Witness (2012) s01e04 Episode Script
Rio
1 - Uh-huh.
The Red Command.
- The Red Command.
You don't have to go to a war to find conflict.
I mean, it exists everywhere.
I said, "Are there any snipers?" "Oh, no, snipers are not a problem.
" I've seen some high-powered rifles with big scopes on them since I've been here, and not in the hands of the police.
When people think of a war photographer, they think of, like, trenches and bombs going off and combat combat.
It's the conflict that I'm interested in.
That is one of the main things that interested me about Rio.
It's a city of conflict.
Brazil.
Rio de Janeiro.
An explosion of joy on the streets of Rio.
Two weeks later-- an explosion of violence.
Original air date November 26, 2012 fifth straight day a war is raging between police and gangs in the slums of Rio.
With the World Cup and Olympics coming to Brazil in the next six years, the battle has already left 22 people dead.
The police operation is part of an ongoing program to eject the gangs from Rio's favelas, but two factions have joined forces to fight back.
Gun battles rage around the Pena shantytown where the Red Command-- one of the most powerful groups, is well entrenched.
descent into Rio de Janeiro.
You cannot go just in with a camera.
They would shoot you.
They would kill you.
Nobody is protected, not even reporters.
These are not the sort of scenes that the city of Rio de Janeiro wants the world to see in the run-up to the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games two years later.
Yeah, man, so check this out-- Copacabana.
This is what they're protecting.
You know, I gotta say, this is the most dramatic geography for a large city I've ever seen.
It's just mind-blowing.
- Red Command.
- Red Command.
- Red Command.
- Red Command.
- Red Command.
- Red Command.
The favelas in Rio are among the largest slums in the world where very organized gangs control their own territory.
Now how do you go into this well-fortified neighborhood? It sits on a hill, areas where the police and the military just couldn't go in, where the kids are armed to the teeth.
How do you go in there? Bye-bye.
- Bye-bye.
Something's changing.
As this city is grooming itself for the World Cup and Olympic Games, the rules are changing.
The police and the military pre-announce their raid.
If you want to catch these drug traffickers and criminal gangsters, why do you let them know you're coming? In 2002, 21 journalists were killed in the line of duty.
A Brazilian reporter known for exposing corruption and government misconduct found himself a target.
I knew about Tim Lopes because he got killed.
And because of his killing, everything changed in the city-- the relationship between the press and the slums.
Today you don't have one newspaper going into a slum.
"Globo" has a bulletproof car.
And they just get to the edge of the favela and they stay.
They don't go in.
Now the people, of course, are pissed off because their stories don't go out because they don't come in.
And that's where we have the responsibility to try to mediate a little bit.
Cheers.
- Salud.
- A nos.
A nos? Okay.
Sargento? Il nombre? This is, like, the main stadium right here, sitting right under a pretty infamous favela that they really need to keep quiet.
They really need to keep this quiet.
But now the police marched in, it's like everyone is just playing it cool.
We walk by so many gangsters, just like mean mugginess and whatnot.
- Saudade, the big boss.
- Saudade? - The big boss.
- King? ¿Viene? Yeah, he said there are some heavier cats around here, and we need to split.
Coronel.
- Good morning.
- Tudo bem? Bom dia, bom dia.
SÃ.
Okay, if you want-- if you want to, you call me.
Okay, I will.
When should I call you? - Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Good to see you.
Capitan said they might have another one, 4:00 or 5:00 this afternoon.
We don't know doing what, but And, like with any hunting trip, sometimes you come home with an empty game bag.
And there ain't no fucking operation.
The colonel's not even here, man.
He gets in at, like, 9:00.
Fuck, I don't know, man.
The fixer is the local person who knows the landscape.
You hire them to introduce you to subjects, drive you around the city, make sure that you don't do anything stupid.
I have to trust the fixer and the community has to trust the fixer.
We're renting trust.
And because the fixer lives here, they have to deal with the repercussions of whatever it is they get into.
Check it out, dude.
This is a Red Command neighborhood right here.
And everything's super chill.
So that's a good thing, I guess, right? There's no one busting down doors, no one having shoot-outs.
- Huh? - C.
V.
People were saying, "Hey, they're hunting and killing people that have fled the favelas at places like Mangueira.
But I'm not seeing any evidence of this.
There's something shifting here in Rio.
There's a new game plan.
