Center for Latin American Studies

A chronicle exploring what happened in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, on June 12th, 2000--Valentine's Day in Brazil--when Bus 174 was highjacked by an armed young man, Sandro do Nascimento, with a dozen passengers. Nascimento, a disillusioned slum-dweller, threatened to kill all of the passengers, but eventually agreed to surrender, as TV cameras were rolling and an entire nation was glued to their screens, watching the event take place. Regardless, a police officer then decided to fire at Nascimento anyway, accidentally killing one of the female passengers instead. What followed was a revolt among the city's population, enraged both at the police brutality and their incompetence. The crowd's reactions were comparable with the Rodney King riots. The documentary captures the media and society's responses to the event. As the chronicle intertwines the story of the standoff, it also presents biographical information about Sandro do Nascimento, which includes: his childhood as a survivor of the "Candelaria" child mass murders in the early 1990s; his subsequent adolescence in which he was sent to horrific juvenile delinquency facilities; as well, his trauma sustained from seeing his mother stabbed to death in front of him.