How our Olympics dream became a living hell
Kiwi journalist Laura McQuillan tells of the horror week in which her boyfriend was kidnapped by Rio’s feared military police, forcing the pair to flee for their lives.
SATURDAY
‘‘I’m getting scammed by some f---ing cops so I’m in a bit of…’’, said a three-second WhatsApp voice message from my partner, Jason Lee, before it cut out.
‘‘... for them, from the ATM, so I won’t be...’’, came the next.
‘‘... the cops are in front of me and I’m following them to an ATM’’, the third said.
This is how our lives in Rio fell apart a week ago, in a series of events so strange that we can’t quite believe what’s happened.
Last Saturday, Jay rented a car to drive to a jiu jitsu competition a few hours north of Rio de Janeiro. He was gutted after losing his first fight, which knocked him out of the tournament. But I’m pretty sure he’s forgotten all about that now.
He’d told me he should be home by 5.30pm. It was our friend Aaron’s birthday party that afternoon, and I didn’t want us to be too late.
If you’ve paid any attention to the news since then, you’ll already know what happened next: Jay was pulled over by police on two motorbikes, and told he’d have to pay them R$2000 – about NZ$850 – or be arrested for driving without his passport (which we now know is not a real law).
The choice was pretty simple: Rio de Janeiro’s police are as infamous for their brutality as they are for their corruption. In Jay’s mind, if he gave them cash, he’d get out of there shaken, but unharmed.
He was escorted to a police base, made to leave his car, get in a police officer’s personal car, and was driven to two ATMs to get out the cash, before being dropped back at the police station and sent on his way with a warning that he could never tell anyone.
He kept his wits about him throughout the saga, sending me a dropped pin on a map from their base, and messaging me one of the motorbikes’ number plates.
I don’t know what the correct protocol is for a girlfriend whose boyfriend has been kidnapped by armed cops in a foreign country where few people speak English. So I did what a journalist would do.
After Jay’s first messages came through, I made a frantic call to the New Zealand Embassy to ask what to do, but the line cut out. I tried getting into Jay’s iCloud account to track his movements, but couldn’t get through his two-step verification. So I waited at home, shaking with worry. Jay turned up hours later, scared out of his mind.
Jay was really reluctant to make a police complaint entirely because of the reputation police have in Brazil. In hindsight, we’re 50/50 on whether that would have been the better option. On the one hand, we wouldn’t have been forced to flee the country. But on the other, laying a complaint was the right thing to do.
As with many aspects of our relationship, I nagged Jay until he agreed to do it. He was swung by the suggestion that a proper investigation might save someone else the same experience, or even save a life.
The Tourist Police – a division of Rio’s Pol´ıcia Civil – somewhat reluctantly took his complaint over the course of three hours that night.
‘‘There are some Military Police officers involved in militias, you know? We’re scared of those police officers as well,’’ one officer warned. (The following day, the El Pais newspaper reported 219 police have been arrested for involvement in the city’s murderous militias since 2008).
Another officer promised there was no way the Pol´ıcia Militar could get our address.
SUNDAY
At 2.30am, with Jay’s police complaint in hand and full of hope of recovering the stolen money, we headed home.
Hours later, we discussed about whether Jay should say anything about it on social media. As the overwhelming response shows, police kidnapping a gringo two weeks before the Olympics is a really big deal.
We were inundated with messages from journalists, and from Brazilians – including dozens who relayed their own eerily similar experiences. The New Zealand ambassador got in touch. A friend called, suggesting Jay change his appearance and his daily routine to avoid the Pol´ıcia Militar.
I promised Jay the story would be the next day’s fish and chip wrapping, but I couldn’t have been more wrong.
MONDAY
Jay was worried to leave the house, and we argued over whether I could go to the supermarket and buy him some chips.
Our intercom rang at 2.30pm. We immediately looked at each other in panic. Jay answered – and there was a Pol´ıcia Militar officer at the other end.
He asked to come up. Jay said he’d come down. I said no one was going anywhere. We locked the doors and closed the curtains.
Jay quickly called the ambassador, who in turn called the Tourist Police. They rushed over to intercept the other officers.
The Pol´ıcia Militar cops wanted a copy of Jay’s police complaint. The Tourist Police refused to give it to them. We’ve been told they were