São Paulo Police Probe Officers After Armed Entry at Preschool Over Orixá Drawing

Overview

• Military Police opened an inquiry into a four-officer team from the 2nd Company of the 16th Battalion accused of intimidating staff and families at EMEI Antônio Bento.
• Witnesses report hostile conduct inside the school, including a worker who says an officer pressed her against a wall with a firearm, with at least one officer carrying a submachine gun.
• The parent who called police is an active-duty officer, and the school director filed a police report alleging threats by him.
• The activity that prompted the complaint drew on the book Ciranda em Aruanda and is part of São Paulo’s curriculum mandated by federal laws requiring Afro-Brazilian and Indigenous history and culture.
• Teachers’ unions and local groups backed the school and organized a November 25 demonstration calling for accountability and protection of pedagogical autonomy.