Echoes of a bloody, multi-hour shooting in a favela in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil lasted until Friday: Authorities said the police operation successfully killed two dozen criminals, and residents and activists denounced human rights abuses.
Shortly after dawn Thursday, dozens of Rio de Janeiro state civil police officers stormed Jacarezinho, a working-class favela in the northern part of the city. They were looking for drug traffickers from one of the most well-known criminal organizations in the country, Comando Vermelho, and the bodies piled up quickly.
Shooting in Brazil leaves 25 dead
When the fighting stopped, there were 25 dead, including one agent and 24 people whom the authorities described as “criminals.” Rio’s nickname “Wonderful City” can often seem like a cruel irony in the favelas given their extreme poverty, violent crime and subjection to drug traffickers or militias.
Yet even here, Thursday’s clashes were a glaring anomaly that analysts called one of the deadliest police operations in the city’s history. The Associated Press.
Deadliest police operation in history
The bloody operation also exposed Brazil’s eternal division over whether, as a local popular saying goes, “a good criminal is a dead criminal.” A fervent sense of law and order fueled the successful 2018 presidential campaign of Jair Bolsonaro, a former army captain living in the city.
Bolsonaro had the support of a large part of society with his calls to reduce legal obstacles so that agents can use lethal force against criminals. The executive of the governor of Rio, Cláudio Castro, an ally of Bolsonaro, said in an emailed statement that he regretted the deaths, but that the operation was “guided by a long and detailed investigation and intelligence work that took months.”
Police intend to stop youth recruitment
The raid tried to stop the gangs’ recruitment of teenagers, the police explained in a previous statement that cited Comando Vermelho’s “combat structure with soldiers equipped with rifles, grenades, bulletproof vests”.
Television footage showed a police helicopter flying low over the favela as men armed with large-caliber rifles leapt from roof to roof to flee authorities. Others could not escape.
Strong images evidenced the massacre
A resident told The Associated Press that a man broke into her humble home around 8 a.m., bleeding from a gunshot wound. He hid in his daughter’s room, but the police rushed in right behind him.
She and her family watched officers shoot the unarmed man, she added. Hours later, his blood continued to pool the floor tiles and soaked a blanket decorated with hearts.
Residents demanded justice
Some 50 Jacarezinho residents later emerged into a narrow street to follow members of the state legislature’s human rights commission during an inspection. The residents shouted “Justice!” while clapping and some raised their right fists.
Felipe Curi, a detective with the Rio civil police, denied that any executions had been carried out. “No suspect was killed. They were all traffickers or criminals who tried to take the lives of our agents and there was no other alternative, “he said at a press conference.
Police confiscated weapons of war
According to Curi, some suspects tried to take refuge in neighboring houses and six of them were arrested. Police also confiscated 16 pistols, six rifles, a machine gun, 12 grenades and a shotgun, he added.
Carlos Bolsonaro, son of the president and who is a very active city councilor on social media, backed the police. He expressed his condolences to the family of the deceased agent via Twitter and avoided mentioning the other 24 fatalities or their relatives. Jair Bolsonaro did not refer to the incident in his weekly Thursday live on Facebook.
Critical opposition massacre
Bolsonaro’s main political rival, former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, pointed out that any operation that leaves two dozen dead cannot be classified as public security.
“That is the absence of a government that offers education and employment, the cause of a great deal of violence,” said da Silva, who is expected to challenge Bolsonaro’s reelection next year.
“Summary executions of this type are totally unjustifiable”
The Brazilian subsidiaries of the international human rights groups Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International asked the prosecution to fully investigate the operation.
“Although the victims are suspected of criminal association, which has not been proven, summary executions of this type are totally unjustifiable,” said Jurema Werneck, executive director of Amnesty in Brazil. Filed Under: Brazil Shooting.
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