 2022 [Pilar Olivares/Reuters]

The three officers pulled Santos over for riding his motorcycle without a helmet, not far from the town of Umbauba in Sergipe.

A bystander took a video of the encounter that later went viral. Santos appeared to offer no resistance as the three police officers pulled him to the ground and restrained his arms and legs.

The officers, however, had described Santos as “actively resisting”.

Local media reported that Santos suffered from schizophrenia and was heard yelling to explain that he was taking medication. But the officers lifted Santos into the boot of their sport utility vehicle (SUV).

Advertisement

The video captured the officers as they lowered the boot’s door and held it shut while clouds of dense, white smoke poured from the car. Santos screamed, and his legs could be seen kicking. A witness cried, ”They are going to kill him!”

Rodolpho was accused of throwing tear gas into the boot and helping to hold the door. He received the highest sentence.

Prosecutors, meanwhile, said Freitas used pepper spray five times against Santos, while Noia played a role in keeping the boot door shut while the tear gas poured out.

An autopsy later showed Santos ultimately died of asphyxiation. The three officers were dismissed from the Federal Highway Police.

During the course of their 12-day trial, the court heard from experts who described Santos’s final moments, spending more than 11 minutes restrained in an enclosed space surrounded by toxic gas.

Tear gas contains potentially lethal chemicals, particularly when deployed in large doses or over long periods of time.

All three officers were convicted. Santos’s sister, Laura de Jesus Santos, welcomed the outcome of the sentencing hearing on Saturday.

“It was a satisfactory result, although we are not happy with anyone’s misfortune. It calms us down, but it does not bring happiness,” she told the news agency G1.

An activist holds up a ‘Black Lives Matter’ sign in Brasilia, Brazil, on May 27, 2022 [Adriano Machado/Reuters]

Earlier this year, the United Nations issued a report addressing police violence in Brazil. It found that more than 6,000 people per year have been killed in interactions with Brazil’s law enforcement for the last six years. In 2023, the total was 6,393.

Advertisement

That is a marked increase over previous yearly totals. In 2013, for instance, 2,212 people were killed by officers.

Black people were disproportionately represented among the statistics. People of African descent represented nearly 83 percent of the cases, making them three times more likely to be killed by Brazilian police.