Mysterious Woman's Videos Exposes Drug Trade
Rio De Janeiro:
The neighbors have their doubts about the woman called Dona Vitoria, but no one disputes that the drug trade thrives in their neighborhood or in this city where she has become a hero.
Dona Vitoria is the pseudonym given to a Rio woman who, fed up by what she says was the lack of response by police, videotaped from her apartment window a stream of drug sales on the hills outside her home. She gave the tapes to a local reporter, and the publication of photos from them won for Dona Vitoria recognition, relocation and, with good reason, witness protection.The tapes also brought police storming into the Tabajaras section of the Copacabana neighborhood.Tabajaras is a favela, a collection of mostly poor and working-class families living mostly on illegally occupied land. Local heavies and criminal outfits control daily life. The hillside communities can be no-go zones for police. Dona Vitoria was afraid too. As the story goes, she put film on her windows so the traffickers could not see in. Then she cut a small hole in the film and rested her video camera on a pile of books to record the comings and goings of men, women and children as they bought, sold and consumed drugs.Stills from the video published in the newspaper Extra show children--not just teenagers but boys younger than 10--smoking marijuana and snorting cocaine. Some pictures show middle-age women stopping by for a fix. Some show boys and young men brandishing automatic weapons.Residents doubt that Dona Vitoria is really in her 80s, as the police and newspapers said. They also doubt that she did this all alone, over 18 months, and suggest someone in the news media or police was working with her. But they cannot argue with the results.And Rio is lauding Dona Vitoria. The judge who ordered arrests in the case praised her courage. A columnist in the daily newspaper O Globo declared her Rio resident of the year. And a court has ordered the state to pay damages because her apartment plummeted in value as police refused to do anything about her complaints.Tabajaras, meanwhile, is quiet.
http://www.nynewsday.com/news/nationworld/world/chi-0509150183sep15,0,5622368.story?coll=ny-leadworldnews-headlines
Rio De Janeiro:
The neighbors have their doubts about the woman called Dona Vitoria, but no one disputes that the drug trade thrives in their neighborhood or in this city where she has become a hero.
Dona Vitoria is the pseudonym given to a Rio woman who, fed up by what she says was the lack of response by police, videotaped from her apartment window a stream of drug sales on the hills outside her home. She gave the tapes to a local reporter, and the publication of photos from them won for Dona Vitoria recognition, relocation and, with good reason, witness protection.The tapes also brought police storming into the Tabajaras section of the Copacabana neighborhood.Tabajaras is a favela, a collection of mostly poor and working-class families living mostly on illegally occupied land. Local heavies and criminal outfits control daily life. The hillside communities can be no-go zones for police. Dona Vitoria was afraid too. As the story goes, she put film on her windows so the traffickers could not see in. Then she cut a small hole in the film and rested her video camera on a pile of books to record the comings and goings of men, women and children as they bought, sold and consumed drugs.Stills from the video published in the newspaper Extra show children--not just teenagers but boys younger than 10--smoking marijuana and snorting cocaine. Some pictures show middle-age women stopping by for a fix. Some show boys and young men brandishing automatic weapons.Residents doubt that Dona Vitoria is really in her 80s, as the police and newspapers said. They also doubt that she did this all alone, over 18 months, and suggest someone in the news media or police was working with her. But they cannot argue with the results.And Rio is lauding Dona Vitoria. The judge who ordered arrests in the case praised her courage. A columnist in the daily newspaper O Globo declared her Rio resident of the year. And a court has ordered the state to pay damages because her apartment plummeted in value as police refused to do anything about her complaints.Tabajaras, meanwhile, is quiet.
http://www.nynewsday.com/news/nationworld/world/chi-0509150183sep15,0,5622368.story?coll=ny-leadworldnews-headlines
