Death in rope jump: understand the MP's complaint and what happens now

The MPSP (Public Ministry of São Paulo) charged four people with the death of a 21-year-old girl during a rope jump in Limeira, in the interior of São Paulo.

The complaint was filed after the conclusion of the investigations and it will now be up to the Judiciary to decide whether or not to receive the accusation. If the complaint is accepted, those investigated will become defendants and criminal action will begin.

The accusation involves three men accused of qualified homicide with possible intent and a woman accused of the same crime due to improper omission, in addition to the crime of procedural fraud.

What the complaint says
According to the Public Prosecutor's Office, the victim died after being thrown from the so-called Skeleton Bridge without the safety rope being connected to the chest. The fall, approximately 30 meters, caused fatal multiple trauma.

The agency maintains that those responsible for executing the jump were aware of the risks inherent to the activity, but failed to carry out basic safety procedures, such as checking the rope connection and double checking equipment.

In the prosecutors' assessment, this conduct characterizes eventual intent, a hypothesis in which the agent does not directly desire the result, but assumes the risk of producing it.

The complaint states that the organizers commercially exploited the activity without adequate risk management, without clearly defining the team's roles and prioritizing economic interests and the publicity of the jumps to the detriment of the participants' safety.

Why there are qualifications
In addition to possible intent, the Prosecutor's Office attributed to the three men the qualifications of a bad motive and an appeal that made it impossible to defend the victim.

In legal terms, the qualification of bad motive is applied when the crime is committed for a reason considered morally reprehensible. The qualifier of the resource that made the victim's defense impossible refers to situations in which the form of execution prevents or significantly reduces any possibility of the victim's reaction.

If the Judiciary receives the complaint, it will be up to the criminal process to verify whether there is sufficient evidence to support these qualifying circumstances, which, in the event of a conviction, may increase the legal seriousness of the crime.

What does improper omission mean
In relation to the event organizer, the complaint adopts a different legal thesis.

The Public Prosecutor's Office maintains that she occupied the position of guarantor of the participants' safety and, therefore, had a legal duty to prevent the result. According to the accusation, even after becoming aware of a similar operational failure that had occurred previously, it did not interrupt the activity or guarantee the adoption of minimum safety standards.

For this reason, she was charged with homicide in the form of improper omission, a case in which liability arises from the lack of action on the part of those who had a legal duty to act.

Accusation of procedural fraud
The organizer is also responsible, according to the complaint, for procedural fraud.

The MP states that, after the accident, she ordered that the GoPro camera used by the victim be located and that the content stored on it be erased, with the aim of making it difficult to ascertain the facts. According to the indictment, the equipment remains missing.

Irregularities highlighted
The complaint also cites alleged irregularities in the commercial exploitation of the rope jumping activity.

According to the Public Prosecutor's Office, those responsible acted without registration in the Register of Tourist Service Providers (Cadastur), without civil liability insurance and without requiring participants to sign documents on risk awareness, requirements set out in the General Tourism Law and in a decree that regulates the activity.

For the Prosecutor's Office, this context reinforces the absence of a formal risk management structure.

What happens now
After filing the complaint, the first step is analysis by the judge responsible for the case. Nessa fase, o magistrado verifica se estão presentes os requisitos legais para o prosseguimento da ação penal.

Se entender que há justa causa, a denúncia será recebida e os acusados passarão formalmente à condição de réus. They will then be summoned to present a response to the accusation, beginning the investigation phase of the process, with the production of evidence, interviews with witnesses and interrogations.

Encerrada a fase de instrução, o juiz decidirá se os acusados devem ou não ser submetidos a julgamento pelo Tribunal do Júri. If you understand that there is sufficient evidence of authorship and proof of the materiality of the crime, you can pronounce them, referring the case to the popular jury, responsible for judging intentional crimes against life. In the trial session, the jurors will decide whether to acquit or convict the defendants, with the presiding judge being responsible for setting the penalty in case of conviction.

If it is concluded that the complaint does not meet the requirements set out in the Code of Criminal Procedure or that there is no just cause for the criminal action, the judge may reject it, closing the process at this stage, without prejudice to the legal possibilities for appeal or new filing of the complaint, when applicable.

Da decisão ainda poderão ser interpostos os recursos previstos na legislação.

Arrests and requests from the Public Prosecutor's Office
In the complaint itself, the Public Prosecutor's Office requested the maintenance of preventive detentions of the three men accused of murder and the conversion of the organizer's temporary detention into preventive detention. It also requested that, in the event of conviction, a minimum value of R$200,000 be set to repair the damage caused to the victim's family.

Paralelamente, a Justiça revogou as prisões temporárias de dois outros investigados que haviam sido presos durante a investigação. The decision accepted the statement from the Civil Police and the Public Prosecutor's Office that there was not enough evidence for the indictment and that the temporary arrest had lost its investigative purpose, determining the issuance of the respective release permits.

A CNN Brasil tenta contato com a defesa dos suspeitos. The space remains open.

"Filmou a própria morte", diz testemunha de acidente com 'rope jump' em SP

Source: CNN