Revista do núcleo de antropologia urbana da USP 18 | 2016

This dissertation is based on ethnographic observations and interviews conducted between 2016 and 2018, mainly with police officers from the Special Operations Unit (Bope) of Macapá/AP, in the North of Brazil. The work has focused on the understanding these officers have of their training process and to the construction of a "bopean" ethos. Their perceptions regarding the use of force and what they understood as police violence were analyzed, as well as symbols that identify the corporation, such as the black uniform and the skull. One of the main conclusions is that the formation of a "bopean" implies the construction of a collective Body-Weapon that is a result of singular body-weapons and, for most of them, police violence or "excessive force" respond to the broad context of social violence in which they live in.