Police Response

[Note: The following description is by no means complete. That is on purpose because I still only understand about 60% of what was said. My own stress, and that of those around me made it very difficult to understand Portuguese last night. It also may include some hyperbole and understatement.]

Most of the time living in Brazil has become such a "normal" thing to me that I don't really think about it. Last night, however, was a glaring reminder that I live in an entirely different part of planet Earth.

There is a bar next door to our house. They play loud music. At all hours. No. I mean really loud music. It has at times, started at noon, and gone past two. Yesterday it started at about 10 o'clock AM, and we had no respite from it most of the day.

The heat here has a big effect on the architecture, more stuff takes place outside. Also, windows are there for two reasons, security and to keep the rain out. The majority of the time they are open. A great many bars are outside, including this one. Let's make this in to a mathematical formula*:

Heat + Bar {Success of said bar ≈ amount of noise created by said bar.} = Noise outside

Tempers stew. Words exchanged. We have another formula:

Heat + Temper + Time + Bar Next Door + Words = Brewing Storm

If we take the results of the previous two formulas and put them together, we have:

Noise outside + Brewing Storm = Need For Police

Here is where a major diversion form how the formulas would work in most developed countries. The formula would look like this where I grew up:

Need For Police + Call 911 = (Police Sent + Firemen Sent + Ambulance Sent) Total Response Time ≤ 5 Minutes

After arriving on the scene, the police would determine what needed to be done. Reports written... etc. Here is what the formula looks like here in Teresina Piauí, Brazil:

Need For Police + Call (x and/or y and/or y and/or z) = "Police are on the way." + (14 intense minutes + Call (x and/or y and/or y and/or z) again + 21 more intense minutes + Police car drives by twice)

[Where x, y, and z = different police departments]

And here is the finger of accusation: The police here (which are plentiful) do not seem to work very hard. I am sure that some are open to bribes, too, though I don't know that for a fact. When a situation of the gravity of last night's encounter is not responded to for over half an hour there is a problem—no, a number of problems.

The general consensus here (from what I have heard) is that the police would rather clean up a mess after the storm has passed by, than intervene. What is the point? It is my understanding that death threats were traded last night (Second-hand, I did not understand much of what happened last night.), this would surely result in some action by the police at "home"(though I am not sure what).

I have heard locals accuse police of not going into areas where criminals are "because it's to dangerous!" I guess they lacked foresight while choosing a career.

Why am I coming down so hard on this issue? Because I love these people. I want to see the situation improve. Nobody was hurt last night. While words were exchanged, the situation was resolved eventually. However, there was a time when I felt that it was going to end in a scuffle at the very least.

So, to sum up our mathematical equation from earlier, here is pretty much what happened yesterday:

Heat + Bar {Success of said bar ≈ amount of noise created by said bar.} + Temper + Time + Bar Next Door + Words = Need For Police + Call (x and/or y and/or y and/or z) = "Police are on the way." + (14 intense minutes + Call (x and/or y and/or y and/or z) again + 21 more intense minutes + Police car drives by twice)

[Where x, y, and z = different police departments]

*I am not any good at math, so just ignore any mistakes I make, and try to get the general idea. Thanks.

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