Before her death, she had suggested on Twitter that the killing of a young man earlier that week had been the latest act of police brutality in the city.

In 2016, she was elected to the City Council, the only black female representative and one of seven women on the 51-seat Council.

“She broke barriers that many black women in the periphery thought were intractable,” said Ilona Szabó, executive director of Igarapé Institute, which studies public safety policies. “She represented hope for so many women who never felt like they had a voice.”