8 January Brasília attacks
Based on Wikipedia: 8 January Brasília attacks
Exactly one week after Brazil's new president took office, a mob stormed the heart of Latin America's largest democracy. They smashed through police barriers, shattered windows, and ransacked the very buildings that house Brazil's three branches of government. It was January 8, 2023, and the echoes of another attack—the one on the United States Capitol almost exactly two years earlier—were impossible to ignore.
But this wasn't a carbon copy. This was something that had been brewing for months, organized in plain sight on social media, and executed with a level of coordination that suggested inside help.
The Stage: Three Powers Square
To understand what happened, you need to understand the geography. Brasília, Brazil's capital since 1960, was designed by architect Oscar Niemeyer and urban planner Lúcio Costa as a modernist monument to democratic governance. At its symbolic center sits the Praça dos Três Poderes—the "Three Powers Square"—where the headquarters of Brazil's executive, legislative, and judicial branches face each other across a vast open plaza.
The Supreme Federal Court. The National Congress Palace with its distinctive twin towers and dome-and-bowl structures. The Planalto Presidential Palace, where presidents work. All three became targets that Sunday afternoon.
How Brazil Got Here
Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain and longtime congressman known for his far-right politics and inflammatory rhetoric, had served as Brazil's president since 2019. In October 2022, he lost his re-election bid to Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva—universally known as Lula—a former union leader and president who had previously governed Brazil from 2003 to 2010.
The election was close. Lula won the runoff with 50.9 percent of the vote to Bolsonaro's 49.1 percent. In a country of over 200 million people, that margin translated to roughly 2 million votes.
Bolsonaro never conceded.
This matters enormously in understanding what followed. While Bolsonaro eventually authorized the transition of power—a legally required administrative step—he refused to acknowledge Lula's victory as legitimate. He skipped the inauguration entirely, flying to Orlando, Florida, in the final days of December, where he remained as his term expired and his successor was sworn in.
His supporters took this as a signal.
The Myth of the Stolen Election
Before the votes were even counted, Bolsonaro and his allies had spent years attacking Brazil's electronic voting system. They claimed, without evidence, that the machines were vulnerable to fraud. They suggested the Superior Electoral Court—the body that oversees elections—couldn't be trusted.
Here's what actually happened: Brazil's military was invited to audit the election. The armed forces conducted their own parallel verification. They found no irregularities. International observers found no irregularities. The election was, by all credible accounts, clean.
None of this mattered to true believers.
Social media platforms became engines of misinformation. Claims about supposed fraud spread across WhatsApp groups, Telegram channels, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok. The platforms did little to moderate these misleading claims, meaning anyone searching for information about the election would encounter them alongside—or instead of—accurate reporting.
The myth of the stolen election took root. And myths, once planted, can grow into something dangerous.
The Camps
When Bolsonaro lost, his supporters didn't go home. Instead, starting in early November 2022, they began gathering outside military installations across Brazil—in São Paulo, Rio de Janeiro, Brasília, Florianópolis, Recife, Salvador, and elsewhere.
What were they doing there? Waiting. Hoping. Demanding.
They wanted the military to intervene.
This requires some explanation. Article 142 of Brazil's constitution describes the armed forces' role in defending the country and maintaining law and order. Bolsonaro supporters had developed a creative—and legally incorrect—interpretation of this article, claiming it gave the military authority to intervene if one branch of government threatened another. In practice, what they wanted was a coup d'état. They just preferred not to call it that.
In Brasília specifically, a tent city sprang up directly in front of the Army Headquarters. Protesters camped there for weeks, hanging banners, giving speeches, and pleading with soldiers to overthrow the incoming government. The military, to its credit, did not oblige.
But the camp remained. And it grew.
Warning Signs Ignored
Intelligence services saw what was coming. In the first week of January 2023, audio messages leaked from WhatsApp and Telegram groups revealed explicit plans for a "massive protest" in Brasília. The messages discussed provoking violence, overwhelming police, and potentially triggering military intervention.
Protesters used code phrases to discuss their plans without triggering automated content moderation. A march on Brasília became "Selma's Party"—an innocuous-sounding phrase that wouldn't raise algorithmic red flags.
Buses were being organized from across Brazil. More than one hundred would eventually arrive, along with countless private vehicles, funded by donors that government officials later linked to the agribusiness sector.
And yet.
Just two days before the attack, something strange happened in Brasília's security apparatus. On January 2, the newly reelected governor of the Federal District, Ibaneis Rocha, appointed Anderson Torres as his chief security officer. Torres had previously served as Bolsonaro's justice minister.
Torres immediately restructured the district's intelligence and special operations teams. The people he removed had been monitoring the protest camps. They had experience in crisis management and counterterrorism.
