The death of a single man in a police operation has become one of the news of the day in Brazil thanks to the video that documents this savage episode of police brutality.
Genivaldo Santos, 38, suffocated to death this Wednesday in the trunk of a patrol car where two agents put him in and then threw tear gas canisters inside and tried to close the door.
Video recorded by a witness shows Santos' legs dangling from the trunk, waving and screaming before they fall limp.
The victim's wife claims that he was mentally ill.
The cruel scene occurred in full view of other passers-by on a highway in Umbaúba, in northeastern Brazil, the day after Rio de Janeiro police killed 25 people in a raid on a favela.
The image of the two agents pushing the door while smoke from the tear gas comes out of the back of the patrol car is on all the Brazilian front pages this Thursday.
In the video, the man who records the scene or someone who watches it warns: "They are going to kill the guy."
So it was.
He arrived at the hospital dead.
The two agents of the Federal Traffic Police remain impassive, with their identity hidden under their helmets, trying to keep the trunk door closed.
The state Secretary of Security of Sergipe has informed in a note that Santos resisted being arrested.
His wife has told local media that he suffered from schizophrenia and that "when he got nervous he would block himself and not react", something that already happened to him years ago in another encounter with the security forces.
The woman has also recounted the contempt with which she was treated by the agents when she showed up there after being told by an acquaintance that her husband was being approached by the police.
She went to beg to be released as did some of those present who knew of her mental problems.
“I asked them to open (the trunk) so that there would be ventilation, the air was very spicy.
I even felt bad, because I got very close to him (Genivaldo).
The policeman told me: 'It's better than us, it's ventilated in there'.
The video showing the savagery of the two agents has shaken a country accustomed to police lethality.
Brazil is one of the countries where police officers kill the most and die the most.
This same Wednesday a police operation in Rio de Janeiro ended with 25 dead after hours of exchange of shots in a favela between agents and members of the Comando Vermelho, the most powerful criminal organization in the city.
The usual thing is that, in the official version, the victims are presented as suspects and that the investigations into the behavior of the agents are archived.
Some Brazilian states have started putting cameras on officers' uniforms to combat trigger-happy.
The data indicates that suspicious deaths are declining.
The Federal Traffic Police described what happened on the Sergipe highway as a mere containment maneuver.
The released note states that, after Santos "actively resisted the boarding", "immobilization techniques and instruments with less offensive potential were used to contain him."
Any Brazilian can court that version with the video that all the media carry on the cover.
President Jair Bolsonaro, who congratulated the police officers who participated in the bloody operation in the Rio favela on social networks, has preferred not to comment on this latest case recorded with a mobile phone until he has more information.
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