And we haven't quite figured out what it is.
Deus! Deus! Deus! This feels familiar.
The last time I was in something like this, was in Afghanistan, I guess.
It's only a matter of time before these drug gangs figure out how to make explosives.
Meu nome é Eros.
- Ta bom? - SÃ, todo bien.
SÃ.
SÃ.
That's some kind of mark that they're putting on houses that are marked for demolition.
It's like in New Orleans.
There's all sorts of evidence that-- gentrification effort going on.
I mean, a little more than that, man-- like a land grab.
I mean, you see some of these favelas are just perched on prime real estate.
And you look on a map, and you're just like "Right, that makes sense.
" I mean, it's something that I really struggle with a lot-- you know, what tools do I use to convince somebody to open their lives up to me, you know, especially somebody with such a sensitive life? You know, what do I tell them? Like, "It's going to be good for the world to hear your side of the story," so-- so they can what? I don't know, man.
I just find that more and more, as the years go by, I have trouble lying to people and telling them that my work is going to somehow help their situation, because it just doesn't really change anything.
Well, if I'm not mistaken, we're arranging with the pastor to meet up with a bunch of guys who fled other communities that the police have-- that the police have raided, and I think they're gonna be around here, but-- he seems to be kind of sympathetic to what-- well, I don't know to what yet.
Tudo bem? We were told that one of the pastors that's working with the drug gangs had a dream about us-- that we were in the room with one of the bosses and it was very bad.
I don't know what that means.
Like he was getting a bunch of tires ready to throw around our necks.
Tudo bem? SÃ.
"If you want, we can hide you and you can film it when we hand the payoff money to the police.
" When the police see that, then they're gonna go back, and they're gonna be like, "Who did it? Who did it?" And then they're gonna start kneecapping dudes, and they're gonna go kill the priest.
Someone's gonna get killed for it.
Someone's gonna get killed for that for sure.
You know, honestly, sometimes-- sometimes when I finish a project, I look back at all the things I had to do to get the pictures I needed and I just think, "How did I find the will to keep pushing and to make things open up?" And I just-- I mean, it really is an exercise in digging-- digging into yourself, digging into a story, digging into everything.
And sometimes the hole just starts filling itself up before you can get out and then you lose perspective.
And that's when people start doing stupid shit, doing anything they can to get a picture, no matter who suffers for it.
We went and photographed these drug dealers the other day.
And apparently that night their boss got wind of it and was furious, and he was like, "You didn't have authorization to talk to a journalist" this and all that, and they were gonna kill these guys.
Moto, moto, moto.
Okay.
Cristina had been the partner of Tim Lopes, an investigative journalist who was murdered in the favela.
She just wants the truth to be known.
There's a lie in the city about who's being killed, how many people are being killed, who is doing the killing.
Freixo's had numerous death threats.
He is going after organized crime elements that are made up of police and corrupt politicians.
The newspapers are reporting the homicide rate in Rio is dropping radically.
There's something happening, certainly not on the surface.
It's not visible on the surface.
Dónde vive, ¿cómo es? The fixer stays here.
The subject matters stay here.
I mean, these gangsters stay here.
We get on an airplane and split.
The pictures we take have consequences.
They just took the body out of the scene so there's no investigation.
It's just nuts.
From what we were hearing, it was-- the homicide guys were super pissed at the MPs for dicking with the crime scene.
As the stats for murders fall, police get raises.
So it's in their interest to make things not look like a murder.
Really? They're like, "Don't do this.
Go there.
Stop.
Stop.
" I'm like, "This is not a good place to stop.
" They're like, "Wait here.
It's safer.
" No, it's not safer, man.
- Granada.
- Granada? Their murder rate is down because no one can find the bodies.
We linked up with a group of homicide detectives committed to uncovering crimes, no matter who committed them.
There is no culture of investigation in police work in this country, but these guys are serious about bringing some kind of justice.
We drive out to the outskirts of Rio where the rate of the missing persons are rising dramatically.
We're getting into worlds that we're not supposed to be in, we're not supposed to see.
It's easy to keep the murder stats down when the bodies don't show up.
And if you're doing it out in the middle of nowhere, it's easy to get rid of bodies.
Not to photograph, because there's a few of them live inside of the favelas, - so they can be killed if they show on TV.
- Got it.
If it happens, on the outskirts of Rio you're not gonna hear about it.
