Rio de Janeiro Councilwoman Marielle Franco is pictured in Cinelandia square in the city on Jan. 9, 2018. (Ellis Rua/AP)Brazilian authorities arrested two former police officers Tuesday in the death of an outspoken Rio de Janeiro councilwoman, a year after her assassination convulsed Latin America’s largest nation. Marielle Franco was an fierce critic of police-run militias and police brutality and represented a poor neighborhood in Rio as the only black woman on the city’s 51-member governing council. “Two police officers were arrested for direct and effective participation in the crime,” said Marcus Vinícius Braga, Rio de Janeiro’s state police secretary. Black Brazilians are three times as likely to die at the hands of police than their white counterparts, according to recent studies.

Source: Washington Post March 12, 2019 14:05 UTC