RIO DE JANEIRO — A military police officer in Brazil 's biggest metropolitan area was seen on video throwing a man off a bridge and into a river, prompting a backlash.
Footage shown on local television stations shows several Sao Paulo state officers on a bridge Monday besides motorcycles and a man in a blue T-shirt they had been chasing. At one point, one of the officers approaches the man and lifts him up by the legs before tipping him over the edge.
For much of Tuesday it remained unclear whether the man had survived, though later in the day local media reported that he did. Still, the footage was shocking and prompted outrage even in a state where police violence is on the rise.
"How absurd, how cowardly, how disgusting,'' journalist and television personality Guga Noblat said on X.
Sao Paulo's military police force has identified the officers involved and suspended them, according to a statement from the state's secretariat of public security. It also repudiated the officers' conduct and said it was launching an investigation.
The statement gave no details about the man in the blue T-shirt, why he was wanted by police or his status after he was thrown into the river.
Also in Sao Paulo, footage obtained and published Monday by local media G1 showed an off-duty military police officer last month firing a series of shots at a young man who had stolen packets of soap, killing him.
''Those who shoot people in the back, those who go so far as to throw someone off a bridge, are clearly not fit to wear this uniform. These cases will be investigated and severely punished,'' Sao Paulo's Gov. Tarcísio de Freitas said in a statement on X.
