EXECUTIONS

35In terms of the gender of the victims, as with media-reportedhomicides in general, males greatly outnumber females, constituting97.39% of the total, as compared with just 2.35%. However, whencompared with totals for media-reported homicides, one finds that whilewomen constitute 10.34% of the victims in all cases, they comprise just2.35% in homicides attributed by the media to police and death squads,suggesting that women are four time less likely to fall victim of anextrajudicial, summary or arbitrary execution than they are to be killed inother circumstances.Table 04:Distribution of Victims of Media-Reported HomicidesAttributed to Police and Death Squads, by Sex, 1999Victims by sexMaleFemaleNo informationTOTALSource: MNDH DatabaseFrequency1,1182731,148%97.39%2.35%0.26%100.00%The data on the race (color, in Brazilian terms) of the victims ofmedia-reported homicides attributed to police and death squads allow forsome interesting conclusions. First, one is struck by the extremely highpercentage83.18%for which information on race/color is not reported.While high, this figure is significantly lower than the figure for all mediareportedhomicides (89.10%).Second, while the percentage of persons considered "non-white"for all cases of media-reported homicides is 7.77%, in cases of killingsattributed to police and death squads, this figure nearly doubles, reaching14.29% of the total. By contrast, persons identified as white comprise3.13% of the victims of all media-reported homicides and just 2.53% inthe case of police and death squad killings. These data suggest that whilenon-whites constitute the majority of victims of homicides in general, inkillings with indicia of extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary execution,darker-skinned Brazilians are even more likely to be targeted and killed.