STF confirms that the State must compensate victims of stray bullets in police operations

The Federal Supreme Court (STF) confirmed this Thursday (11) that the State may be ordered to compensate victims of stray bullets fired during police operations. The ministers established that the State must be held responsible in the civil sphere.

The Court also determined that the police’s inconclusive investigation into the shooting does not prevent governments from being held responsible. The federative entities must demonstrate, in specific cases, that their agents did not cause the death or injury.

During a virtual plenary trial in March this year, the Supreme Court had already defined the responsibility of municipal, state and federal governments for deaths in clashes between the Military Police or Armed Forces personnel with criminals in urban centers.

However, the ministers chose to discuss the thesis in the face-to-face session this afternoon, informed the Brazil Agency. The case has general repercussion, therefore, the thesis established by the STF should be applied in similar cases that are being processed in the lower courts of the Judiciary.

In the specific case, the Court determined that the Union should be held responsible for the death of a victim from a stray bullet fired during a military operation carried out in Complexo da Maré, in Rio de Janeiro (RJ), in 2015.

Thus, the federal government was held responsible for the Army’s actions, even with an inconclusive investigation into the origin of the shooting. The case’s rapporteur, minister Edson Fachin, ordered the Union to compensate the victim’s family in R$500,000. Furthermore, he established that the government must pay funeral expenses and a lifetime pension. The Court confirmed the rapporteur’s decision.

In the thesis, the ministers established that the “State is responsible, in the civil sphere, for death or injury resulting from public security operations, under the terms of the Administrative Risk Theory”; “it is the burden of proof on the federative entity to demonstrate possible exclusions from civil liability”; and “inconclusive expertise on the origin of fatal shots during police and military operations is not sufficient, in itself, to exclude the State’s civil liability, as it constitutes an evidentiary element.”