After a religious ceremony with numerous references and statements against violence, the body of eight-time world jiu-jitsu champion Leandro Lo Pereira do Nascimento, 33, was buried this Monday afternoon.
The fighter was killed in the early hours of this Sunday (7) with a shot to the head. Military Police Lieutenant Henrique Otavio Oliveira, 30, suspected of having fired the shot, was arrested after surrendering on Sunday night.
Lo was shot during a concert by the Pixote group, at the Sírio club, in the south of São Paulo.
Ivã Siqueira Junior, a lawyer for the fighter’s family, said that, according to witnesses, the disagreement started after a man entered Lo’s circle of friends, took a bottle of drink and started shaking it. At the same time, the man would be facing the fighter, as a form of provocation.
Lo would then have knocked the man down and immobilized him. Other people approached and broke up the fight, without any aggression, according to eyewitness accounts to which the family’s lawyer claims to have had access.
The man would then have drawn a gun and, facing the victim, fired a single shot at the fighter’s head, who was hit in the forehead. The shooter would have kicked Lo twice in the head while he was lying on the ground, according to colleagues of the world champion.
The report was unable to speak with the lieutenant’s defense. Domingo, at the police station, a lawyer who presented himself as a defender of the PM, refused to speak to the press and did not give information about the case.
His arrest was maintained after holding a custody hearing on Monday. He is in the Romão Gomes Prison, of the PM, in the north zone.
“Stay together so that situations like this don’t happen in our midst,” Father Luciano Borges told the fighter’s two sisters, in a ceremony before the burial at Morumby Cemetery, west of São Paulo.
Before, the religious had already said that the life of Fátima Lo, mother of the super champion of jiu-jitsu, would not be the same again because of the loss of her son.
“How many times do we observe the same situation, the same violence, which ends up taking the lives of special people, full of the will to live”, said the priest, who also works in the Paraisópolis favela, next to the cemetery.
The priest recalled that Lo would have a trip this week to compete for another championship. “These were dreams interrupted by evil, by violence, and by what ends up destroying life so many times.”
The religious, who repeated the word peace numerous times, said that “whoever kills never wins” and called for applause from the good fighters, referring to the kimono-clad athletes who filled the chapel and the lobby in front. The crowd clapped for 35 seconds.
Just before the religious ceremony, Amanda Lo, 29, one of Leandro’s sisters, even tried to avoid talking about the crime, but said she wanted justice.
“May justice be done because he was brutally [morto]”, he said. “For sure he [o PM] knew my brother and it was out of envy,” she said, adding that the family plans to create Instituto Leandro Lo to develop social actions.
Saulo Gabriel Lo, 22, the champion’s cousin, said he believed the crime was premeditated. “Nobody goes to the club alone to disturb a gang of at least two fighters all night long for nothing,” he said. “He knew Leandro, it’s as if a football player didn’t know Neymar,” he said about the fact that the military policeman allegedly also fights jiu-jitsu.
The fighter Rider Zuchi, 26, who is part of a project to professionalize jiu-jitsu led by Leandro Lo, said that violence, like that of last Sunday’s dawn, represents “the dirt of the world”.
Also during the wake, master Otávio de Almeida Júnior, president of the São Paulo Jiu-Jitsu Federation, classified the shot that killed Leandro Lo as a cowardly attitude.
After a request from the fighters to the family, the coffin with the body was taken open from the chapel to the burial place so that athletes, in two aisles, could bow to the idol.
The body was buried around 4:20 pm with shouts of “it’s champion”. At least six civil police officers, practitioners of the sport, accompanied the entire burial ceremony.
I have worked in the news industry for over 10 years. I have a vast amount of experience in covering health news. I am also an author at News Bulletin 247. I am highly experienced and knowledgeable in this field. I am a hard worker and always deliver quality work. I am a reliable source of information and always provide accurate information.
