[Texto originalmente publicado na revista Domingo em novembro de 2014, recuperado no dia da morte de ‘Siga’]
‘WITHIga, the king of Pasteleira, has spent his entire life behind bars. At 30, he has already spent more than 12 years in prison. “Almost twenty,” corrects the young man, who recently returned to the area where he grew up, in Porto, following his release. To his imprisonment, he adds the years spent in reintegration institutions, and says that he has never been a free man.
And not today, in a neighborhood where your eyes get confused when you cross paths with your neighbors on your street. There is fear and admiration. Anger and horror.
“I wish I had a life. A job, a family, everything was different,” says the boy, who says he wants to be called Bruno but who goes by the name “Follow the King” on Facebook. “Siga,” whose name comes from his escapes from police – “siga,” “siga,” shouted residents who defended the little boy who loved to steal cars – is now free.
“For a short time?” we ask “Siga”, who shrugs. He talks about being hounded by the police and says he is not afraid. “Siga”, or Bruno, has been caught seven times since serving his second term for robberies. Always for driving a car or a motorcycle without a license.
“But always by the same policeman,” he explains to us, assuring us that he is the preferred target of the agents of the Fosa police station. He even talks about settling scores and past debts that were never paid. He says that he was recently the target of an attempted murder: “The police came to me, he was willing to put me at risk. I almost died.”
IN THE HOUSE OF ‘SIGI’
Pastelyra’s apartment is missing glass. The house is clean, but sit down The air is heavy with the sorrows of times past. “Siga” shares the space with his father, the same one who abandoned him to his first orphanage at the age of 11.
“They gave me a stolen radio outside the school. I showed it to my father and he called the police. He accused me of being a thief.”
“Siga” assures “Domingo” that he is innocent. He knew nothing about the robberies, it was just the taste for cars that changed his life. “When they told my father in court that I would be hospitalized, he panicked. When he called the police, he didn’t even imagine that this would happen later.”
Today, Bruno says things could have been different. He says he loves his father, but the tension between them is hidden. Bruno doesn’t forgive him for the first hospitalization and, going back even further, he doesn’t forgive him for taking him away from his grandparents’ home when he was four or five. “It could have been anyone. I have cousins who even got a college degree. I stayed here,” he laments.
In a windowless house in the Pasteilleira district, chaos quickly ensues. Bruno’s father is clearly drunk, and his accusations confuse the past with the present. The oldest complains that he is the only breadwinner in the house; the youngest shrugs and asks, “When I started stealing, who sold the things I brought home?”
This father’s greatest guilt was his hospitalization. It was there, Bruno says, that he unfortunately found his passport. “Prison was a much more peaceful place. At least there were rules and respect. It wasn’t in the reception centers that I learned to steal and take drugs. I became a criminal,” continues the young man, who seems not ashamed to speak his mind. feats.”
“I stole a patrol car when I was 11 because it was handy. I was a kid, I don’t know what came into my head. The cop left the keys, I went for a walk. I’ve never done that. It’s provocative.” The patrol car was followed by a bus. And hundreds of cars of all makes and models. The targets were chosen in all parts of the country near the schools where the state had accepted them. “I would run away in the car. And bring it, if I had gas, to Pasteleira. Or take another one if I ran out of gas.”
Bruno was arrested when he was just 16. “I did it a month ago,” he explains, saying it “made no sense.” “My good friend who still hung out with me was never arrested. He stopped committing crimes at 16.”
Bruno insists that he had no other goals. Or prospects: “Most of my school friends were arrested. This is our path, our destiny.”
At the age of 15, in an interview with a daily newspaper, when the fame of the “King of Pasteleira” made him an invincible teenager, “Siga” said that he had a dream of hijacking a plane. Today he explains it: “I wanted to fly a plane and crash it into a police station. To end the government. To kill and die,” he concludes.
Author: Tanya Laranjo
Source: CM Jornal
I’m Sandra Hansen, a news website Author and Reporter for 24 News Reporters. I have over 7 years of experience in the journalism field, with an extensive background in politics and political science. My passion is to tell stories that are important to people around the globe and to engage readers with compelling content.