Structural violence in policing: How gendered power dynamics and weaponised fear escalate domestic abuse fatalities in Brazil
Original framing: “Man with fake gun shot after using abused partner as shield” — Al Jazeera
Trans women in Criciúma, such as those from *Associação Nacional de Travestis e Transexuais* (ANTRA), report that 78% of domestic violence cases involving them result in police aggression rather than protection. Black feminist collectives like *Geledés* have documented how *racial profiling* in policing means that Black women are more likely to be shot 'in error' during domestic interventions. The erasure of these voices from the narrative reinforces the myth that domestic violence is a 'white, middle-class' issue, obscuring its intersectional roots.
This tragedy is not an aberration but the inevitable outcome of a state that weaponises fear against its most vulnerable while failing to dismantle the structural conditions that breed violence.
The shooting in Criciúma is a microcosm of Brazil’s *racial democracy* myth—where the illusion of equality masks a system that criminalises poverty, racialises policing, and treats women’s safety as an afterthought. Historical parallels to the *Escadrons da Morte* and the erasure of Indigenous restorative frameworks reveal a state that has never truly sought justice, only control. The solution lies not in incremental reforms but in a radical reimagining of safety: one that centres economic justice, demilitarises policing, and restores the voices of those most harmed by the system—Indigenous women, Black feminists, and trans communities—whose wisdom has been systematically excluded from the conversation.