Dozens of PSP agents have been advised to leave the service after becoming ‘contaminated’ by heavy metals following time spent in two mobile shooting ranges.
The ranges have since been shut down – but the police involved have all been told they will lose their rights to a lifetime police pension if they do indeed leave (or have already left) the service.
This is “extremely unfair”, says Mário Andrade, president of the syndicate of professional police.
“We are not talking of the flu here. These are men have levels of heavy metals in their organisms as a result of their professional activity.”
The controversy began five years ago when a shooting instructor fainted at work and was taken to hospital with “compromised blood pressure”, writes tabloid Correio da Manhã.
Tests showed that he had “very much above the average” in levels of heavy metals in his system.
Within a month the man had been discharged from his place of work by the PSP’s national board.
“At the same time other police who either worked or instructed in these units decided to undergo tests”, said the paper.
The men “paid with their own salaries”, and the results were all similar: “high levels of lead, mercury and chromium”.
Doctors advised the men to quit their jobs, and “now the Social Security Institute has told them that they cannot claim for a professional illness”.
Says Andrade, the men have been told they can appeal “and they can rely on backing from the syndicate” to do so.
