Brazil: Patricia Acioli Assassination Is Intimidating Message From Militias

The Rio de Janeiro state judge paid for that fearlessness: Acioli was shot to death in front of her house last month. And all of the 21 bullets that hit her came from a lot issued to police, including some in Sao Goncalo, the city where she worked.

While violence and impunity are common in Brazil, the brazen murder of Acioli was an especially heavy blow, a message of intimidation from the vigilante militias.

The slaying was "a wound to the lawful state, to democracy; the figure of the judge is a symbol of justice," said Denise Frossard, a retired judge who presided over some of Rio's first cases against the militias in the 1990s. "If she is a judge and can be killed, how can a citizen feel secure enough to be a witness?"

Acioli's death was the first murder of a judge in the state's history, though Frossard herself survived three assassination attempts and had eight security guards ensuring her safety while she was on the bench.

Violent militias have grown in power and scope in recent years, taking over poor communities formerly controlled by drug dealers and coercing residents to pay for illegal utility hookups, transportation, and security. Their members include former and current police, firefighters and jail guards. Investigators say they have elected members as state and city legislators. They also have been praised by politicians, including Rio de Janeiro's mayor, for taking back swaths of territory from drug gangs.

A probe by the state legislature in 2008 found militias were connected to execution-style killings, far-reaching extortion schemes, and the kidnapping and torture of a group of journalists investigating the gangs' activities.

Acioli had been repeatedly threatened for taking on the police officers who were part of the gangs, and she had written letters to her superiors requesting protection. One week before her murder, she went to Rio police's internal affairs office and said she was being threatened by officers from Sao Goncalo, where she worked, and Niteroi, where she lived.

The last case on her docket on Aug. 11, the day she died, involved policemen charged with executing an 18-year-old man in a slum. One of her last acts as a judge was to authorize their arrest.