And who protects us from the Police?

Bernardo Topa is 28 years old, a flight attendant at TAP, and loves planes, Sporting, and celebrating with friends. Last Saturday, May 18, 2025, he dressed in green and went to Saldanha to live a dream: winning the championship for the second time. Minutes later, that dream turned into a starless night, in permanent darkness. A rubber bullet fired by a PSP officer gouged out one of his eyes.

No, Bernardo was not a vandal. He did not break windows. He did not throw torches. He did not shout at the police. He did what thousands of Portuguese people were doing that night: he celebrated. He had the right to be there. He had the right to see. And it was stolen from him.

Bernardo's blindness is tragic. But even more tragic is the institutional blindness of a State that continues to allow this to happen. Because this bullet was not fired by mistake. It was fired by a system that legitimizes abuse, that normalizes violence and that resorts to lies as an immediate reflex.

First they said it had been fireworks. Then, when faced with the shrapnel removed during surgery at the Hospital de São José, they admitted that it might have been a “one-off intervention”. One-off. As if the loss of an eye were a setback, a comma in a well-written paragraph. As if the mutilation were part of a protocol. As if Bernardo’s suffering were acceptable in the name of a supposed public order.

It's not. It can't be.

This is the most dangerous blindness. That of a police force that does not see citizens, only masses. That does not distinguish between those who celebrate and those who provoke. That shoots at everyone. That of a hierarchical structure that, when faced with the wounded, responds with bureaucratic coldness and the usual promise of “investigations”. How many more, gentlemen? How many eyes, how many punctured lumbars, how many crushed dreams will it take for people to realise that this is not normal? That this is not Portugal. Or, worse, that perhaps it is.

It wasn't just Bernardo. Ricardo Santos also lost an eye in 2021. Another young man was hit in the back. Another in the lower back. More beatings. More videos of gratuitous aggression. More versions contradicted by the images. And always the same narrative: fans as a threat. As if football released demons. As if wearing green was a subversive act.

There is a culture of dehumanization that has become ingrained in the security forces. A latent prejudice that sees crowds as cattle to be controlled, not as citizens to be protected. And when abuse is legitimized with statements that speak of serenity while there is blood on the ground, then we are no longer faced with just an operational problem. We are faced with a moral failure.

The question arises: who protects us from those who should protect us?

The response is slow. The reform is slow. The apologies are not forthcoming. Justice is not forthcoming. The State pretends. The PSP reacts with plasticized language. The politicians hide behind complicit silences. And Bernardo, this one, is relearning to live with half his vision. With a mutilated body. With a wounded spirit.

It is urgent to review protocols. To provide better training. To ban weapons that are not lethal but that kill from within. It is urgent to remove aggressors from the uniform. It is urgent to hold leaders accountable. It is urgent to create a new culture, where the police do not fear fans, but understand them. Where there are no bullets fired in the middle of celebrations. Where a young man like Bernardo can return home with tears in his eyes – but with happiness.

On Saturday, it wasn't like that. On Saturday, Portugal became poorer. On Saturday, Sporting's victory was tarnished. And not by their fans. But by a cowardly decision, and by a greater blindness: that of those who refuse to see that lives are being destroyed by the arrogance of those who should serve.

Bernardo Topa will no longer see our club's goals with both eyes. But we, who can still see, have no right to look away.

Because true blindness is institutional. And that is what must be fought.