According to A Rio de Janeiro Slum Credits Shadowy Vigilantes for Safety, there’s a little Gotham City in Brazil, the Rio das Pedras:
For Maria de Lourdes Luna, home is a one-room hut shared with five relatives. The stench of sewage fills the alleys, and refuse gushes past the shanties from an open ditch after a hard rain.Yet for her and many others, the slum of Rio das Pedras is an urban utopia — one of the few Brazilian shantytowns, or favelas, not tormented by drugs and drug-related violence. Children fly kites and play ball free from fear of ricocheting bullets. People sleep with doors unlocked and windows ajar. Even petty crime is rare.
“There’s no better place to live. This is paradise,” says Ms. Luna, a 43-year-old housekeeper. “We can put up with anything — rats, floods, trash — as long as we’re spared drugs.”
Behind that tranquility and order, however, is a dark secret: Residents believe that a shadowy organization of civilian vigilantes, comprised of off-duty and retired policemen as well as ordinary citizens, keeps the peace by meting out extrajudicial killings to drug dealers and other lawbreakers. Alleged militia murders provide an ironic sense of comfort in a city so inured to drug-related violence that extreme measures aren’t considered extreme anymore.
I might trade a little more crime for a little less sewage in the streets.