Seu Jorge: Police analyze footage from the club’s security cameras

The Civil Police of Rio Grande do Sul is analyzing the images from the security cameras of Grêmio Náutico União, in Porto Alegre, where singer Seu Jorge, 52, performed last Friday (14). At the time, the singer was harassed and suffered racist attacks from the audience.

According to delegate Andrea Mattos, head of the Police Station for Combating Intolerance (DPCI), the recordings were delivered on Wednesday (19) and part of the material should be sent to the forensics to improve the sound quality. The goal is to identify racist slurs.

This Thursday (20), she will hear from the president of the club, Paulo José Kolberg Bing. The deposition is scheduled for 2:30 pm. Some people who were present at the show have already been heard. The police have asked witnesses who witnessed the acts to manifest themselves at the police station or by WhatsApp (51) 98595-5034.

Grêmio Náutico União, in an official note, said it would investigate the case and “if the practice of a racist act is proven, those involved will be held accountable”. The text also says that it respects Seu Jorge and that it repudiates racism.

THE CASE

Witnesses reported on social media that the demonstrations began shortly before the end of Seu Jorge’s show at the traditional gaucho club. They would have started when the singer called to the stage a teenage musician, black, cavaquinho player.

Seu Jorge then made a brief speech against lowering the age of criminal responsibility, in which he mentioned the death of young black people in the favelas. Soon after leaving the stage, “the avalanche of boos began, with the screams of a tramp, a bastard, and the expected myth, myth, myth”, described one of the people present at the show. Monkey imitations were also heard.

On Monday (17), the singer spoke for the first time about the episode. He shared a nine-minute video on Instagram, with the flag of Rio Grande do Sul in the background, explaining what happened and that he did not recognize the city he learned to love. “Actually what I witnessed was a lot of gratuitous hate and a lot of racist rudeness.”

Seu Jorge said that he is even more united in the fight against racism, misery, lack of opportunities in Brazil that affect blacks. “We will be in the fight together denouncing and fighting all types of typification of our people and responding with excellence, preparation, courage, wisdom and diplomacy. We will never, ever bow to racism and intolerance whatever it may be.”