Last Tuesday (07) the second hearing took place in the case of Alexandre Ivo, 14, who was the fatal victim of a homophobic crime in June this year. The crime gained national repercussion due to its brutality and Alexandre's young age.
The crime occurred after a fight involving the young man's friends. A friend of Alexandre and also attacked by the group of suspects, Jacy, 19, is one of the witnesses in the case. Another friend of Ale's who agreed to talk to the reporter is Suelen, 15. In addition to the two, there was a group of young people aged between 15 and 20, with whom the student lived.
Jacy declared that she had known Alexandre for 3 years. With a rainbow bracelet on her right wrist, Suelen, Alexandre's friend since 2006, says that they used to go to the mall every week and that she found out about the crime on the internet. "I fell hard, I was in shock! It was six sleepless nights. We were very good friends, we were together all the time", she laments.
The group's meeting point was Praça do Zé Garoto, in São Gonçalo (RJ). “Ale and I used to meet every day to catch up,” says Jacy. "The strangest thing is that whenever I go there I have the impression that Ale will appear at any moment. But he won't, right?"
Suelen remembers the moments when Ale would disappear and then return agitated. "There were times when Ale would disappear, sometimes because he was grounded, and on another occasion he went to live with his father. Then out of nowhere he would appear, when I saw him he would come running, we hugged and He kissed... I bit his ass... What an ass he had", recalls Suelen, laughing.
Life after tragedy
Jacy and Suelen say that after the murder they started thinking about what happened. Jacy denies what was reported by the mainstream press that Alexandre had broken up the fight. "Ale was scared to death of fights and confusion, during the fight he stayed inside the house. He was very scared by what happened", recalls Jacy.
Regarding the suspects, they guarantee that they are the culprits. “When the evidence and images started to emerge, we started to put the pieces together and everything fell into place,” says Jacy. Eric Boa Hora Bedruim, Alan Siqueira Freitas and André Luiz Cruz Souza, all 23 years old, are released.
Asked about changes in their lives after the murder, Jacy and Suelen say that today they can no longer stay calmly on the streets. “We are afraid,” says Suelen. "We avoid it, before we stayed out until dawn on the street, now we don't. We are hostage to impunity", denounces Jacy.
In the middle of the conversation, Carol, 20, appears, who reports having already been threatened by one of the suspects. "Alan is involved with skinheads, he's my neighbor. It's not enough for them to die," she says angrily. "I hope that they are arrested and that in prison they become 'little women' to see what is good", she adds.
Friends also say that on the day of Alexandre's funeral, the suspects walked around the cemetery. "They were around the funeral and on top of that they were mocking", says Suelen, who believes that if the suspects go to the public jury "they will definitely be arrested". “The city is revolted,” he believes. Carol also says that the day after the crime, the three young suspects were walking down the street "laughing, as if nothing had happened."
Outraged, Suelen says that the suspects were "very cruel" to Alexandre. "They destroyed Ale's baby face and left him agonizing at the scene", recalls the friend. With a more melancholic air, Suelen recounts some moments when she lived with Alexandre and reveals that the two went to raves together. "Two weeks ago, I went to a rave for the first time without Ale's company. Wow, it was very difficult, when the songs he liked started playing, it was inevitable, I got emotional and started crying."
