Rock star prods Rio's residents to stand up to the violence

Rock stars are often angry young men and Tico Santa Cruz is no exception. But the tattooed lead singer of the hit Brazilian band Detonautas has plenty to be angry about.

His hometown of Rio de Janeiro is a city under siege, with more than 6,000 homicides each year. Drug factions fight for control of the shantytowns that dot the city. Stray bullets from their firefights strike down two innocent people every three days.

What ticks off Mr. Santa Cruz the most is that so few people seem to care. So he now channels his frustration into rousing Brazilians from their apathy with highly visible, creative forms of protest. Of course, he's not the first celebrity to use his star power for a good cause. But he is one of the first to galvanize victims' families to confront Brazil's growing scourge of violence.

"There are no popular protests here, nothing starts from the ground up. It's like everyone is waiting for someone to guide them," says Santa Cruz. "I don't see myself as a leader but as an organizer, someone who can bring together people behind an idea. Lots of people have a common purpose but just don't know how to get there, and I help them focus on that."

Few people would argue that violence is the one fear that unites residents of Rio de Janeiro today. Carjackings, muggings, home invasions, and now stray bullets have changed the city irrevocably over the last few years. Seventeen people died each day from homicides last year, according to government figures.

Rousing an apathetic public

But Cariocas, as the citizens of the self-proclaimed Marvelous City are known, have been strangely placid. Perhaps believing the notoriously corrupt police force is beyond redemption and conscious that political pressure is largely ineffective, there have been few protests.

But now, as the number of barbaric acts of violence rises, angry citizens are finding new ways to demand justice and more often than not, Santa Cruz is involved.

Last month, in front of the Rio State Assembly, he had people dress as ghosts to symbolize phantom justice, policing and legislation.

In another, he organized bodies to lie out as if dead in front of the city's court building. And before that, he lent his support to an nongovernmental organization that planted 1,300 roses on Copacabana beach, one for each person killed in the state this year.

Tall, with arms covered in tattoos and small hoops through a pierced lip and eyebrow, the 29-something rocker is a physically striking man. He has a faint yet evident charisma and speaks with a steely integrity that makes him an effective communicator, especially when engaging the young fans of his band, one that is popular enough in Brazil to have opened shows for the Red Hot Chili Peppers.

The son of an engineer who lost everything and saw his family evicted from their home when he was 15, Santa Cruz has firsthand experience of life's reverses. He was already trying to rouse Rio's notoriously depoliticized youth when his band mate Rodrigo Netto was shot dead in an attempted carjacking last June.

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