Then, on the night of January 6—two days before the attack—Torres flew to Orlando, Florida. The same city where Bolsonaro was staying.
The Red Berets
Among the protesters gathered in Brasília was a group that Brazilian intelligence had been tracking with particular concern. They called themselves—or were called by others—"the red berets," a reference to the distinctive headgear worn by military paratroopers.
Most of them were current or former members of paratrooper units. Intelligence assessments described them as "highly extremist, violent and anti-democratic," possessing the "capability, ways and motivation to gravely compromise the democratic state of law."
The group was decentralized, with no clear leadership, operating more like a network than a hierarchy. This made them harder to monitor and disrupt. They were reportedly paid for specific "services": mapping the layout of government buildings, identifying key infrastructure like fire hydrants, and—most alarmingly—delivering explosive devices.
In late December, police had prevented a bombing at Brasília's international airport. The suspect, when interrogated, said he was motivated by Bolsonaro's claims about election integrity. He was connected to this same network.
The red berets had been scouting the Congress building, the Supreme Court, and energy infrastructure around the capital. Intelligence reports suggested they were capable of terrorist attacks or political assassinations, possibly targeting Lula himself or Alexandre de Moraes, a Supreme Court justice who had become a particular focus of far-right anger for his aggressive prosecution of misinformation and anti-democratic activities.
The Morning Of
By the morning of January 8, the camp in front of Army Headquarters had swelled from around 500 people to over 4,000. The buses had arrived overnight.
Brazil's defense minister, José Múcio, visited the camp that morning and reportedly described the situation as "calm, for now." Governor Rocha sent a message to the justice minister claiming there was "no immediate threat" to federal buildings.
By noon, the Institutional Security Bureau was requesting reinforcements at the Presidential Palace.
At 11:30, military police met with protest organizers to negotiate the terms of their march. The protesters allegedly agreed not to enter the Three Powers Square itself. The police, already worried about potential violence, would escort the march and try to prevent escalation.
Around 1:00 in the afternoon, the crowd began moving.
Breach
The march covered approximately 3 kilometers from the Army Headquarters to the Three Powers Square. As they walked, military police accompanied them—one officer later said they would "guarantee the security of the marchers."
Tensions were already visible. Some protesters were detained near the Ministry of Defense building for vandalism. Police discovered that some of those detained were armed.
A driver whose car was caught near the march was attacked by demonstrators with sticks and stones after he allegedly made comments mocking them. Police intervened.
Witnesses heard protesters explicitly threatening to invade government buildings. They shouted threats against officials, politicians, and police.
By early afternoon, around 100 protesters had reached the Three Powers Square.
Then, at approximately 2:00 in the afternoon, everything broke.
A mob—some wearing masks and protective gear, some armed with sticks, stones, slingshots, and sharp objects—charged a military police barrier near the Cathedral of Brasília. About 30 officers, including members of the Special Operations Battalion, tried to hold the line. They were vastly outnumbered.
They used pepper spray, batons, and tasers. It wasn't enough.
The barrier fell. A second barrier, 200 meters from the Congress building, fell minutes later. Police began deploying tear gas and stun grenades—standard riot control measures in Brazil—but the crowd kept coming.
Officers inside the Congress building called for reinforcements.
They wouldn't arrive for hours.
Inside the Buildings
What followed was methodical destruction.
Rioters broke windows and doors to enter the Congress building. They ransacked offices, destroyed artwork, and posed for photographs in the legislative chambers. Some urinated on the floor. Others stole items as souvenirs.
At the Supreme Court, they slashed paintings, including a portrait of a former chief justice. They destroyed furniture, scattered documents, and smashed everything breakable they could find.
The Presidential Palace suffered similar treatment. Rioters found their way into ceremonial rooms and official offices, photographing themselves in spaces normally reserved for heads of state and foreign dignitaries.
Throughout it all, rioters documented their own crimes. They live-streamed on social media. They posed for selfies. They seemed to believe—or wanted to believe—that they were making history, that the military would see this display and finally intervene on their behalf.
The military did not intervene. Not in the way they hoped.
Where Were the Principals?
Neither president was in Brasília during the attack.
Lula was in Araraquara, a city in the interior of São Paulo state, surveying damage from recent heavy rains. He was accompanied by several ministers and the local mayor.
Bolsonaro was still in Orlando.
The symbolism was striking. Brazil's capital was being sacked, and both the outgoing and incoming presidents were hundreds or thousands of miles away. Critics would later question whether this was coincidence or design—whether the timing and location were chosen precisely because key figures would be absent.
Five Hours
It took more than five hours to clear the buildings.
At 6:00 in the evening, Lula announced he had signed a decree authorizing a federal state of emergency in the Federal District. The emergency measures would remain in effect through the end of January.
By 9:00 that night—seven hours after the first barriers fell—the last rioters had been removed from government buildings.
