<br /><div class="MsoNormal"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bus 174, </i>directed by José Padiha and Felipe Lacerda,<i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"> </i>is a documentary of an event that took place in Rio de Janeiro on June 12<sup>th</sup>, 2000.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When a young man named Sandro do Nascimento hijacked the bus, and threatened to kill each passenger unless his demands for a grenade and a rifle were met.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because of the lack of police training, the scene was not cleared, but was full of pedestrians and news teams trying to catch the action in progress.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This didn’t allow the police to take control of the scene, and eventually lead to the death of an innocent girl and Sandro.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many people who were relevant to Sandro were interviewed, many of which shined a light onto the events that lead up to the event.</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>In a similar story, Alberto Salcedo Ramos writes about a similar event to that of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bus 174, </i>but on a smaller scale. As we have seen in the past films, extreme poverty often leads to crime, and these two stories were no different.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His taxi was a well elaborated hoax that drove him to a secluded area where two other thugs entered the car and proceeded to rob him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After one of the thieves exited the taxi, the two remaining told Ramos that they were only doing this to save one of their friends, who was in trouble with another gang (Ramos, 137). <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A similarity between Sandro and the thieves in Ramos’s story is that they both didn’t intend to kill the hostage(s).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the film, Sandro whispered to the hostages to scream and say that he had shot a girl in the head, when he simply shot the floor.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The thieves told Ramos they were plain thieves, not killers (Ramos, 137).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Ramos pointed out that this type of robbery is fairly common in large cities, which goes to show that Sandro’s action was not an isolated incident but one of many.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He just got the spotlight when he attempted to rob an entire bus.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Szuchman’s article comments on Brazil, “The growth of the population meant an increasingly complicated set of decisions for municipal authorities.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Economic growth failed to eradicate poverty, and this was illustrated by the opulence that marked homes and public buildings while a floating population of indigents languished in public areas” (Szuchman, 12).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The “floating population” consisted mostly of children, who ran away from home for various reasons to pursue life on the streets.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bus 174</i>, Sandro grew up a street kid, and developed sense of a new family outside the Candelaria Church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The church provided food, shelter, and basic education to the runaways, but the children were still heavily involved in the drug trade and prostitution.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One morning, the children threw stones at some police cars, and it was noted that one officer replied back saying, “Don’t worry, we will get you soon!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The next night, what is now know as the Candelaria Church massacre occurred at midnight, resulting in the deaths of eight children by gunfire from police officers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sandro was a survivor, and referenced the event frequently during his final hours, and acted as if it was bad karma the police deserved.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>His mentality was set on revenge.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Revenge for his mother and friends who died at the hands of police brutality.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/4519892394579927293-4447342193806738789?l=jeremiahglass.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
