Here you can read the first chapter:
1. Police Brutality
Suddenly a group of angry police officers surrounded our ministry team on a downtown sidewalk. The ragtag street children who were huddled around the team jumped up and bolted. Two of the smaller ones weren’t quite fast enough. A skinny officer, his bony face contorted with rage, grabbed them both by the scruffs of their necks and, yelling obscenities, hit their little heads with a thud against a concrete wall. The children collapsed on the littered pavement. Now the police officer really lost control and moved in on Mati, one of our team members.
It was eleven o’clock Friday night. As was their practice, a few members of our staff had gone to the downtown area of Belo Horizonte. They knew the children’s favorite hangouts, and soon twenty-five or so hungry, grimy street children were gathered around them. The team doled out sandwiches and chocolate milk to the children and bandaged some of their open wounds. Then they all sat down on the pavement in small groups and played board games and checkers.
Julio, the team leader that evening, strummed his guitar and patiently explained some basic chords to a little boy. With his long, slender fingers, he created beautiful music. Fascinated, the little guy watched him and then, with great concentration, tried to bend his dirty, stubby fingers over the guitar strings.
In spite of the late hour, the large red-and-blue city buses were still crowded. Each time a bus rumbled past, the little group was enveloped in putrid exhaust fumes. Pop music blared from the many rundown bars. Bright neon signs pulsated through the stifling night air, inviting customers to the drab tables and folding chairs on the narrow sidewalk. The legion of children who lived here were used to this chaos of odors and sounds and colors. After all, this was their home. They played, eat, and slept on the streets.
Julio scanned the motley group around him. His charges were quiet tonight, he observed, obviously enjoying the games and the attention. That quietness was rudely shattered, however, with the arrival of the incensed law officers.
One tall, angry police officer zeroed in on Mati, a young, muscular Samoan. Two other officers wildly kicked and hit anyone within reach. Quickly Julio jumped up but could not avoid several blows before he reached Mati.
“Stop!” he yelled. “We’re missio—”
Wham! A well-aimed punch hit Julio right in the face. The frenzied police officers seemed determined to beat everyone to a pulp. More patrol cars, sirens shrieking, pulled up. Dodging blows, Julio and his team tried to explain that they were missionaries and hadn’t done anything wrong, but the enraged law officers appeared to be completely out of control and in no mood to listen to anyone.
Mati was strong enough to overpower the officers, but he didn’t even try. Confused, he just raised his arms to shield his head from the barrage of blows aimed at his face. He was not a fighter. It fact, it was Mati’s nonviolent nature that had endeared him to his coworkers. The furious officers didn’t let up, but continued to kick and punch Mati and anyone else within their reach. At the height of the aggression, a few officers grabbed Mati, squeezed him into the back of a large, gray police vehicle, and screeched off into the night. The other patrol cars, sirens still blaring, followed, leaving behind a cloud of dust and a stunned team.
Some team members were crying, not because of the beating but because of their mounting fear of what was likely to happen to Mati. They knew that Mati’s life was in grave danger. After all, our ministry staff was all too familiar with the gruesome stories of brutality against some of the six million unwanted street children in this vast country —children being rounded up and transported to dark, deserted areas outside the city to be tortured and killed. Mati, with his dark skin, could easily pass for a Brazilian. Had the police mistaken him for a gang leader?
Lately the Brazilian police had been rather frustrated. The government had just passed a law, compliments of Protective Child Care Services, that, among other things, made it illegal to transport street children in the trunk of a police car or to beat them up at precincts. The officers felt that this law had pulled the rug out from under their authority on the streets. In protest, they ignored the children altogether. Not surprisingly, it didn’t take the street-smart youngsters long to take advantage of this situation. Some children had even memorized the code number of this new law, yelling it out to taunt passing police in their patrol cars.
In addition, some unscrupulous barbers were offering street children up to two dollars for a pound of human hair for making wigs. As a result, girls with beautiful, long hair were suddenly surrounded by gangs of street children and roughly pulled into an alley. There, held down by strong arms, they would be relieved of their long locks. This wasn’t a compassionate procedure. The thieves used anything that would cut: dull scissors, kitchen knives, switchblades, and even daggers. When these practices were reported, the police did nothing. Citizens became enraged. Newspaper headlines condemned the young thugs. Petrified women, scarves tightly wrapped around their heads, scurried along the crowded downtown streets. Still nothing had been done, and tension was mounting.