Hundreds were arrested. Many more would be identified in the days and weeks that followed, tracked down through the social media posts they had so helpfully made during their rampage.
The Question of Complicity
In the aftermath, uncomfortable questions emerged about how this had been allowed to happen.
The plan to protect the government buildings had called for more than 1,300 officers from the Civil and Military Police, plus about 200 officers from the National Public Security Force. The actual number deployed was far lower.
Governor Rocha blamed Anderson Torres, his security chief—the same Torres who had flown to Florida the night before the attack.
Justice Minister Flávio Dino said Torres had rejected offers of federal reinforcements and refused to implement the agreed-upon security plan.
Reports emerged that the military command at the Presidential Palace had also declined additional security.
Why?
Even more troubling: Governor Rocha had agreed to close the esplanade leading to the Three Powers Square. Then, shortly before the protest began, he reversed that decision and opened it to the crowd.
The security contingent was "easily overwhelmed" as a result—a phrase from official accounts that seems almost designed to obscure the question of whether this was incompetence or something else.
The Aftermath
Congress, though not in session during the attack, reconvened quickly and ratified Lula's emergency declaration by January 10.
Investigations fanned out in multiple directions. Prosecutors sought to identify not just the rioters but those who had funded and organized them. The buses that transported thousands of supporters to Brasília hadn't paid for themselves. Anonymous government sources told reporters the money came from donors in at least ten states, many connected to agribusiness—a sector that had strongly supported Bolsonaro.
Governor Rocha was temporarily removed from office. Anderson Torres was eventually arrested—in Florida, where he had remained after his pre-attack departure.
Several organizers and inciters were identified and charged. People like Symon Albino, known online as "Patriot Symon," who had posted videos on Telegram urging followers to "not let communism take power" and to "take power by force." Like Ana Priscila Azevedo, who live-streamed herself during the attack and was later arrested. Like Diego Dias Ventura, suspected of helping fund the buses.
The leader of the red berets, a former Army reservist named Marcelo Soares Correa—nicknamed Cabo Correa—was not found. He had run for federal deputy in 2022 and had previously been detained in 2016 for invading the National Congress during an earlier protest demanding military intervention. During the march on January 8, he was reportedly heard saying that "pacifism has ended."
Echoes and Differences
The comparison to January 6, 2021, in the United States is obvious and was widely noted at the time. Both involved supporters of a defeated leader refusing to accept election results. Both involved violent mobs attacking centers of democratic government. Both were preceded by sustained campaigns of election denial and misinformation.
But there were differences too.
The Brazilian attack was, in some ways, more successful as pure destruction. Three buildings were invaded and ransacked, not one. The rampage lasted longer. The damage to irreplaceable cultural artifacts—paintings, sculptures, historical furniture—was extensive.
Yet it was also less successful in its underlying goal. The U.S. Capitol attack interrupted the certification of electoral votes, at least temporarily. The Brazilian attack occurred a week after Lula had already been inaugurated. There was no certification to stop, no transfer of power to prevent. The rioters were attacking symbols, but the substance had already changed hands.
Perhaps most significantly, the aftermath unfolded differently. Brazil moved quickly and aggressively to arrest participants, identify organizers, and investigate potential high-level complicity. Thousands of rioters were detained. Bolsonaro himself faced multiple criminal investigations and was eventually barred from running for office until 2030.
The Brazilian response suggested a democracy determined to defend itself—perhaps precisely because its experience with authoritarian rule, under a military dictatorship from 1964 to 1985, remained within living memory.
What It Meant
January 8, 2023, demonstrated something troubling about the state of democratic politics in the twenty-first century. The playbook that had been pioneered in the United States—election denial, alternative facts, mobilization of grievance through social media, and ultimately political violence—had proven exportable.
It showed that the infrastructure of democratic institutions, even in a country that had consciously designed its capital as a monument to those institutions, could be physically vulnerable to determined mobs.
It revealed the danger of leaders who refuse to accept electoral defeat, not just as a norm violation but as a material threat. Bolsonaro never told his supporters to attack the government. He didn't have to. His years of delegitimizing elections, his refusal to concede, his flight to Florida while his supporters camped outside army headquarters—all of this communicated permission without explicit instruction.
And it demonstrated, perhaps, that democracies can survive such attacks. The buildings were repaired. The government continued functioning. The emergency measures were lifted. Life went on.
But the people who stood in Three Powers Square that day, who smashed windows and posed for photographs and waited for a military intervention that never came—they hadn't disappeared. Their grievances, however unfounded, hadn't been resolved. Their information ecosystem, which had fed them lies about stolen elections, remained intact.
January 8 was an ending. It was also, potentially, a beginning. What comes next depends on questions that Brazil—and democracies everywhere—are still trying to answer.