Word: rios
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Freedom -- of sorts. Freedom from beatings by a drunken father. Freedom from fighting with seven siblings for a crust of bread. Freedom to hope. Cristiano, now 16, fled the abuse and violence of his home at 6. Surely the streets of glamorous, wealthy Rio de Janeiro offered a better life than the wretched slum west of the city where he was born...
...streets Cristiano found only a freedom full of cruelty. During the day he survived by shining shoes and stealing watches or purses. At night on the sidewalks of Cinelandia, the main square in the center of Rio, he huddled close to a band of young friends for protection. Sometimes a rival pack of street kids attacked them, but more often the police came, swinging batons. Cristiano slept on a piece of cardboard near the majestic Municipal Theater and across the street from the National Fine Arts Museum. He was free to steal from others' lives, not free to live...
...street kids) used to be considered no more than pests. But because they are increasingly blamed for the rising crime rate in Brazil's cities, they have now become prey: an average of four a day are killed. The most shocking attack came around midnight two weeks ago in Rio. Five men opened fire on a group of 50 sleeping children, killing three, ages 11, 14 and 17, on the spot. Two more died in the hospital from gunshot wounds to the head. Two other boys were dragged into a car and shot, their bodies dumped a mile away...
Three military policemen were arrested for the shootings as Brazilians sought to address, once again, the escalating cycle of vigilantism. President Itamar Franco said he felt the murders "like a punch in the face," and protesters marched through Rio carrying banners that read STREET KIDS ARE OUR KIDS...
Paniagua received his doctorate in philosophy from Boston University in 1991. He was a lecturer in the subject at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, during the past academic year. He received his undergraduate degree in political science from the University of Puerto Rico at Rio Piedras...