In an attempt to convince bus companies to return their buses to the streets, São Paulo’s City Hall and the military police have created an emergency plan that calls for the presence of police in civilian chothes in 20 bus corridors of the city. They would be inside buses and in terminals and bus stops.
Between 18:30 pm yesterday to 3:30 am this morning, 30 buses were set on fire by gangs in a second wave of attacks in two months in Brazil’s most populated city (10.5 million residents).
Bus owners of the 16 private companies that serve São Paulo are reluctant to let their buses run without some kind of guarantee. Not only there is danger for the passengers and drivers are scared, but also each bus burned represents a loss of 120,000 reais (US$ 55,000).
In the early afternoon, only 15% of the 8,000-buses fleet was in the streets today. These vehicles transport daily an average of 5.5 million passengers. While the subway and trains continued to run they can only carry a small percentage of Paulistanos.
The man believed to be behind all these attacks, Marcos Camacho, better known as Marcola, who is the boss of the prison gang PCC (First Command of the Capital) sent a message to authorities from jail.
The violence against the population will only end when the state government starts abiding by the penal law, he told a group of House representatives who interviewed him in prison for a Parliamentary Inquiry on Weapons Traffic.
Talking about the first wave of violence in May, Marcola told the representatives: "I told the police director that I wasn’t the one who started this all. There wouldn’t be any reason for attacks if they gave prisoners dignified treatment and complied with law 7.210.
