Eduardo Leite announces new commanders of the RS security forces

The governor of Rio Grande do Sul Eduardo Leite (PSDB) announced this Wednesday (25) the commanders of the state security force for his new management. There will be two exchanges and two maintenance. Fire Brigade and Civil Police will have new leaders and, in the Military Brigade and the General Institute of Expertise, there are no exchanges.

The new head of the Civil Police will be Fernando Antônio Sodré, PC delegate since 1998. Current Regional Police Delegate in Santo Angelo, he was Director of the Interior Police Department between 2016 and 2019, which is the institution’s largest department, responsible for coordinating 29th police regions in the interior of the State, with 470 municipalities in its administrative and operational district. Sodré takes the post previously occupied by delegate Fábio Motta Lopes.

Who will head the Fire Department is Colonel Eduardo Estevam, 47 years old, born in Porto Alegre. He is currently colonel director of teaching at the institution and has been a public servant since 1996. He holds a degree in Civil Engineering from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (Ufrgs), a master’s and doctorate in the area from the same university and a doctorate in Fire Safety Engineering from the Faculty of Science and Technology at the University of Coimbra. Estevam will replace Colonel Luiz Carlos Neves Soares Junior.

Leite decided to keep two other commands. The State Military Brigade will remain under the management of Colonel Cláudio Feoli. Graduated in legal and social sciences at Pucrs, he has been commander general of BM since February 2022. The General Institute of Forensics will continue under the general direction of Marguet Ines Hoffmann Mittmann, who has held the position since Heloísa Helena’s retirement in last November.

“The State’s mission is to guarantee coexistence conditions for millions of people in the same territory. Here are those who exercise that police power and guarantee the observance of the norms of coexistence established in our society”, said Leite.

The new headquarters is located in the North Zone of Porto Alegre, close to the Farrapos Train Station. Leite took the opportunity to visit the facilities. “For me it is also an opportunity to visit this new space, which also has new equipment, with investments that the state government has been able to make from the Advance in Technology program, system reinforcements, which provide a better condition of operation for the SSP”, said the governor.

The secretary of Public Security of Rio Grande do Sul, Sandro Caron, traveled last night to Brasília to meet with the Minister of Justice, Flávio Dino (PSB), the national secretary of public security Carlos Renato Machado Paim and the security secretaries of the other states. The main agenda will be on actions to combat organized crime and violence in partnership with the federal administration.

“The issue of combating organized crime, which generates the majority of homicides, is not just a reality in Rio Grande do Sul. It is a reality in Brazil. A permanent repression of the entire security system is necessary”, stated Caron during the announcement of the new commanders of the State security forces.

The secretary from Rio Grande do Sul must bring Dino a demand for the expansion of the partnership between the states and the Union to combat criminal factions. “We are going to seek greater interaction with federal agencies. Today, it is very common for a criminal group from one state to act in others and even outside the country. We cannot look at it as a regional phenomenon”, he said.

The new commander of the Civil Police of the State, delegate Fernando Antônio Sodré, said that “the confrontation with the criminal factions has been ugly by the CP in terms of structure, whether in the State or in the Capital, but there is a permanent problem because the factions are always renewing, adding people. We work on strategies such as increasing the number of police stations for the repression of organized crime in the interior of the State, which is one of the priorities”.