In a video documenting recent protests in Rio de Janeiro, a police officer sitting on a motorcycle can be seen on firing what appeared to be a live pistol round at anti-World Cup protesters on Sunday near Rio de Janeiro's Maracana soccer stadium, according to The Associated Press.
During the protest which took place about 1 mile from the stadium, a second man in street clothes who identified himself as a police officer, also pulled a pistol and fired two shots into the air, the AP reported. It could not be confirmed of the man was an officer.
Pedro Dantas, a spokesman for the Rio de Janeiro security secretariat that oversees all security forces, said in a phone interview that if authorities verify the accuracy of the video, "we'll immediately open an investigation into the incident," according to the AP. In a later emailed statement, the secretariat said riot police were hit by Molotov cocktails thrown by protesters.
"We're seeing tonight the same police brutality we've seen during the past year, and that's why we have to keep protesting," said Karen Rodrigues, a 23-year-old student at the demonstration that drew around 200 people, the AP reported.
Mass protests broke out across Brazil during last year's Confederations Cup soccer tournament, the warm-up to FIFA's premier event, according to the AP. At that time, more than 1 million Brazilians took to the streets on a single day in the largest demonstrations this South American nation had seen in a generation.
The demonstrations have turned violent largely because of the almost constant presence of masked adherents to the "Black Bloc" tactic of protest, the AP reported. Black Bloc is a violent form of protest and vandalism that emerged in the 1980s in West Germany and helped shut down the 1999 World Trade Summit in Seattle.
The masked, young Brazilians are following the main anti-capitalist tenets of earlier versions, routinely smashing the windows of banks and multinational businesses, as happened Sunday night near Maracana, according to the AP.
The protest turned violent as demonstrators left the plaza where they gathered and marched toward the stadium on a main avenue, the AP reported. When they reached a security perimeter about a kilometer from the stadium, riot police unleashed tear gas and stun grenades to disperse the crowd.
The protesters sprinted into a maze of smaller streets as World Cup fans drinking in small bars looked on, according to the AP. As the protesters regrouped and ran down roads, they frightened families with small children pressed themselves against buildings or took refuge in restaurants or taverns.
Before the violence broke out, the protesters marched through streets and chanted "FIFA, go back to Switzerland," referring to international soccer's governing organization, the AP reported. The protesters are angry over the lavish public spending on stadiums for the World Cup while conditions in Brazil's schools and hospitals remain woeful.
