And the first crime is....

I have been perpetually wondering what my first experience of Rio crime would be. The months kept ticking by with no crime yet. I knew it would happen soon or later, and kept wondering what it would be, because there's much more variety here than in the US. Choices include:

- Bus assault/burning - band of thieves surrounds & boards a bus, robs all passengers
- Blitz - police pull you over, in theory to check id's, but have to bribed to let you go
- False blitz - "police" pull you over but then they turn out to be thieves & they take everything
- Arrastao - thieves' highway roadblock; they force you out of the car, take all your stuff & take your car
- Assalto - armed robbery, often when you are in a car (sometimes they kill you afterwards. Two women were killed yesterday this way.)
- Sequestro - simple kidnapping
- Sequestro-relampago - "lightning kidnapping" - kidnap you, make you go to the ATM & withdraw all your money. (In one terrible recent case, a couple, their five-year-old boy, and an adult friend were all taken prisoner in a sequestro-relampago, after which they were tied up in their car, doused with gasoline and set on fire. The friend managed to wrench herself free and pull the little boy out too. The couple died. The boy died the next day. The friend survived long enough to identify the thieves, and then died a week later.)

moving on,
- Furto - Simple theft. Usually purse-snatching / pickpocketing.
- Tiroteio - gunfight between traficante gangs, or between traficantes and militias or police
- Bala perdida - shot by a stray bullet

I thought the most likely for me were arrastao, assalto, tiroteio, or a simple furto. I already had a close call with an arrastao, and I'm almost certain that one of my taxi drivers zoomed me past a false blitz one night. Arrastoes, the highway roadblocks, have become so common that if an unexpected traffic jam occurs, the drivers in the traffic jam just assume it's an arrastao - a roadblock up ahead, with gangs of 10 or 20 armed hoods surrounding the cars, demanding all the passengers' belongings, and then taking the cars too. So, whenever a suspicious-looking traffic jam starts happening, drivers slam on the brakes, leap out of their cars and run away, trying to at least salvage their lives & their wallets. It's contagious - once one person runs away from their car, everybody assumes the worst and dozens of people abandon their cars all at once. Then, of course, there are all the abandoned cars sitting on the highway, so the highway has to be closed for a few hours to clear the cars off.

The Linha Vermelha, one of the biggest highways here, is closed by arrastoes (real ones) about three times a week. Today, the police were testing some new security forces on the Linha Vermelha, but while all the police were on the Linha Vermelha, the thieves simply set up the usual arrastao on a different highway instead.

Assaltos of single cars are extremely common too, especially, again, in traffic jams, during road floodings, or when the cars are stopped at red lights. Drivers here get the jitters if they have to stop for any reason - they feel like a sitting duck, vulnerable to any passing thief. For this reason, cars in Brazil's major cities are allowed to run red lights after dark.

I'm especially worried every time I catch a ride in my friend's VW Golf. The Rio bandidos love to steal Golfs because Golfs have four doors, and are reliable & fast. I thought maybe VW could use it as an advertising campaign: "Want to start a gang of thieves? Why settle for a gang with just 2 thieves when you can have 4? Try a VW Golf! Four doors, and you'll leave the policia in the dust!" Every single time I've ridden in that car, somebody pipes up, "Well, here we are in the Golf! Did you know that thieves love Golfs? Because they have four doors, and are fast, you know. Hey, did you lock your door?"

But it was just simple robbery in the end, a furto. Tonight while I was watching the Imperio Serrano bateria at the Sambodromo. A guy ripped my bag open and grabbed my wallet, boom, gone. Not a big deal, and it's something that happens in every city in the US too, not even a Rio specialty. It mostly seemed a pity just because it happened at Imperio Serrano, which is such a cool escola - and it had been such a happy, friendly crowd, too. The Sambodromo is tourist central and I'm always careful there; but I was a little surprised because I was inside the security fence, parading with Imperio, and it's usually safe inside the fence. For those who know the area: it happened just at the very end of the parade route, where people are milling around returning the official t-shirts, just when the bateria came off the parade route and the crowd got really jammed. The huge back gate of the Sambodromo was open, and security had gotten lax. It was raining, crowded, everybody was delirious with the samba. Perfect for thieves.

Luckily my usual Rio precautions saved me some trouble. I didn't have my real passport (just a copy), only one bank card, had no jewelry or watches, nothing I really cared about. I was holding tight on to my camera and my sound recorder, and so they didn't get either of those. I only lost some money, and my ATM card, and my keys. But all told, with the lost cash, and the 3 fraudulent charges they racked up on the ATM card in the hour it took me to get home and call my bank, and the cost of changing my locks... well, I've lost enough money that now I can't afford to go to the choro camp that I'd just signed up for.

Oh well....I'll survive. I was feeling a little overloaded anyway since I'm also trying to go to a samba-reggae camp! Two week-long music camps in the five weeks before Carnaval, along with two blocos and two escolas here in Rio running me ragged, was probably a silly plan. Maybe this is the universe's way of telling me "Stay in Rio and play with Bangalafumenga." It seems a pity to miss the choro camp, though - because Celso Silva is teaching there! (the grand old lion of choro pandeiro.) well, maybe in 2009.

Next item on my agenda: How to get through the weekend with just my pile of 10-centavo coins.