A surveillance camera video captured the terrifying moment a police officer shot a one-year-old baby who was being carried by her father as he rode his motorcycle in Brazil.
The footage shows a São Paulo Military Police cruiser nearing an intersection in the east side neighborhood of Itaim Paulista when the 29-year-old man and his daughter were about to approach them on the opposite side of the street.
The cop, who has not been identified, pulled out an airsoft gun and fired it, striking the girl on her left cheek.
Her father continued riding the motorcycle and appeared to swerve several yards down the street before the video came to an end.
The São Paulo Public Security Secretariat said the man noticed his child was wounded and rushed her to an emergency care center. The child was then transferred to Tide Setúbal Hospital, where she received multiple stitches and was discharged Tuesday afternoon.
An one-year-old girl was shot by a police officer while she was riding on her father’s motorcycle Tuesday morning in São Paulo, Brazil. The cop and their partner have been temporarily suspended from street patrol duties
Surveillance camera captured the moment São Paulo, Brazil cop pulled out an airsoft gun, which is not a department approved weapon, and fired shots at a 29-year-old man who was riding his motorcycle with his one-year-old daughter on board. The child was shot on the left cheek and was taken to a hospital, where she received stitches and remained hospitalized
The family filed a police report with the police department station in Itaim Paulista. The shooting was registered as an attempted murder.
The Military Police internal affairs department said it has temporarily suspended the two police officers from active duty.
‘The two police officers who were in the vehicle involved in the incident were identified and preventively removed while investigations are ongoing,’ the police said in a statement.
The girl’s godmother told Brazilian news outlet G1 that the child’s father had picked her up at her residence and was headed home when the cop opened fire. He was not aware his daughter had been struck until they arrived at the family residence.
‘We looked, it (the cheek) was already pierced and there was a lot of blood on it,’ she said. ‘We are shaken. If he had given the order, told him to stop, I would have come down from my house and picked up the baby. But one mistake doesn’t justify the other because the baby is not to blame at all.’
Brazilian traffic law states that children under the age of 10 are prohibited from riding on the back of a motorcycle. The infraction is punishable with a fine or license suspension.
The cop in the vehicle is not seen in the video instructing the baby’s father to stop his motorcycle.
‘There was no order to stop, there was no police approach, no type of record, no type of communication,’ police chief Gregory Goes said.
The incident was registered as an attempted murder. The cop’s name has not been released by the São Paulo Military Police
He said the police officers’ demeanor in handling the traffic violation was wrong.
‘I would say that the conduct fits the criminal type of attempted murder, at least as a possible intent,’ Goes said. ‘I understand that the military police officer who has prior technical knowledge must assume that an airsoft shot from that distance, on a motorcycle in the opposite direction, could cause an accident, a fatality with the child dying due to deliberate, conscious and voluntary.’
Authorities said the cop fired shots from an airsoft gun, a weapon that is not authorized for use while on duty.
The weapons utilize plastic bullets and are used by sports shooters at ranges.
‘There is no justification for using an instrument that is not even part of the collection that is part of police activity … which demonstrates the turpitude of the conduct ,’ Goes said. ‘From the images it is possible to verify that the police officer, who was the driver of the vehicle, fired a weapon, and then (we) managed to see an airsoft gun from the images.’