Finally, as the sun set, Rolim made the one-hour drive to the maximum-security prison with a colleague to pick up Melara and Linn. The criminals were waiting: they had been following news updates on the radio and knew that they were on their way. Melara was ecstatic. He had been orchestrating this prison break for two months now and all was going according to plan.

Other prisoners cheered him on. Arriving at Presídio Central, Melara and Linn joined the rioting prisoners in the infirmary. In exchange for complying with their second demand, Rolim was able to negotiate the release of seven female hostages. The state legislator later confessed that he had been terrified that the inmates were going to start raping the women hostages out of frustration — or plain boredom.

The next step was to decide about the third demand: should they give the prisoners getaway cars? The task force opted to comply, but secretly they planned to sabotage the escapees’ plan: the police would fiddle with the mechanics of the cars before handing them over to the prisoners, so that they would not get very far. Also, the cars would be set up with tracking devices. The plan was to let the criminals think that they had escaped, while following them from a distance by helicopter. As soon as the fugitives let the hostages go, the police would close in and catch them.

After several hours, at 9:05 pm, all of the preparations were complete. The cars were placed in front of the prison complex, and the escapees and their hostages moved down the infirmary’s corridor towards the exit. Police officers and task force members watched the scene attentively. Reporters broadcasted every move live on the radio. The prisoners and their captives walked together as a group and wore blankets over their heads, so it was impossible for police snipers to distinguish who was a criminal and who was a hostage. Just outside Presídio Central, some of them entered the vehicles , which then took off in a hurry, one after another. But in a departure from the initial plan, the police proceeded to shoot at the cars and chase right after them. “A police chief gave the order to follow them closely, out of rage,” Rolim explained. “But it was a very bad call — he jeopardized the safety of the hostages and of all citizens of Porto Alegre”, he said.

The warning for “emergency mode” was broadcasted over the radio and TV. After all, there were dangerous criminals on the loose. Families were instructed to lock their doors, drivers parked their cars and store owners closed shop early.

The runaway cars headed in different directions, followed closely by the police. One of the cars went east, but it did not get very far. With a flat tire, the car soon slowed down and stopped in the middle of a dirt road. Instead of giving themselves up, the fugitives decided to shoot at the oncoming police officers from inside the vehicles. The police fired back. In the confusion, two hostages managed to escape, miraculously uninjured. A third hostage remained in the car and was struck by 11 bullets — and also, miraculously, managed to survive. But the three prisoners who were inside the vehicle were killed. Coroners later found a total of 21 gunshots in their bodies.

The second getaway car headed north . After a few kilometers, the inmate behind the wheel, Chardozinho, crashed the vehicle into a lamp post while trying to lose the police pursuing him. After the accident, Chardozinho, apparently unharmed, fled by foot towards a shopping mall. A mall cop noticed his strange behavior and ordered him to lie down on the floor and surrender (this cop has since become a hero in his field). The other two fugitives who were in the vehicle fled towards a nearby woods and were not found by the police until weeks later.

The third and last runaway car broke down not far from Presídio Central. The escapee who was driving, Bicudo, panicked and fled on foot. Ten days later he was shot and killed by the police while trying to rob a bank. The other three fugitives — good friends Melara and Linn, along with Fernandinho — resisted, engaging in crossfire with police officers. Dr. Santos, who had been held hostage inside the vehicle, was hit by a bullet in his back and pushed out of the vehicle. He was left paraplegic. Another bullet hit a police officer who was approaching the vehicle. He died on the spot. The remaining fugitives realized that they needed to get out or they, too, would get shot. So they took over a vehicle belonging to the press — which was following the ordeal closely — and continued their escape through the city with three hostages — two women and a man. They exchanged cars twice until they eventually hopped inside a red cab.

After driving through the hotel lobby, the cab driver opened the vehicle’s door and ran towards the police, his hands in the air, begging the cops not to shoot him. The three fugitives also stepped out of the car but made their way to the back of the lobby, protecting themselves from incoming bullets by using their hostages as shields. The hotel was packed on that weekend. It was hosting a psychiatry conference about depression, with 50 of the most prominent doctors in Brazil in attendance. After a day of intense medical lectures, the doctors were having dinner in the conference room when they heard a noise of shattered glass coming from the lobby. A few seconds later, they watched three armed men enter the conference room. The doctors interrupted their dinners and hid under the tables.

Melara and Fernandinho took no notice of the frightened physicians and hurried up to the bar on the mezzanine level, dragging along two of their hostages, both women. Linn, for his part, backed into a corner of the conference room and improvised a barricade with a few tables. He had lost his male hostage, and, for bargaining purposes, grabbed a couple of doctors as new hostages. It did not take long for the police to storm into the room and slowly work their way towards Linn by crawling on the floor. When they were close enough, they shot him in the face. But Linn was lucky: the bullet only scraped his head. Subsequently, he was escorted out of the hotel by proud officers, like hunters holding a large prey. Two days later, though, his luck ran out: Linn was found in a hospital bed with four gunshots, murdered.

Melara and Fernandinho sat on the mezzanine for another thirteen hours. They took a third person hostage , a female hotel secretary. But they had very little water, food and ammunition. Finally, exhausted and at their breaking point, the fugitives gave themselves up when a judge, who was in charge of the negotiations, said that the Seleção, Brazil’s national soccer team, was about to play for the quarterfinals of the World Cup, and he did not want to miss the game. The criminals agreed to leave the hotel on two conditions: they wanted bulletproof vests to wear on their way out, and they wanted to be taken to the maximum-security prison, where they would be safe ; they were terrified that the guards at Presídio Central would execute them for causing so much trouble. Maybe they were right. Melara lived until 2005, when he was killed after being involved in a power struggle. Fernandinho died of an illness in 2008.

The forty-eight-hour-long prison break, understandably, was the source of great alarm and attention throughout the city. For weeks, it was all the media talked about. Some people criticized the task force, which had agreed to all of the criminals’ demands. Others believed that the authorities had no choice but to give into the criminals’ wishes. “But mostly, everyone was absolutely terrified by the fact that the most dangerous criminals of the area were able to pull this off from inside the prison”, said Rolim.