Corpses line street, protests erupt after Rio’s deadliest police raid kills 119

A massive police raid on a drug gang embedded in low-income neighbourhoods of Rio de Janeiro that left at least 119 people dead drew protests for excessive force on Wednesday and calls for the Rio’s governor to resign. Dozens of favela residents gathered in front of the state’s government headquarters shouting “assassins!” and waving Brazilian flags stained with red paint, a day after Rio’s deadliest raid and hours after families and residents laid dozens of dead bodies on a street in one of the targeted communities to show the magnitude of the operation. Questions quickly arose about the death count and the state of the bodies, with reports of disfigurement and knife wounds. Brazil’s Supreme Court, prosecutors and lawmakers asked Castro to provide detailed information about the operation. “This was a massacre,” said Barbara Barbosa, a domestic worker from the Penha complex of favelas, one of the two huge communities targeted in the police operation. She said her son was killed in a prior operation in Penha. “Do we have a death sentence? Stop killing us,” said activist Rute Sales, 56. The toll of 115 suspects and four policemen killed was an increase over what authorities originally said were 60 suspects dead in Tuesday’s raid by about 2,500 police and soldiers in the favelas of Penha and Complexo de Alemao. Felipe Curi, Rio state police secretary, told a news conference that bodies of additional suspects were found in a wooded area where he said they had worn camouflage while battling with security forces. He said local residents had removed clothing and equipment from the bodies, in what would be investigated as evidence tampering. “These individuals were in the woods, equipped with camouflage clothing, vests and weapons. Now many of them appeared wearing underwear or shorts, with no equipment, as if they had come through a portal and changed clothes,” Curi said. Earlier Wednesday, in the neighbourhood of Penha, residents had surrounded many of the bodies - collected in trucks and displayed in a main square - and shouted “massacre” and “justice” before forensic authorities arrived to retrieve the remains. The tally of suspects arrested stood at 113 - up from 81 cited previously, Curi said. The state government said some 90 rifles and more than a tonne of drugs were seized. Police and soldiers had launched the raid in helicopters, armoured vehicles and on foot, targeting the Red Command gang. They drew gunfire and other retaliation from gang members, sparking scenes of chaos across the city on Tuesday. Schools in the affected areas closed, a local university cancelled classes, and roads were blocked with buses used as barricades. Many shops remained closed Wednesday morning in Penha, where local activist Raull Santiago said he was part of a team that found about 15 bodies before dawn. “We saw executed people: shot in the back, shots to the head, stab wounds, people tied up. This level of brutality, the hatred that is spread - there’s no other way to describe it except as a massacre,” Santiago said. Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes ordered Castro to provide information about the police operation and scheduled a hearing with the state governor and the heads of the military and civil police next Monday in Rio. The Senate’s commission for human rights said it was asking for clarifications from the Rio state government. Meanwhile, Rio prosecutors requested that Castro provide detailed information about the operation and proof that there was no less harmful means of achieving its objectives. And the federal public prosecutor’s office asked the Forensic Medical Institute to ensure that autopsy reports contain full descriptions and photographic and radiographic documentation of all injuries. Castro said on Tuesday that Rio was at war against “narco-terrorism”, a term that echoed the Trump administration in its campaign against drug smuggling in Latin America. On Wednesday, Castro called the operation a “success”, apart from the deaths of the four police officers. Rio’s state government said that the suspects who had been killed had resisted police. Rio has been the scene of lethal police raids for decades. In March 2005, some 29 people were killed in Rio’s Baixada Fluminense region, while in May 2021, 28 were killed in the Jacarezinho favela. But the scale and lethality of Tuesday’s operation were unprecedented. Non-governmental organisations and the UN human rights body quickly raised concerns over the high number of reported fatalities and called for investigations. The operation’s stated objectives were capturing leaders and limiting the territorial expansion of the Red Command gang, which has increased its control over favelas in recent years. Gang members allegedly targeted police with at least one drone. Rio de Janeiro’s state government shared a video on X of what appeared to show a drone firing a projectile from the sky. Governor Castro, from the conservative opposition Liberal Party, said on Tuesday that Rio was “alone in this war”. He said the federal government should be providing more support to combat crime - in a swipe at the administration of leftist President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. His comments were challenged by the Justice Ministry, which said it had responded to requests from Rio’s state government to deploy national forces in the state, renewing their presence 11 times. Justice Minister Ricardo Lewandowski said it was clearly an extremely bloody and violent operation. “We should reflect on whether this kind of action is compatible with the Democratic Rule of Law that governs us all,” he told journalists on Wednesday.

Corpses line street, protests erupt after Rio’s deadliest police raid kills 119

.css-1c6uqr6{color:inherit;font-weight:inherit;font-size:inherit;font-family:inherit;line-height:inherit;overflow-wrap:break-word;}Huge police operation against drug gangs in Brazilian city sparks global alarm as officials launch inquiry into the unprecedented operation

Huge police operation against drug gangs in Brazilian city sparks global alarm as officials launch inquiry into the unprecedented operation