"My son's name was Edison and he was 29 years old. He was killed on the streets. He just went home for some medicine and to put gas in his motorcycle. We lived in Baixada Santista, a working-class neighborhood in Sao Paulo. On May 15, the police followed him and killed him, 500 yards from the gas station. Even though there are contradictions in their statements, the District Attorney's Office failed to act and shelved the case," said Débora Maria da Silva, a 50-year-old woman of mixed-race and mother of two.

Edison had been working at a cleaning company for seven years and had a son. He was far from the stereotypical delinquent, but his skin was dark and he lived in a poor area of Baixada Santista on the coast of the state of Sao Paulo. The same day on which Edison died, the First Capital Command (PCC), a criminal drug-trafficking organization, attacked police commissaries and burned buses. "The city was paralyzed. It seemed like there had been an earthquake," said Débora.

The wave of violence in South America's biggest city, with 20 million inhabitants, began on May 12 after the government of the state of Sao Paulo moved 765 prisoners to a maximum security prison located 380 miles from the capital. One of the transferred prisoners was the leader of the PCC, Marcos Williams Herba Camacho, also known as Marcola, who directed the criminal organization from prison. In three days they carried out 180 attacks against police forces and prison guards in which, according to initial official estimates, 39 officers and 38 gang members died. They also set fire to more than a hundred buses, automobiles, and a dozen bank branches.

At the same time, riots were recorded in 73 of the 144 prisons in the ...