Crime Runs Rampant As Brazil Police Strike -- `This Kind Of Lawlessness Is Unprecedented Here'

RECIFE, Brazil - In five chaotic days in this beachside metropolis, the daily homicide rate has tripled. Eight banks have been robbed. Gangs have run wild through a mall and driven through upper-class neighborhoods shooting guns. And no one is obeying the traffic laws.

Recife, a city of 2 million in the poor northeastern state of Pernambuco, is just one of several cities and towns across Brazil ravaged by a rash of police strikes that have caused a national crisis. Army troops arrived here this weekend to keep the peace, but the 3,000 soldiers have been unable to do the job of 18,000 metro-area police officers out on strike.

"We are afraid to leave our homes. We are afraid to be anywhere out on the streets. How can this be happening?" said Jaqueline Acioli, 25, as she waited outside Recife's morgue. Her brother was shot by robbers Monday night.

Since the illegal strike over wages began here last Wednesday, the crime wave has tested the limits of the city morgue and left the largest state hospital overflowing with gunshot and stabbing victims, with patients lining the floors of hallways.

"There has been nothing like this here in decades, since the days of the military coup," said Roberto Franca, justice secretary of Pernambuco state, referring to a military takeover in 1964. "This kind of lawlessness is unprecedented here."

The police strikes began a month ago in the southeastern state of Minas Gerais, over low pay. In many states, fiscal crises have blocked pay increases, angering police. Rank-and-file officers say they cannot survive on their salaries: In Recife, the average patrolman makes $286 a month, while senior officers often take home 15 times that amount.

The strikes, which are illegal under Brazil's constitution, have spread through 15 of Brazil's 27 states. In addition to crippling the northeast and southeast, they appear to be moving into Brazil's southern states, home to the country's most populous cities and crucial industries.

In Sao Paulo, 2,000 police officers and supporters marched this week, threatening to strike if their wages are not increased by at least 33 percent. Police also are prepared to strike in Rio Grande do Sul state.

The army has been called out to protect local government buildings in four states but has met resistance from not only lawbreakers but striking police. In the northeastern state of Alagoas, where police have not been paid for six months, gunfights broke out between army troops and police wearing black masks and wielding pistols. The governor of the cash-strapped state resigned.

Some Brazilians are saying the strikes amount to blackmail; officials are faced with the choice of increasing police pay or leaving the streets of major cities unprotected. In Minas Gerais, the governor gave in, offering substantial raises that many said the city cannot afford.

"The police realize they can hold up society in any given state and that they have the power to paralyze entire cities," said James Cavallero, head of Human Rights Watch-Brazil.

The strikes highlight the massive problem with police in Brazil, where officers have come under intense public attack for brutality and reckless behavior, especially since March, when officers in Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo were caught on videotape torturing citizens.

Indeed, experts say that while the strikes are primarily over low or unpaid wages, an underlying tension between police and civilians has turned them violent. The behavior of officers during the strike has brought heavy criticism by human-rights leaders who call police-civilian relations one of the foremost social problems plaguing Brazil.