The Brazilian city of Taubate has hired 50 year old military veteran Andre Luiz Pinheiro to dress up as Batman and fight street crime vigilante style throughout the city.
Residents, local business owners and police are hoping that the Caped Crusader's presence will inspire others to help clean up the neighborhood, and they want him to serve as a beacon of hope for the children in the area.
Local criminals are probably hoping he doesn't hang them from ten story buildings by their feet. No word on whether Taubate has its own version of the Joker, but if they do he is probably the King of Carnaval.
I hope they give Andre bulletproof armor and some heavily armed backup, otherwise the mean streets of Brazil might eat him alive. Then again, Andre might end up single-handedly starting his own Justice League Brazil.
(EDIT: The comment section has the follow up to this article, which clarifies that Andre isn't going to be fighting crime after all, but rather simply talking to kids about crime. The original article source was wrong, if you want to read the real story hit one of the two links below. )
Link
I suggest everybody interested in knowing the real story (before their friends!)also read this article:
"Update: Brazilian Batman Won't Patrol for Crime After All" by Mark Newman.
http://www.comicbookmovie.com/news/?a=56141#
:( Then put your complaints at the end and change their minds!
If you'd bothered to check the comments section of this post you would have seen that I already had a correction submitted by ClaudioBravo, which was posted on the eleventh. Please check before leaving future unnecessary comments, thanks!
Yup, the original English-language article at another site had a few oversights taken care of in our CBM.com followup article. But you were one of the first two authors who checked their comment section and then mentioned the followup to your audience; thanks for being the kind of journalist who goes above and beyond for his readers!
(And if you think this post is distracting, we'll understand if you delete it :) !)