Boy's brutal carjacking death symbol of Brazil's unchecked violent crime

Thousands have taken to the streets to demand tougher action against crime after the horrific death Feb. 7 of a 6-year-old boy who was caught in his seatbelt and dragged beside his mother's car for 4 miles through Rio de Janeiro's streets during a botched carjacking.

By the time the car came to a halt, Joao Helio Fernandes Vieites' head, knees and fingers had been torn from his body. His death has become a symbol for Brazil's out-of-control crime problem in a city in which bloodshed is a daily occurrence.

"The sad thing is this death was just another one," said butcher Marcone Duarte, who joined hundreds of mourners Wednesday in downtown Rio de Janeiro during a memorial service. "Tomorrow, it could be my boy. It's too much. Every day, there's a new horror."

The violence has fueled desperation among many Cariocas — as Rio residents are called — that their world-famous city is in serious trouble.

Residents already had been recovering from a wave of violence that had upped the city's grim casualty rate. Experts blame cocaine trafficking and the growing firepower of the city's powerful drug gangs for much of the violence.

Brazil has the world's highest rate of firearms deaths and one of the highest homicide rates. Criminal gangs are in virtual control of large parts of the country. Gang attacks that claimed dozens of lives paralyzed Brazil's biggest state, Sao Paulo, three times last year.

Rio state, which includes the city of Rio de Janeiro and outlying areas, is the country's deadliest, with a homicide rate in 2005 of about 62 for every 100,000 residents. The murder rate in the United States was 5.6 per 100,000 people that year.

"This city was never like this," said Kelli Salaroli, whose friend Dayana Ribeiro disappeared last month and is feared dead. "Joao's death was a landmark. Things have to change. We have to rescue our city."

That sense of desperation is particularly strong as Rio prepares for Carnaval, which begins today.

The event long has been the heart of Brazilian cultural life and a good measure of the national mood, which this year seems nostalgic for less troubled times.

The marchinha, a traditional Carnaval music set to a martial rhythm that was popular from the 1920s to the 1970s, returns to the festivities this year. The number of groups playing the music as well as traditional samba has exploded on the city's streets, and a musical that showcases the marchinha has sold out all its shows.

Sergio Cabral, the father of Rio's governor and a co-author of the musical, said the phenomenon reflected public longing for the city's celebrated past, before drugs and violence took over. The lyrics to one marchinha, "Marvelous Rio," describe a mythical city full of tropical gardens and ever-present music.