Twenty four year-old Brazilian Professional surfer Ricardo dos Santos died on Tuesday after suffering from multiple gunshot wounds. Dos Santos was flown to St. Regis Regional Hospital in Santa Catarina where he underwent four operations to repair a perforated lung and kidney. Sadly, he died after being in the hospital for a day. Richardo was shot after an altercation outside of his house. However, the details are foggy as to what actually went down.

Brazilian outlet O Globe is reporting that Richardo saw two men doing drugs outside of his house and asked them to leave. Witnesses saw a man draw a weapon from the car and shoot Dos Santos three times in the chest and once in the abdomen. Others speculate that the two men were parked on building materials outside of Richardo’s home which was being renovated. Similarly, when asked to leave, the men returned with gun fire.

Two men were taken into custody after the shooting. One, a 25-year-old off-duty police officer, and the second, his 17-year-old younger brother.

Richardo led the fight to clean up his neighborhood and change surfer’s appearance to the public, making this even more of a tragedy. One commenter in Stab made an interesting comment:

This is brasil, one of the most beautiful countries, but unfortunately the only place in the world where a pro surfer known worldwide as ricardo, goes surfing in his homespot and gets shot for no reason by a cop that was armed and drunk on his free time

This killer cop was judged a couple years ago for authority abuse and the judge says he was innocent (detail: all the witnesses were police officers) thousands of cases like this happen everyday in here, btw brasil have more homicide cases in the last 20 years than the vietnam war.

Today we lose this great surfer thanks to a dumb ass government that don’t give a shit about the public security, cause they have more important things to care, like plans for robbing the taxes money. so they give guns to unprepared idiots to ‘protect’ the population. Money rules everything in here, including the value of life

       - matheus martins 

Richard will be missed. Many professional surfers have left their condolences:

Beautiful morning but I was horrified to realize everyone was paddling out to Pipe to form a circle in remembrance of my friend, #RicardoDosSantos, who passed away in hospital after being shot three times yesterday in #Brasil. @ricardosantos90 was truly one of the great barrel riders of his short time (myself and a few others learned that the hard way against him at Teahupo’o a couple years back when he won the #AndyIronsAward in the event). He also won the #WaveOfTheWinter in 2012-2013 for a crazy barrel at #Pipeline and was a regular standout in any barreling or heavy conditions around the world. This was truly a senseless loss of life. It unfortunately brings to light the number of murders yearly in Brasil, officially documented at over 50,000 with many thousands more going unreported. Lack of education, poverty, and drugs don’t make for a good mix and make life challenging in this country, one of the most beautiful and scariest places I’ve been. Condolences to Ricardo’s friends and family around the world. Our small community has lost another way too soon. #RIPRDS #WTF #HardToBelieve

A photo posted by Kelly Slater (@kellyslater) on Jan 20, 2015 at 10:59am PST

So sad to hear the news of Ricardo Dos Santos passing. Prayers and thoughts to his family. I didn’t… http://t.co/MBi6sGbmp2 — Mick Fanning (@Mick_Fanning) January 20, 2015