Rio’s police have used helicopters to shoot at targets, even in densely populated residential areas, and video showed shots being fired from the favela at the aircraft.

At the site of the raid, reporters saw residents carrying about 10 bodies as bystanders shouted: “We want peace!” Residents said those who attempted to help the injured risked arrest.

“It’s a massacre inside, which police are calling an operation,” one woman told Associated Press, speaking on the condition of anonymity because she feared reprisals from authorities. “They’re not letting us help (victims),” she added, saying she saw one man arrested for attempting to do so.

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A Rio’s police force spokesman said some of the criminals wore uniforms to disguise themselves as police officers.

“I would rather they (the suspects) had not reacted and then we could have arrested 15, 14 of them. But unfortunately they chose to fire at our policemen,” said Ronaldo Oliveira, an investigator of Rio’s police.

Rio state Governor Claudio Castro said on Twitter he lamented the police officer’s death.

“I will continue to fight crime with all my strength. We will not back down from the mission of guaranteeing peace and security to the people of our state,” Castro said.

But many disagree with the government’s strategy for tackling violence and organised crime, an approach that regularly sees deadly police operations. A raid in Rio’s Vila Cruzeiro favela in May killed more than 20 people.

Thursday’s operation was aimed at locating and arresting criminal leaders, some from other states, police said in an early statement.

“ENOUGH of this genocidal policy, governor!” Taliria Petrone, a federal lawmaker for Rio, said in response to the governor’s tweet. “This failed public security policy leaves residents and police on the ground, en masse. It’s no longer possible to keep piling up Black bodies and favela residents every day!”

Alemao is a complex of 13 favelas in northern Rio, home to about 70,000 people. Nearly three-quarters of them are Afro-Brazilians, according to a July 2020 study published by the Brazilian Institute of Social and Economical Analyses.

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Earlier this year, Brazil’s Supreme Court established a series of conditions for police to conduct raids in Rio’s favelas as a means to reduce police killings and violations of human rights. The court ordered that lethal force be used only in situations in which all other means have been exhausted and when necessary to protect life.

The ruling came in response to a raid on the Jacarezinho favela in 2021 that resulted in 28 people being killed. As was the case Thursday, an officer died during that raid, which some speculated at the time was the cause for subsequent abuse and summary executions.

Thursday’s operation began before dawn and finished around 4pm local time, police said. Nearly 400 police officers were involved, including Rio’s tactical police unit, backed up by four helicopters and 10 bullet-proofed vehicles, according to the police statement.

In a video shared by Voz da Comunidade, a community news outlet focused on Rio’s favelas, residents can be seen calling for peace and waving white cloths from their windows and rooftops.

Fabricio Oliveira, one of the coordinators of the police raid, said authorities fear that Friday could be another violent day at the Complexo do Alemao.

“Our experience has told us that after raids like these police are attacked in every way,” Oliveira said.