Will Special Police Operations Brigade (BOPE) officers have any specific training to use the caveirão?
(a popular nickname which roughly means ‘big skull’. It refers to the skull and crossbones painted on vehicle). Are you talking about the armored car? Yes, since I’m a civilian, I used the popular name. But I am not (laughs). You can ask, but I have to have been trained well enough not to answer… (laughs again). The people who think we should get rid of the armored car are totally wrong. Their brains are armored. Statistics have proved that its use has significantly reduced death rates of on-duty officers. But what about the way officers behave inside the armored cars? That’s what people have complained about – the hostile way the police enter communities threatening it with hostility over loudspeakers… That is not what the population complains about. The population is being influenced by other people with different arguments against the use of armored cars. No police equipment should ever be used wrongly. The armored car is a tool to protect both police officers and civilians and its
