Give it a Shot

You’ve all seen the memes about off-duty police in Rio de Janeiro. You’ve likely also read the rather more gritty news stories about the police in Rio and the violence inflicted by and to them. It’s a thankless and mindlessly dangerous job that sadly has resulted in far too many shoot first incidents in response. To those that are not familiar, there are actually two (broadly speaking) police forces in Rio – the Policia Militar (military police) and the Guarda Civil (civilian police). When I lived there you would see small white and blue cabins (think a large phone booth and to those too young to know what the hell THAT is think of a large Tardis and if you don’t know what THAT is…just read on and know that I’m disappointed in you) all over the city with one or two police officers within. Put simply police presence was pretty common, especially in the ‘Zona Sul’ (south side of the city with the touristy areas) and aside from the rather likely prospect of being stopped for a review of your paperwork (for which a few bucks would generally resolve any detected discrepancies) you didn’t really stress them too much.

At any rate, one night my friend Mark, my sister and I (and perhaps one other person, for the life of my I cannot recall) had left a party and en route to…somewhere (maybe even home) we decided to pass by a favorite night club and see if any of our friends were there. The club (Crepusculo de Cubatao, which I’ll delve into in another tale) was in Copacobana, a couple of blocks in from the oceanfront promenade (Avenida Atlantica) on Barata Ribeiro (which, in my Portuguese translates literally to Ribeiro the cockroach). For whatever damn reason they asked ME when to turn in from the beach and…I got it wrong. I picked a block that was one way…against us.

Now, keep in mind that traffic etiquette was at times subjective if not arbitrary, especially at night. Particularly at night – red lights were a “tap the brakes, flash the highbeams and drive on” and stopping elsewhere could well be risky. So…as we came to the realization that we were going the wrong way we also spotted a police officer (civil, if memory serves) walking down the road…in response we said “floor it” in the inimitable logic of those that have had a few drinks and found that option both compelling and clever. So Mark did.

Here’s where it gets interesting on a couple of points.

First – as he did and as we passed by the officer we heard a deafening BOOM. A gunshot. Definitely a gunshot. Oh crap.

Second – we took the laughable “cover” of ducking down in our seats as we asked each other if that was what we thought it was and agreed it was a gunshot.

Third – we got to the intersection of Roach Street and turned left – the block (in fact) where the club was. Mark STOPPED in front of the club, still intending to complete our original mission.

Fourth – a rather angry and motivated police officer appeared in the passenger seat of a taxi (!) he had commandeered and let’s go with politely asked us to explain ourselves.

Now – Mark’s car had blue (IIRC) license plates which identified it as a diplomatic vehicle. His Dad was, after all, the Dutch consul in Rio. The officer insisted he was concerned that there may have been a kidnapping of a diplomatic official (hence the car going the wrong way) and despite a grand total of NONE of us hearing it said he had ordered us to stop.

When we asked about the shot, he said he had fired in the air to attempt to stop us. Mind you, Rio is a dense urban area and high rises surrounded us. In the air may well have meant “into some poor bastard’s apartment” but…the car and passengers were unperforated so I forever just accepted that. Our penance? We had to drive him back to his patrol area a couple of blocks away.

Our friends were not at the club, for the record.