Glenn Greenwald held at gunpoint and tied up at own house, house ransacked

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On March 5, I was at a farm that we have been renting during the pandemic that is roughly 90 minutes from our home in Rio de Janeiro. It is isolated and beautiful. I’ve begun my day for the last five months by feeding the chickens, rabbits, ducks, swans and peacocks that are there: a perfect way to connect to farming life. My husband and our two children had spent the week in Rio because the kids had school entrance exams that required a faster internet connection than is available at the farm. Because March 5 was the day before my birthday, they had all planned to come to the farm that day, but decided at the last second that they would come early the next morning instead.

So that night I was alone there with one off-duty police officer who works with our family to provide security. At roughly 9:30 p.m. that night, I was speaking with a friend on the telephone when I noticed that our dogs — twelve of whom were at the farm, with the rest at home — were barking incessantly and intensely for a sustained period of time, which is unusual. I ended the call to see why they were so agitated and walked out of the house toward the gate where I heard them.

Within seconds, three men wearing full black face masks descended on me, all pointing guns at me. They told me to walk toward a small stand-alone room near the house and began pushing me to go faster. Soon as I entered, I saw that two other armed men had detained the security guard, the off-duty cop, and had him laying face-down on the floor as they stood over him with guns pointed at his head. My first thought — given a series of particularly disturbing threats we had been receiving, some of which I published — was whether this was a targeted political attack. I was relieved, to the extent one can be in such a situation, when they began demanding money. Because most of what we have has remained in our home, I did not have much of value there: a couple hundred dollars, some kitchen appliances, and clothes for ourselves and our kids. They did not believe that, which drove them to a considerable amount of anger.

They ended up staying for an hour, though it seemed like much longer. Driven by the belief that I was hiding valuables — refusing to believe my assurances that I would not do that with five men pointing guns at me — they attempted various forms of psychological terror. They repeatedly threatened to shoot the police officer in the head, repeatedly kicked him so hard that they cracked several of his ribs, ordered me to open my mouth and stuck a gun in it as they demanded to know where the rest of the money was, smashed my phone and tablet against a wall when they could not figure out how to erase the hard-drive, and just generally tried to create a climate of extreme fear. Most of the hour was spent with them ransacking every part of the farm, including our kids’ rooms.

Once they were finally done, they demanded the keys to the car we had there. They then ordered both of us to go to a separate small house near the back of the farm. They put us in a room, used cords to tie our arms behind our backs and bound our legs together, then locked the door. Once we heard the car leave, we worked on freeing ourselves, which took roughly fifteen minutes, and then used the computer they had idiotically left to call my husband and the other police officers who work with us at the farm. By sheer coincidence, the electricity in the area was shut off roughly ten minutes after they left, leaving us in the pitch dark as we waited. Within thirty minutes, multiple officers arrived.

It was clear to me almost from the start that these were not professional criminals. They were more nervous, agitated, desperate and disorganized than brutally or cooly efficient. That night, after leaving, they foolishly committed at least three other armed invasions of stores in the area using the car they stole from us: a car registered in the name of my husband, a member of Congress. As a result, they ended up filmed by several security cameras. The police found the abandoned car the next day, and their investigation quickly uncovered the identity of the thieves. Between the five of them, they stole, at least from us, no more than two thousand dollars worth of value: a small amount of cash, a microwave, kitchen appliances and even food such as large packs of rice and beans. The most valuable item they took was the police officer’s gun.

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