Did anyone see a certain documentary on BBC4 (UK)the other night? It was called Bus 174 (or something like that) and was in the 'Storyville' series.

A young Brazilian boy, Sandro, witnessed his mother being murdered and ran away to become one of the 'street children' of Rio de Janeiro. He fell into a life of petty crime and substance abuse. In the early 90s he and other street children were living in a square outside a church. One night some armed policemen turned up and killed several of the children. Completely traumatised by now Sandro continued on his downward spiral including spending time in horrific Brazilian jails. He appears to have made several attempts to build some sort of life for himself but kept drifting back to the streets.
In 2000 he attempted to rob some bus passengers at gun-point. The bus was soon surrounded by police and the media with TV cameras - a lengthy siege began. The police wanted to shoot him (and had several opportunities to do so) but were blocked by the authorities who didn't want prime-time TV viewers to witness someone getting their brains blown out. The hostages on the bus (all women) soon realised that Sandro had no stomach for killing anyone but was trapped and terrified about what the police might do to him and the prospect of going back to jail.
Eventually Sandro got off the bus with one of his hostages (a young girl). A policemen stepped forward and attempted to shoot him in the head - he missed and shot the girl instead! Sandro then shot the girl as well. The police grabbed Sandro, threw him into the back of a police van, piled on top of him and smothered him to death ...

There was obviously evil at work here but as one of the hostages (an extremely wise and perceptive young woman who appears to have kept a very cool head throughout all of the seige)told him' "you're the real victim here, Sandro").

I can't help thinking that Sandro, given his appalling life experiences, was not really equipped to fully distinguish between good and evil choices. The (Brazilian) system - which was embarrassed by his very existence was always lurking in the background just waiting for him to make the wrong choice. On the other hand the Police, who made some dreadful choices, got away scot-free - isn't it always the way?