The Red Command.
- The Red Command.
You don't have to go to a war to find conflict.
I mean, it exists everywhere.
I said, "Are there any snipers?" "Oh, no, snipers are not a problem.
" I've seen some high-powered rifles with big scopes on them since I've been here, and not in the hands of the police.
When people think of a war photographer, they think of, like, trenches and bombs going off and combat combat.
It's the conflict that I'm interested in.
That is one of the main things that interested me about Rio.
It's a city of conflict.
Brazil.
Rio de Janeiro.
An explosion of joy on the streets of Rio.
Two weeks later-- an explosion of violence.
Original air date November 26, 2012 fifth straight day a war is raging between police and gangs in the slums of Rio.
With the World Cup and Olympics coming to Brazil in the next six years, the battle has already left 22 people dead.
The police operation is part of an ongoing program to eject the gangs from Rio's favelas, but two factions have joined forces to fight back.
Gun battles rage around the Pena shantytown where the Red Command-- one of the most powerful groups, is well entrenched.
descent into Rio de Janeiro.
You cannot go just in with a camera.
They would shoot you.
They would kill you.
Nobody is protected, not even reporters.
These are not the sort of scenes that the city of Rio de Janeiro wants the world to see in the run-up to the World Cup in 2014 and the Olympic Games two years later.
Yeah, man, so check this out-- Copacabana.
This is what they're protecting.
You know, I gotta say, this is the most dramatic geography for a large city I've ever seen.
It's just mind-blowing.
- Red Command.
- Red Command.
- Red Command.
- Red Command.
- Red Command.
- Red Command.
The favelas in Rio are among the largest slums in the world where very organized gangs control their own territory.
Now how do you go into this well-fortified neighborhood? It sits on a hill, areas where the police and the military just couldn't go in, where the kids are armed to the teeth.
How do you go in there? Bye-bye.
- Bye-bye.
Something's changing.
As this city is grooming itself for the World Cup and Olympic Games, the rules are changing.
The police and the military pre-announce their raid.
If you want to catch these drug traffickers and criminal gangsters, why do you let them know you're coming? In 2002, 21 journalists were killed in the line of duty.
A Brazilian reporter known for exposing corruption and government misconduct found himself a target.
I knew about Tim Lopes because he got killed.
And because of his killing, everything changed in the city-- the relationship between the press and the slums.
Today you don't have one newspaper going into a slum.
"Globo" has a bulletproof car.
And they just get to the edge of the favela and they stay.
They don't go in.
Now the people, of course, are pissed off because their stories don't go out because they don't come in.
And that's where we have the responsibility to try to mediate a little bit.
Cheers.
- Salud.
- A nos.
A nos? Okay.
Sargento? Il nombre? This is, like, the main stadium right here, sitting right under a pretty infamous favela that they really need to keep quiet.
They really need to keep this quiet.
But now the police marched in, it's like everyone is just playing it cool.
We walk by so many gangsters, just like mean mugginess and whatnot.
- Saudade, the big boss.
- Saudade? - The big boss.
- King? ¿Viene? Yeah, he said there are some heavier cats around here, and we need to split.
Coronel.
- Good morning.
- Tudo bem? Bom dia, bom dia.
SÃ.
Okay, if you want-- if you want to, you call me.
Okay, I will.
When should I call you? - Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Good to see you.
Capitan said they might have another one, 4:00 or 5:00 this afternoon.
We don't know doing what, but And, like with any hunting trip, sometimes you come home with an empty game bag.
And there ain't no fucking operation.
The colonel's not even here, man.
He gets in at, like, 9:00.
Fuck, I don't know, man.
The fixer is the local person who knows the landscape.
You hire them to introduce you to subjects, drive you around the city, make sure that you don't do anything stupid.
I have to trust the fixer and the community has to trust the fixer.
We're renting trust.
And because the fixer lives here, they have to deal with the repercussions of whatever it is they get into.
Check it out, dude.
This is a Red Command neighborhood right here.
And everything's super chill.
So that's a good thing, I guess, right? There's no one busting down doors, no one having shoot-outs.
- Huh? - C.
V.
People were saying, "Hey, they're hunting and killing people that have fled the favelas at places like Mangueira.
But I'm not seeing any evidence of this.
There's something shifting here in Rio.
There's a new game plan.
And we haven't quite figured out what it is.
