Luana Barbosa dos Reis Santos was brutally killed by Brazilian cops in the city of Ribeirão Preto (São Paulo) in early April. She was taking her son to a computer class in a motorcycle when three officers stopped her to check if, according to the police, the vehicle had been robbed. The scene was not unusual in the Brazilian social landscape. Luana was a black lesbian. Her murder follows a pattern of violence and brutality driven by racism and lesbophobia. In this case it also replicated the systematic violence perpetrated by state security actors against black communities.
According to witness, when asked to step down and rise her arms, Luana refused to be inspected and in response the officers began beating her brutally in front of her son. She was then taken to a police station and the case was registered. Later in the day, gravely wounded and barely conscious, Luana was hospitalized. She died few days later due to a ischemic stroke caused by multiple cranial traumas.
SPW joins the outrage against Luana barbaric murder that once again discloses the effects of structural and state violence that plagues Brazil as systematically reported by Amnesty International.