<br /><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">The 2002 documentary <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Bus 174</i> follows the 2000 incident in which </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Sandro do Nascimento takes a bus full of passengers hostage. The youth, armed with a gun, forcefully attempts to assert his control over the situation by making demands and publicly threatening the passengers. After trying to leave the bus, a botched police attempt to shoot him causes the death of one of the hostages. He is later killed in police custody after the ordeal. The documentary follows the conditions surrounding Sandro’s life, his violent past and his living conditions growing up. Through this, the moral ambiguity of Sandro’s predicament is brought to the forefront. With desperation brought on by a life of poverty and the threat of returning to an inhumane Rio prison, Sandro is pushed to kidnap the passengers. Despite the circumstances, most of his terrorizing is an act to force his way out his situation. Our readings this week show that Sandro’s predicament rings true with other areas of Latin America where crime serves as a last resort for the impoverished of the Latin American population.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Post-WWII Latin America saw a tremendous amount of growth thanks to high levels of commodity exports and state-backed import substitution programs (Szuchman 22). This growth saw an influx of population to urban areas, unfortunately more than the cities were able to able to hold on both a structural and administrative level. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Lack of access to steady work led and little regulation or enforcement led to extremely high crime levels. As Szuchman notes, many police units had given up in the highly concentrated areas such as Mexico and Brazil (Szuchman 25).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Interviewees in the documentary had no trust for the police force in Rio, also noting their lack of proper training and the fact that being a regular policeman was a last-resort job in itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sandro grew up in the result of these conditions. His mother was brutally murdered in front of him with no resolution to the crime and, in addition, many of his childhood friends were killed by authorities. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After this and spending time in an overcrowded, inhumane Rio prison, Sandro saw giving himself over to the law as no option at all.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-family: Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font: major-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-hansi-theme-font: major-latin;">Alberto Sacedo Ramos’s <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Drive-By Victim</i> reads similarly with Sandro’s predicament, highlighting how the poor of Latin America commit crimes of necessity, though without additional damage or bloodshed if it were possible. Ramos describes an evening in which he is robbed in a taxi and three men beat and rob him. While expecting death due to the threats of his kidnappers, the men insist themselves to be thieves as opposed to murderers and threaten the safety of their victim for the purpose of ensuring cooperation and their own safety (Ramos 136). In truth, the entire robbery is to accumulate a ransom for one of their own. Sandro’s victims are much like Ramos in this respect. Sandro, caught on Bus 174 surrounded by public and the police he despises is forced to take hostages. He controls them blindfolded and at gunpoint much like the thieves of <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Drive-By<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">, </b></i>but even when pushed to the point where he fires on his hostages, he sets it up as an act, threatening the hostages to do as he says, but they are generally assured that as long as they cooperate, they will be unharmed. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br /></div><div class="blogger-post-footer"><img width='1' height='1' src='https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/tracker/6330293596542621957-8459109014250417296?l=sboatman.blogspot.com' alt='' /></div>