Deus! Deus! Deus! This feels familiar.
The last time I was in something like this, was in Afghanistan, I guess.
It's only a matter of time before these drug gangs figure out how to make explosives.
Meu nome é Eros.
- Ta bom? - SÃ, todo bien.
SÃ.
SÃ.
That's some kind of mark that they're putting on houses that are marked for demolition.
It's like in New Orleans.
There's all sorts of evidence that-- gentrification effort going on.
I mean, a little more than that, man-- like a land grab.
I mean, you see some of these favelas are just perched on prime real estate.
And you look on a map, and you're just like "Right, that makes sense.
" I mean, it's something that I really struggle with a lot-- you know, what tools do I use to convince somebody to open their lives up to me, you know, especially somebody with such a sensitive life? You know, what do I tell them? Like, "It's going to be good for the world to hear your side of the story," so-- so they can what? I don't know, man.
I just find that more and more, as the years go by, I have trouble lying to people and telling them that my work is going to somehow help their situation, because it just doesn't really change anything.
Well, if I'm not mistaken, we're arranging with the pastor to meet up with a bunch of guys who fled other communities that the police have-- that the police have raided, and I think they're gonna be around here, but-- he seems to be kind of sympathetic to what-- well, I don't know to what yet.
Tudo bem? We were told that one of the pastors that's working with the drug gangs had a dream about us-- that we were in the room with one of the bosses and it was very bad.
I don't know what that means.
Like he was getting a bunch of tires ready to throw around our necks.
Tudo bem? SÃ.
"If you want, we can hide you and you can film it when we hand the payoff money to the police.
" When the police see that, then they're gonna go back, and they're gonna be like, "Who did it? Who did it?" And then they're gonna start kneecapping dudes, and they're gonna go kill the priest.
Someone's gonna get killed for it.
Someone's gonna get killed for that for sure.
You know, honestly, sometimes-- sometimes when I finish a project, I look back at all the things I had to do to get the pictures I needed and I just think, "How did I find the will to keep pushing and to make things open up?" And I just-- I mean, it really is an exercise in digging-- digging into yourself, digging into a story, digging into everything.
And sometimes the hole just starts filling itself up before you can get out and then you lose perspective.
And that's when people start doing stupid shit, doing anything they can to get a picture, no matter who suffers for it.
We went and photographed these drug dealers the other day.
And apparently that night their boss got wind of it and was furious, and he was like, "You didn't have authorization to talk to a journalist" this and all that, and they were gonna kill these guys.
Moto, moto, moto.
Okay.
Cristina had been the partner of Tim Lopes, an investigative journalist who was murdered in the favela.
She just wants the truth to be known.
There's a lie in the city about who's being killed, how many people are being killed, who is doing the killing.
Freixo's had numerous death threats.
He is going after organized crime elements that are made up of police and corrupt politicians.
The newspapers are reporting the homicide rate in Rio is dropping radically.
There's something happening, certainly not on the surface.
It's not visible on the surface.
Dónde vive, ¿cómo es? The fixer stays here.
The subject matters stay here.
I mean, these gangsters stay here.
We get on an airplane and split.
The pictures we take have consequences.
They just took the body out of the scene so there's no investigation.
It's just nuts.
From what we were hearing, it was-- the homicide guys were super pissed at the MPs for dicking with the crime scene.
As the stats for murders fall, police get raises.
So it's in their interest to make things not look like a murder.
Really? They're like, "Don't do this.
Go there.
Stop.
Stop.
" I'm like, "This is not a good place to stop.
" They're like, "Wait here.
It's safer.
" No, it's not safer, man.
- Granada.
- Granada? Their murder rate is down because no one can find the bodies.
We linked up with a group of homicide detectives committed to uncovering crimes, no matter who committed them.
There is no culture of investigation in police work in this country, but these guys are serious about bringing some kind of justice.
We drive out to the outskirts of Rio where the rate of the missing persons are rising dramatically.
We're getting into worlds that we're not supposed to be in, we're not supposed to see.
It's easy to keep the murder stats down when the bodies don't show up.
And if you're doing it out in the middle of nowhere, it's easy to get rid of bodies.
Not to photograph, because there's a few of them live inside of the favelas, - so they can be killed if they show on TV.
- Got it.
If it happens, on the outskirts of Rio you're not gonna hear about it.