See the video here (not available for imbed)
The TV program "Bom Dia São Paulo" broadcast video this morning of the kind of armed robbery that is out of control on the streets of this city. It was a dramatic example of the fear that is gripping motorists here, as this form of attack is becoming more widespread, and begging for an effective police response.
The video shows assailants on a motorcycle using a gun to threaten a driver who was stopped in heavy traffic on Rua Augusta in Jardins, just below Avenida Paulista near the Conjunto Nacional. In fact, I walked right past this very spot yesterday around 4:00pm on my way to the gym (inside Conjunto Nacional, which is visible for a moment in the upper right hand corner of the frame). This kind of attack is becoming much more common as an alternative to the assaults on drivers stopped at traffic lights in intersections. In stopped traffic, motorcyclists, who usually work in pairs, can easily get away after the attack, while the victim has nowhere to go and must comply or face getting shot. In this video, though, the driver took the highly risky step of fleeing from his car, calling the assailants' bluff. And abandoning his car in a traffic jam meant the assailants couldn't steal it. But given the high number of murders in such cases, it's a welcome miracle this video didn't end in bloodshed. Indeed, a woman who works for the state department of justice was just murdered in such an attack last night.
This is why many residents here (Vini and I included) are investing in bulletproof cars. We've been shopping for one we can afford, and in the process have learned a lot about the industry and market for armored passenger vehicles here. Just last night, I went to meet Vini at his office in the Berrini commercial district of Morumbi, which is a highly concentrated area of multinational district headquarters, along with major upscale shopping malls, wealthy high-rise condominiums, with a substantial favela running through the middle like a souring river. As we drove out in rush hour traffic, denizens of the favela came out to beg for money, or to try to sell stolen goods, and it was frightening to be approached on all sides by these people, given the history of this kind of crime, without the benefit of a panel of assault-proof glass and metal.
It's sort of like those periods in the U.S. when cities go into a period of decline, murder rates spike up, and otherwise staunch liberals begin pondering the benefits of gun ownership. The "murder capital" days of Washington, D.C., in the late 80s and early 90s was such a time, and I was broken into by a drug-crazed, armed assailant in my first apartment on 14th Street in 1989 (and I was chased out into the street in the middle of the night at the point of a knife with nothing but a bed sheet around me), and robbed of $7 at gunpoint in my first Dupont Circle apartment in 1991.
So yes, I am no stranger to this kind of danger. But I never thought I would be buying a bullet-proof, armored Chevrolet Electra in this lifetime.
The video shows assailants on a motorcycle using a gun to threaten a driver who was stopped in heavy traffic on Rua Augusta in Jardins, just below Avenida Paulista near the Conjunto Nacional. In fact, I walked right past this very spot yesterday around 4:00pm on my way to the gym (inside Conjunto Nacional, which is visible for a moment in the upper right hand corner of the frame). This kind of attack is becoming much more common as an alternative to the assaults on drivers stopped at traffic lights in intersections. In stopped traffic, motorcyclists, who usually work in pairs, can easily get away after the attack, while the victim has nowhere to go and must comply or face getting shot. In this video, though, the driver took the highly risky step of fleeing from his car, calling the assailants' bluff. And abandoning his car in a traffic jam meant the assailants couldn't steal it. But given the high number of murders in such cases, it's a welcome miracle this video didn't end in bloodshed. Indeed, a woman who works for the state department of justice was just murdered in such an attack last night.
This is why many residents here (Vini and I included) are investing in bulletproof cars. We've been shopping for one we can afford, and in the process have learned a lot about the industry and market for armored passenger vehicles here. Just last night, I went to meet Vini at his office in the Berrini commercial district of Morumbi, which is a highly concentrated area of multinational district headquarters, along with major upscale shopping malls, wealthy high-rise condominiums, with a substantial favela running through the middle like a souring river. As we drove out in rush hour traffic, denizens of the favela came out to beg for money, or to try to sell stolen goods, and it was frightening to be approached on all sides by these people, given the history of this kind of crime, without the benefit of a panel of assault-proof glass and metal.
It's sort of like those periods in the U.S. when cities go into a period of decline, murder rates spike up, and otherwise staunch liberals begin pondering the benefits of gun ownership. The "murder capital" days of Washington, D.C., in the late 80s and early 90s was such a time, and I was broken into by a drug-crazed, armed assailant in my first apartment on 14th Street in 1989 (and I was chased out into the street in the middle of the night at the point of a knife with nothing but a bed sheet around me), and robbed of $7 at gunpoint in my first Dupont Circle apartment in 1991.
So yes, I am no stranger to this kind of danger. But I never thought I would be buying a bullet-proof, armored Chevrolet Electra in this lifetime.
