Look to the end of this avenue. what you are seeing is the Candelaria Church, infamous for a horrible episode that happened there. In the early hours of July 23, 1993, six children and two youths were murdered by military police in a massacre that shocked the country and the world. The group of police arrived in plainclothes in a civilian car and a taxi with covered plates. They shot at dozens of homeless people, mostly children, who were sleeping around the Candelária Church.
TV Globo made extensive coverage with television reports on the day. “On [the television news program] Jornal Nacional on the 26th, the reporter showed that Rio de Janeiro still cries for the death of murdered children. On Praça da Candelária, candles and cards were left on improvised monuments of mourning. Activists from all over the world arrived in Rio to protest the crime. One of whom, an American and member of an organization in defense of black rights, compared the violence of the Brazilian police to that of Los Angeles police. European TV broadcasters and print media continued to cover the Candelária massacre. In London, correspondent Silio Boccanera informs that the reports cite the crime as another chapter in the routine tragedies of the great Brazilian cities: the slaughter of children and the indifference of the authorities,” summarizes the site from the memory of the broadcaster.
The investigation led to the condemnation of three police officers. “Two decades later, key figure in a series of murders, soldier Marcus Vinícius Emmanuel Borges, 46-years old, is on the run. The other two officers had their sentences overturned and are also free,” says the report by the journal O Globo in 2013, twenty years after the crime. Marcus Vinícius Emmanuel was condemned to 300-years prison, but served only 18 years. Six other suspects were cleared, despite proof of their involvement in the massacre.