Brazilian police violence investigation wins Gabo Award for Coverage

The Brazilian multimedia report 'A política da bala' (The Politics of the Bullet), published by Metrópoles, has earned the prestigious Gabo Award for Coverage. The award, presented at the XIV Gabo Festival in Bogotá, recognizes the investigation's deep dive into the surge of police violence in São Paulo during Governor Tarcísio de Freitas's tenure.

The winning report meticulously examined the increase in lethal force used by the Military Police, specifically by counting the number of shots fired and analyzing where they impacted victims. This detailed analysis revealed alarming patterns, including unarmed victims and instances of shots fired from behind. The investigation covered 227 cases, resulting in 246 deaths.

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all those people who were murdered by the São Paulo Police and whose official version was that they had confronted the agents

Over nine months, 17 journalists painstakingly gathered police and forensic reports, judicial records, and related videos. This extensive effort resulted in a comprehensive database containing victim information such as name, age, and race, alongside details on the number of shots fired and the body parts hit. The jury highlighted the rigorous nature of the journalistic work in documenting these deaths.

'A política da bala' was a finalist alongside 'Autopistas de depredación,' an investigation into wildlife trafficking across five Amazonian countries, and 'Sanidad, policía, prisiones: la investigación que abrió los algoritmos del Estado español,' which examined public aid in Spain. The Gabo Awards celebrate outstanding journalism from Ibero-America across various categories.

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This journalistic investigation rigorously shows the increase in deaths at the hands of the São Paulo Police and documents alarming details: unarmed victims, shots from behind, and police lethality that increased under the state government in 2024