Apparently the police weren’t ignoring the children anymore—at least not on this night.
I had just fallen asleep. My husband, Johan, was attending a two-week YWAM (Youth With A Mission) conference in Budapest, so I had our double bed all to myself. Our five children had been in bed for hours. Carla, one of our coworkers who had moved in while Johan was gone, to help me with the children, had also retired for the night. Suddenly someone pounded on my bedroom door.
“Jeannette, come quickly! Mati has been arrested!”
Half-awake, I stumbled out of bed and opened the door. There stood a panic-stricken Carla.
“Jeannette, please hurry. Jolanda just came back from downtown and said the police arrested Mati!”
“What?!” I looked past Carla and spotted Jolanda in the kitchen sobbing. “What happened?” I asked, now wide-awake.
“The cops beat us up and took Mati,” Jolanda cried.
Jolanda, a small, levelheaded Dutch woman, was not easily provoked. That night she had left her husband in charge of their four children to join the street team. They were both dedicated workers and had been with us for several years.
“What about Julio? Where is he?” I asked.
Helplessly Jolanda shook her head and said, “He told me to take the team home while he followed Mati.”
I quickly got dressed. “Jolanda, wake up everyone right away and have them start praying! I’ll make some calls and see if anyone can help.”
Our staff of forty, plus twenty-five ex-street boys, lived in a large building we called Restoration House. Even though it was well after midnight, in no time I could hear many voices praying in the dining room.
I decided to call a friend from church, a Brazilian lieutenant colonel with the military police. As I dialed the number, I felt grateful to have friends we could trust and call in the middle of the night. An hour and a half later, which seemed like an eternity, my friend phoned me with the news that through his police-car radio he had discovered that Mati was being held prisoner in an empty room at the central bus station. Immediately three of our staff and I drove to the station. It was now 2 a.m., more than two hours since Mati’s arrest.
The police had taken Mati to the empty central bus station right away to torture him. In that empty room the police forced him to face a concrete wall, and then ten of the police officers kicked him in the crotch until he fainted. When he regained consciousness, the police beat him some more until he collapsed again.
Our arrival at the bus station surprised the officers. Some tried to stall us while others hastily hustled Mati back into the patrol car and tore off. In the nick of time we spotted them and, with tires screeching, gave chase. It turned into a wild pursuit from broad, well-lit streets to narrow, dark alleys. With my heart pounding, we raced against traffic on major one-way streets. The chase finally ended in a narrow, poorly lit street in front of a dark police station. The police roughly pulled Mati from the car and pushed him quickly through the grimy door into a small, dingy room, where he promptly collapsed. I bolted from our car, pushed my way through the door, found Mati, and knelt beside him. Slowly he sat up and opened his swollen, bloodshot eyes. When he recognized me, he began to cry.
During this long, hot pursuit I had felt very angry with these police officers—angry that they had arrested Mati in the first place and angry that they had then tortured him without even asking who he was or what he was doing. I was convinced we could take Mati home once these crazed men realized who we were. I was wrong. Before I could say a word, one of the officers tried to jerk me away from Mati, but Mati grabbed my hand and wouldn’t let go. The police officer kicked Mati’s hand and cursed me. Mati moaned, let go, and again fell to the floor.
Now I was really boiling mad, but before I could utter a sound, I was shoved into a small, stuffy room. With a smirk, the police officer walked over to an old television set and cranked up the volume full blast. Then he stomped out of the room and slammed the door behind him. It was obvious no one was interested in explanations. I was worried sick. Mati had a heart condition. Just a year ago we had had to rush him twice to the emergency room with an irregular heart rhythm. I wasn’t sure what those wild policemen had done to him, but I could tell he was in great pain.
Here I was, a mother of five, held hostage in the middle of the night in an obscure police station in the heart of Brazil.
Lord! my heart screamed. You called us to this country. Please, do something!
Would you like to know what happened next? Read my book! :) You can order the book at www.ywampublishing.com
